in all my 20+ years of hifi, i haven't seen a tweak as ground-breaking, impactful and life-changing as the torque screwdriver. .

ck had his audio physics speakers fully torque-ed and the whole desirable audio team went to listen tonight. my god, the improvement is nothing short of astounding. a 20% quantum leap in performance from just RM600 investment on the tohnichi torque screwdriver. if this is not ground-breaking, i don't know what is.

in the past, i have made several comments on ck's system which he didn't take seriously. tonight, i hope he understands what i meant.

the best part about audiophile fellowship is the sharing. nothing beats the joy of seeing your fellow audiophile achieved audio enlightenment, and being able to communicate with you. i am a very critical listener and a lot of times, my comments or constructive criticism - if i am generous enough to make them la (as most times, i just keep quiet) - were taken in the negative way.

i hope this gigantic tweak has elevated ck to another league in audiophile ladder (a ladder of endless pursuit of perfection or imperfection!). i hope with this gigantic improvement, ck would be able to share with me on a much much deeper level. like-minded sharing is the ultimate joy of this hobby that we love so much.

i was told that some veteran dealers/audiophiles knew about this tweak long ago but seldom share it with others. at desirable audio, we believe in the generosity in sharing. because as more people attain good sound, there will be more contentment. with more contentment, there will be more fellowship and sharing. with more fellowship, there will be more goodwill and positive upgrades. with more positive upgrades, the hifi economy will improve. it is a win-win-win situation for you, your friend(s) and the dealer.

heartiest congrats to you, ck gnoh.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

really ,It is true,I find thatthe tips offered here aalmost always yield a positive results.

as always I really felt touched by those kind hearted soul.

the [hi-fi] world is a better place because of them

GCK said...

ML, thanks for the kind words. Thanks to you for posting this topic on the blog. After reading it, I was very interested and I knew some dealers selling this, so I took it upon myself to try it. The rest, they say is history.

For those who is interested to buy the driver, get the RTD120CN model as it has more usable range. Although the higher model like RTD260CN and RTD500CN will do as well but at higher price.

The dealer info, Mr Lee of Unichi at TTDI, h/p 0122078866 for those residing in Klang Valley

Anonymous said...

GCK,

Thank you so much for all the tips and info..

Both you and maggielurva makes me proud to be Malaysians

I forwarded the link to some hifi buffs in UK and all of them can,t believe all the tips given for free!!!!

Anonymous said...

ML and GCK and the rest has shown how the world should really be......by sharing.....may the hi-fi god reward them...amen

Anonymous said...

M,

20% improvement from a torque screwdriver is a lot!

CK has made a lot of improvements in his system as per Hafikaki's report.

Are these counted in?

maggielurva 愛美姬 said...

hi km,
i think the box speakers (especially old and used ones) benefit the most from torquing.

the 20% is not an exaggeration, tho' ck might not agree with me. but that's my assessment and it is subject to debate.

the improvement is all-round and you just can pinpoint to just one specific area.

Anonymous said...

All,

Actually torqueing can be applied to all hardware, irrespective if they are planar or box speakers, tube or SS gears etc.

As long as that gear has a screw, irrespective whether it is Philips, Allen etc, you can "torque" it. Torqueing actually started with automobiles, where mechanics actually tighten parts of the car to reduce vibration. This can be applied to audio because minute vibrations affect the sound that you will get.

Gnoh
You have tighten all the screws, not only on yr speakers, but also yr cd player, preamp and pwr amp. You can also do that to the pwr conditioners. But I would suggest that you tighten the external screws rather than the internal ones. The reason for this is because the circuit board may not be able to withstand the tightness. If you tighten the circuit board too much, you may cause it to crack.
After you have tighten all the screws, you will find some of your current tweaks may not be good for your system. Most of the time the bad tweaks actually truncate the highs of the sound you get. So please experiment by removing and then reinserting the tweak. To do this correctly, just listen to cds that you know has great highs like Bill Morrissey track in the Tag Maclaren cd. Or you can try the cd titled A night in San Francisco featuring 3 legendary guitar players. Hear how your system can handle the attack of the guitars. Track 2 and 3 is my fave.

I learn all of this from KC and the highs I get now is great. I could not believe that my ATC is capable of this highs. Not only that the front wall disappeared. Soundstage has more depth.

Have fun.

GCK said...

Hi Ken, thanks for the tips. I will surely take up on it. ML has the Le Mon CD for testing the highs, and you got a few other discs too. That is just great.

Further on the topic of torquing, how much is enough. I did 5.5 kgfcm on the tweets and 5.0 on the mid and woofer. But using the same value on equipment with metal cover is just tool light. I showed ML yesterday when I torque his pre-amp with 5 and 6 kgfcm. So based on gut feeling again, I did 8 kgfcm on the covers. My workplace product (harddisk) is torque to this value somewhat, so I just did the same.

Anonymous said...

Gnoh,

Actually I feel LeMon cd is not the one you should use to check the progress of your system. You should also try the 2 cds that I suggested earlier.
You can also try the Koji Tamaki SACD if you have it. Track 1 and 6 is my fave. For track 1, you can easily hear Koji increasing his vocal range as we near the end of the track. Listen to his whistling in track 6. He stands further back when he starts to whistle and then lost his breath halfway. For both tracks, listen to the emotion that he tries to convey.
You can even try the track 2 and 4 of the Hakka dialect cd (forgot the name and number for this cd) or track 4, 7 and 8 on the tribute to James Wong cd.
On the former, listen to the guitar being plucked. Listen to it's resonances and the emotion that singer is trying to convey. On the second cd, you can listen to separation in soundstage depth between the tympani and the vocalist (track 4), the majesty of drums whack (track 7), and the string and woodiness of the cello and violin (track 8). You can even try to listen to some cds that sounded challenging to yr system before you torque it. Listen to areas where you think yr system has improved.

If you have torque yr system well, you will find a few things happening:
1. the front wall has disappeared and it will have little or no effect on the sound of yr system
2. yr soundstage has gained in depth and wideness
3. yr system has become more detailed (low level details is much more apparent)
4. the pwr amp will become more powerful
5. the coherence would also be much better than before
6. you need to re-tweak yr system

I would suggest that you torque your other hardware as well. Torque all external screws.
I would suggest that you torque at 5.0 to 5.5 for everything. Torque too high will deaden the sound, too low the vibration will affect the sound (akin to not torqueing at all).

Happy listening!

maggielurva 愛美姬 said...

ck and ken,
i didn't say le mon is the ultimate cd to test the before and after results of torquing. as i have said, every area is improved by torquing, as witnessed in ck's system so i guess a variety of cds can also show the improvement.

in my system, le mon cd (the one with black-n-white cover with a girl in bare back) has the best highs and i use it frequently to test the quality of my AC. i could tell just within seconds.

torquing brings only a slight improvement to my system, most obviously in focus and the delicacy of highs (from great to extremely great!). i am not sure why my system is immuned to all these great tweaks....

Anonymous said...

ML,

I also did not state that you mentioned LeMon is the ultimate cd for HF testing.

I feel the cd track to test is Bill Morrisey's track in Tag Maclaren cd. Just listen to the sweep of the brush over the drums, the naturalness of the cymbal sound and also the oevrall soundstage. This is a killer track.
I started to notice this track when I heard it during a hifi show. Asia Sound was demonstrating the JMLab Utopia speaker. That speakers' high is the ultimate in my book and I have yet to hear any speaker that can equal those highs.