This Is Music!

I believe every audiophile has a few stories to tell about events that have left indelible marks in their hifi journey. I remember the first few hifi shows we had in KL (that must be 10-15 years ago), where I had a number of memorable encounters with exotic audiophilia. I'd like to relate two that are at the top of my list.

The first was the Malaysian debut of Wilson Audio's X-1/Grand SLAMM at KL's first hifi show, driven by a full set of Krell electronics. The dynamic freedom it displayed has firmly etched in my mind since.

The second happened with some diminutive speakers in a rather sizeable room in another show. After a few minutes of listening, a thought kept flashing through my mind, "this is music, this is music!". The room was an oasis of calm in the hustle and bustle of a hifi show, and everyone in there was just enjoying the magic of pure music. This system had great hifi attributes too, I remembered particularly one demo track where a ringing bell was moving around the soundstage, tracing a perfectly round circle, front to back, right to left, just behind the loudspeakers' plane. I never heard soundstaging like that before or since. I overheard a man with shoulder-length hair explaining to a visitor that when a system was set up properly, one would hear a round circle from this track, otherwise you would just get an elliptical one (!). Another exhibitor at the show was in the same room, he said that when the going was getting tough outside, he would sneak in here to listen to some 'music'!

The diminutive speakers were a pair of LS3/5a, the room was the "LS3/5a Club" and the man was, of course, JoKi. In every show since, I made a point to visit the LS3/5a room whenever JoKi was exhibiting. It was fair to say that I knew him much earlier than he knew me. :-)

A system centred on LS3/5a created an equally impactful impression as Wilson+Krell, though both were presenting different aspects of the musical truth. I am still amazed about this experience.

JoKi's hallmark was of course always the LS3/5a, I gathered that everything else in his system could change but never the speakers (or I should say speaker model, as he owns 10-20 pairs, displayed in a cabinet in his home). Last Friday night, I got to visit Mr. LS3/5a's lair for the first time.

Honestly, I approach this write-up with some trepidation. I can't help but think that for me to write about JoKi's system is like asking a primary school pupil to write about a Nobel prize winner's life long work. Could I do justice to JoKi's system? You readers be the judge. :-)


This is the bird's eye view of JoKi's system. The room had modest sonic treatment and you can see that the system was very elaborately set up. It had an eclectic mix of the modern and the classic.

If you go through the system with a fine tooth comb with JoKi (such as why certain thing was used, why it was positioned that way etc.), I think you can write a book. For example, he told me that every glass platform on the mana racks was marked with the positions where it was to be placed on the spikes. Thus, each piece of glass was finely balanced on each rack, nary a hair width of mis-alignment would cause the sound quality to go way off.

Every piece of his equipment was also carefully isolated, again the isolation device to use would have been carefully and extensively researched and evaluated. His experience with cone/spike/footer etc was encyclopedic. Don't get him start talking on this, you would be overwhelmed (but at the same time be entertained and educated) by the deluge of information he could flood you with.

This was the kind of fanatical devotion that JoKi has in hifi that very very few of us, if any, can match.

The equipment that we listened to was as follows:
JoKi was using a 47Lab cd transport (not shown) feeding an Audio Note DAC2. The preamp used was a Bryston BP26.

Feeding the juice to the loudspeakers was a pair of Leak monoblocks and the loudspeakers were, need I say it, the LS3/5a plus the Rogers AB1 subwoofer column.


They were augmented further by a REL Stentor subwoofer hidden out of sight. Let me add that the integration between the sub and the main speakers was absolutely seamless, and can you guess where the subwoofer was placed? Behind (!) the listeners' seat instead of in front.

A Torus plc was also in use, shown below under the Linn LP12. There were also a couple of Bryston BCD-1 cdp which were under evaluation.


The system was much more than just the main equipment listed above. The matching of each equipment to the isolation device and the cable choice also has its own story behind, I believe . Pardon me for not being able to trace you through every item in the entire hifi chain. Like I said, I would be writing a book. :-)

A few minutes into the listening session, that old thought in my mind surfaced again, "this is music, this is music!". The system presented pure, unadulterated notes that the mind simply translated into beautiful music. The most critical success factor for me of a system was fulfilled just like that with disarming ease and charm.

The system has excellent resolution, to know what it can resolve (and what JoKi's ears can resolve :-) ), there is no better description than reading what JoKi wrote about music, go and download the first publication of MTX (you can find the link at the right side panel) and read the "Listen Critically" column by him, you would be surprised by the details he described about those recordings. A case in point, he said that in the "Famous Blue Raincoat 20th Anniversary Edition" cd, first track "First We Take Manhattan", Jennifer Warnes cleared her throat at the 15th and 16th seconds into the recording. I listened to this track a few times on my system trying to catch that, but I heard zilch! Ouch!

Soundstaging remained as this system's very strong strength. The soundstage I heard in this session was 3-dimensional, easily the best I have heard in all my home and dealer visits.

Some would think that the kind of music that JoKi played would be the delicate, quiet, simple kind. That would be a wrongly placed prejudice. He played us fast, rather complex music which also came with demanding dynamic contrasts. I was startled on a couple of occasions by the transient speed. The sound was not exceptionally large scale or gut-churning, but it had the required excitement factor for true musical enjoyment. And the presentations were always musically coherent.

Let me relate a couple more significant musical moments that night. On 'The Banquet OST' CD, there were a couple of tracks of solo male and female vocal, apparently singing about unrequited love, the rendition was so heart wrenching that I had goosebumps all over and chills in my body. I never heard emotion so sad and so hopeless. Equally, on life recordings, like Sara K's 'Don't I know you from somewhere', the sonic purity and palpable ambience was simply first rate.

I could go on, but let me say again - I would be writing a book. :-)

This is MUSIC, in the truest sense.