just like in hifi, if your system has no contrast, it won't be able to portray the extremes of emotions very well

mrs. costello has visibly gained some weights since she became a mother, something which she proudly declared during the concert in kl last night. she even mentioned about her famous husband but i guess not many people know who her husband is. and yes, krall has the most beautiful blonde hair i have ever seen ;-)

the acoustics in plenery hall are good, tho' nowhere approaching the dewan filharmonik petronas (DFP). from where we sat, the sound did not have enough volume. anthony wilson's guitar came across louder than diana krall's piano but it doesn't matter, the quartet played a tight set throughout the entire night.

what impressed me is how seasoned krall's voice has become. it has a kind of tone that is akin to the best of wine reserved for the connoisseurs. many people dislike krall because they think her voice is technically perfect but lacking of real emotions and this i have to disagree. listening to her rendition of joni mitchell "a case of you" with just the piano with pin-drop silence from the audience, i could feel my goose bumps raised and my heart stopped beating.

and anthony wilson's is a gem, his guitar is so soulful and sensitive. i actually mentioned to my producer (chow) that how i wished roger wang is here. i am not saying that roger is not as good as anthony wilson but he could learn a thing or two from anthony. what i love about anthony's guitar is the contrast in his playing between the fast numbers and the slows numbers. there is a good mix of slow and fast numbers in the set and when it comes to the slow (really really slow) ones, krall (and her piano playing) sounded so very seductive and sensitive; it touched and moved the soul. and anthony's guitar playing complemented very well, like hand and glove.

a lot of local musicians i know do not have enough of contrast in their playing, this much i can tell you. most of them revel in playing fast dynamic numbers but when it comes to slow ones, they lack sensitivity and delicacy. just like in hifi, many systems can play dynamic bang-slam-thank-you-mam pieces well but when it comes to music with one or two instruments in stripped down format, it can't deliver the emotions and sensitivity. if your system has no contrast, it won't be able to portray the extremes of emotions very well.

overall, krall and her quartet delivered a night of quality jazz. but i wished the venue could be smaller with more intimate crowd. i was told that krall and entourage adjourned to no black tie (NBT) after the concert to jam with local jazz musicians but it was too late for me to go to NBT.

talking about NBT, yes, two of 2v1g's gigs are full house next week! yay, give me five!

you know it and you have experienced it more than once, the demo blues are the kind of situations that frustrate the most earnest kind of host.

i have had more than my fair share of demo blues over the years and i would say in 7/10 cases either (1) my system didn't sound the way i intended to be, or (2), my visitors' reactions/feedback were not the kind that i wanted them to be.

before a big demo to impress you friends and visitors, you would clean up your listening room, polish your cable connectors, re-check your speaker positioning and for those vinylphiles, you would re-check your VTA, clean and prepare the list of LPs to be demo-ed to your visitors.

the big day came. you get jittery. you are so sure that your system can impress even the most critical of listeners but you are worried that their listening skills are nowhere near your level or their tastes/demands are totally different from yours.

you get the visitors seated comfortably and you get on with your job of playing your fave discs one by one. you observe their facial expressions. all look nonchalant; some even look pensive. you yell to yourself, "damn it, can't you tell how gorgeous carol kidd's tone is thru my system - the midrange is so lucid, can't you tell?". one of them manages to utter some remotely positive remarks about your system, "i quite like the way your system portrays the depth of the cathedral". you are exasperated and yell silently, "this is a studio recording, you fool!". looks like your visitors are totally clueless about your system's strengths.

yet another comments with a tinge of sarcasm, "something about your drum, it doesn't sound like a real drum. it sounds like an oil drum, or something hitting on a tin can." now this really gets you cranky and edgy. you wanted to shove him the exit door but being a gracious host, you swallow your pride quietly. you tell yourself, "this cotton-ear should be barred from now on".

so the listening session is over. none of them seems too impressed but they are all too nice to say anything damaging but the damage is already done. their facial disapproval says it all. your are disheartened and your whole day is spoilt.

on the same night, you switch on the system again. everything seems so perfect, it is almost faultless. carol kidd is alive in your room. what happened this afternoon? why can't this bunch of cotton-ears hear how glorious my system is?

then it suddenly dawns on you that this was the same situation that happened last month, when little johnny brought his entourage of visitors to your house and none of them said anything that could tantamount to a praise or compliment. you wallowed in your misery too and did the same thing at night by switching on your system and found perfection in it.

as the night wears on and you getting a bit pacified by this sudden realization that not all cotton ears can appreciate high-end systems. carol kidd is still sounding naughty on gershwin's "nice work, if you can get it". she is so palpably real in your listening room that you can touch her. your take a slow sip of your red wine which you reserve for late-night listening.

"c'est la vie", you tell yourself. "no more demos to cotton ears."

for those over 35 and constantly lament on the lack of good music today, mamma mia! is for you! the movie is a spirited adaptation of the popular stage musical and did i have fun watching it!

this is not a movie blog so there is no movie review from me. but i want to drive home the following points:

1] why is today's pop music cannot be as simple, sweet and melodious as ABBA's?

2] when the music is so brilliant, does it matter whether your hifi is low-end of high-end? you don't need soundstaging and separation, do you?

i left the cinema with slight teary eyes. it has been awhile since i was so moved by the music. so much childhood memories were recalled.

yeah, go call me a sentimental uncle. i live and die music!

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day.

I think I can make it now, the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is the rainbow I’ve been prayin?for
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day.

Look all around, there’s nothin?but blue skies
Look straight ahead, nothin?but blue skies

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day.

ladies and gentlemen, 2 months and 400+ hours later, the stage III concepts gryphon interconnects have finally broken in.

true to my previous postulation about this cable, it is the single most phenomenal upgrade i have ever had.

[jessica elba]

"There has been a failure in the attempt to use specifications to characterize the subtleties of sonic performance. Amplifiers with similar measurements are not equal, and products with higher power, wider bandwidth, and lower distortion do not necessarily sound better."

"Historically, that amplifier offering the most power, or the lowest IM distortion, or the lowest THD, or the highest slew rate, or the lowest noise, has not become a classic or even been more than a modest success. For a long time there has been faith in the technical community that eventually some objective analysis would reconcile critical listeners' subjective experience with laboratory measurement. Perhaps this will occur, but in the meantime, audiophiles largely reject bench specifications as an indicator of audio quality. This is appropriate.

"Appreciation of audio is a completely subjective human experience. We should no more let numbers define audio quality than we would let chemical analysis be the arbiter of fine wines. Measurements can provide a measure of insight, but are no substitute for human judgment.

"Why are we looking to reduce a subjective experience to objective criteria anyway? The subtleties of music and audio reproduction are for those who appreciate it. Differentiation by numbers is for those who do not.

"As in art, classic audio components are the results of individual efforts and reflect a coherent underlying philosophy. They make a subjective and an objective statement of quality which is meant to be appreciated. It is essential that the circuitry of an audio component reflects a philosophy which addresses the subjective nature of its performance first and foremost."

to those audiophiles like master ken who reads measurements like a text book, eat your heart out ;-)

to me, music is an emotional connection; you just can't measure music reproduction and high fidelity. it is an art as much as it is science. that's why i play tube amps and i don't read magazines that have loads of charts and technical diagrams like my secondary science text book ;-)

pay a visit to your typical indian newsagent and you would have a hard time finding where they put their hifi magazines. they are always located at one inconspicuous corner where magazine of less "importance" are. even when you do find them, there is at most one or two copies available. such is the sad state of hifi magazines in malaysia.

most of the times, these magazines are left unsold and they would be sent to the 2nd hand bookshops, like the one in amcorp mall, and be sold at 1/3 of its original price. even at that price, there are not many takers. the best selling hifi magazine in malaysia, as far as i know, is taiwan's "audio art", which is absolutely one of the best in the world in terms of photography, sheer volume of articles and intellectual contents.

fact it, today's audiophiles are no longer reading hardcopy hifi magazines, save for the very few minority hardcore readers. there are many reasons for this phenomenon, chief of which are the widely available internet resources and lack of credible reviewers.

but many local dealers argue that those who read from internet are not the real buyers. real buyers are those who still read hifi magazines. i could understand where they are coming from but i feel that the internet readers and buyers alike would boom in the next 3-5 years in malaysia, judging from the awareness of local dealers and audiophile community towards online hifi resources. a case in point, local hifi trading blog, hifi4sale, has somewhat "forced" even the most internet-handicapped dealers/audiophiles to go online and post their 2nd hand items for sale. this is a very encouraging sign indeed.

many hifi magazines are barely surviving, with diminished readership, eventho their advertising revenue are still stable. many manufacturers still want the distributor to allocate a certain budget for advertising in hardcopy hifi magazines. in the end, you may end up with hifi magazines that no ones want to read or bother to buy and take it home. and this is already happening today.

it is with this awakening thought that i have decided to suspend my av xpress infinitely and concentrate solely on my blog.

the buka puasa was met with heavy rain today. it choked the kl and pj traffic entirely. the traffic jam was so horrendous that i couldn't help but find solace in my music. for the last few days, my player has been spinning aiza seguerra's "open arms". i must admit, i don't agree with the song selection (inclusion of don mclean's overdone "vincent" is not to my taste) but i find a couple of tracks hugely impressive.

"persistent rain" was so perfect for the situation i was in today - getting stucked in the traffic jam while the rain poured mercilessly on my car's windscreen - though i have no romantic stories to tell you. this is the best track of the album, one that i can listen over and over again.

journey's "open arms" (circa 1970s) is done with good taste. a lot of young generation like this track, from what i could find with my google. other good tracks include "i will be there for you", "longer" (dan fogelberg) and azra's own beautiful tagalog love song "para lang so 'yo".

little did i know that this is the number 1 best-selling audiophile album in singapore. aiza is already a household name in philipines, now it is time malaysians discover her.

aiza has a very clear, pristine and angelic voice. she is diction-perfect and pitch-perfect. it is very hard to find this kind of western-sounding singers in malaysia. to me, philipines has the most gifted singers in this region. they way they sing, they just don't sound like asians.

s2s is a s'pore label started by a japanese. judging from the excellent recording quality of this cd, we can expect more gems from this label.

seriously, i would love to produce an album like this.

heartily recommended, if only the song selection can be better.

sonics: 8/10
music: 8/10

the star, after much begging and string-pulling, finally published an article on 2v1g today.

3 months late? better late than never.

with web 2.0 catching fast on netizens, even audiophiles from sleepy kelantan have caught on with the blogging fad!

for the mandarin readers among you, here's one interesting hifi blog from my virtual friend in kelantan. calling his blog "fatty's hifi journey", you can certainly tell that chua has a great sense of humour.

his gear is definitely high-end; it would embarrass anyone out there who claims to be high-end.

but most importantly, chua's passion sees no bound, so too is his pocket, i suspect ;-)

enjoy!

http://fataudioblog.blogspot.com

chua's equipment list

• cd transport－Reimyo CDT-777（Kubala Sosna Emotion power cord, Harmonix Coaxial)
• dac－Reimyo DAP-999EX (Kubala Sosna Emotion power cord,Stage3 Concept Magnus RCA interconnect)
• preamp－Audio Note M5 Line (Shunyata Phyton Helix power cord，Stage3 Concept Magnus Prime XLR interconnect)
• power amp－Classe CA2200 (Shunyata Phyton Helix power cord，Audioquest Mont Blanc speaker cable）
• loudspeakers－Marten Miles 3
• others－Shunyata Research V-Ray (Shunyata Research PhytonHelix20A power cord)，Bright Star Audio platform(DAC)，Symposium Ultra platform+Symposium Roller Block(preamp)，Accoustic Revive RR-77 X3， Isolation Transfomer，AC AnacomX5，Speaker Anacom，Accoustic Revive RD3，Goldmund Spike，Harmonix RF-999MT(speaker))，Harmonix RFA-7800，Oyaide (wall outlet)，Symposium Svelte Shelf(power amp)，Millennium CD Mat，Quantum Symphony Pro(Harmonix X-DC2 power cord)，Finite Elemente Ceraball(for Shunyata V-ray - see picture)

this can make master ken pee in his pant. it would eat his scm100 for lunch.

if i am not mistaken, the atc el150 comes in two versions - the slp for passive and sla for active. the mid driver is taken from atc scm-150 soft dome mid driver, the tweeter is 25mm neodynium and the bass driver is atc super linear 375mm bass driver.

the first buyer in the world is a hongkie.

does it ever get into malaysia? we would direct this question to hi-way laser's kenny sin.

They came and they brought a breath of fresh air to conventional Mandarin pop music. Their debut album has earned them endless praises and accolades since its launch 3 months ago.

And now they are going to prove to their fans that they can sing live just as well.

Performing in their first ever gig together, Roger Wang, Regine Tai and Winnie Ho of 2V1G are going to enthrall audiences with a new set of repertoire - Mandarin, English and even Malay numbers - in No Black Tie (NBT) come 7th and 8th of October 2008!

No Black Tie (03-21423737) is the premier jazz club in downtown KL, located at Jalan Mesui, near to Istana Hotel.

Seats are limited by the small capacity of No Black Tie. Admission is RM30.

Please block your calendar now and reserve your seat through yours truly at 012-2083790.

See you at the gig!

Maggielurva has gone berserk with Chinese hifi products. After the Droplet 5.0 CD player, he dug up another Chinese disc player for review in AVXpress, this time it is the Shanling CD-300.

Honestly, I have no exposure to Chinese hifi, although I have read much about it in the hifi press, both eastern and western. Well, some said that the Chinese stuff gave better value than their more established western counterparts, but some users also cautioned about product reliability and inconsistent quality. And we all can see this diverse opinion in the comments posted under maggielurva’s blog entry for the Consonance Droplet (“hifi haute couture”)

While what I read and heard serve as good background information, I personally like to experience things firsthand. So it is interesting to get the Shanling from maggielurva, now is my turn to see (and listen for myself) whether this made-in-china stuff is a gem or a turkey.


This Shanling goes for RM6k (yes, six, the first time maggielurva passes me something that is below 5 figures! Refrsehing). In terms of features, it is an overachiever compared to anything under RM10k. It is a top loader with Philips' CD7II servo system. It has 24bit/192kHz upsampling, selectable from the fascia and the remote. It is tubed (two 6922 in the output stage). It has both single ended and balanced (XLR) outputs. Heck, you even get an XLR connection for the digital out in addition to the RCA one. Its fit and finish is excellent, reminds me of the various top range Marantz that I came across (well, they probably took a page from Marantz’s design, with the rounded edges and all that). The only thing I can split hair about its build is probably the sliding cover for the CD compartment, which does not slide as smoothly as the one on the Audionet ART G2 (brouhaha! I can see some of you falling off your chairs, comparing the Shanling to a RM28k cdp? Hifikaki must be high on something). :-)

But how is the sound quality, you ask. This is not something that can be concluded in a few hours of listening, so let’s leave it to the full review. But so far so good, I can listen to it for a few hours at a time - that is a good sign – it is not fatiguing, it is not boring, it can convey musical tension. Still, more work needs to be done on my part.

Do take the above as first impression, this is just the beginning.

[scarlet johansson]

3 years and 580 posts later, we have hit this auspicious mark!

looking back, the last 3 years has been filled with good memories. what started off as a place to sell "boutique" hifi items (hence the name desirable audio boutique) has become a major daily chore of mine! not chore la, on the contrary, quite a pleasure of mine ;-)

from apogee centaur minor to maggie 1.6QR to maggie 3.6R; from AQ anaconda, to stage III magnus and now its flagship gryphon; from arc LS25MkII to LS26; from meridian 508.24 to g08; from richard gray to shunyata hydra... along this upgrading process, my understanding and appreciation in hifi have leaped forward so much i almost couldn't tolerate the kind of sound i liked 3 years ago!

my criteria of good sound has also changed so much. i now pride "realism" above anything else. realism emcompasses a balanced top-to-bottom sound; an "organicity" and "humanness" (i didn't check if such words exist!) that is close to live music.

a balanced sound to me is a spectrum where highs, mids, lows coexist together seemlessly without any frequency screaming for attention. highs must have air, extension and substance, mids must have body, density and substance, and lows must be tactile, bouncy and also substantial. heck, a good sound must have substance!

"organicity" means the flow, fluidity, cohesiveness, completeness, continuity of music. some call it musicality too.

and lastly "humanness" is the tonality of the sound that i give top-priority to and very few systems could achieve this single criterium well. i mean, if a human voice doesn't sound like a human voice, how good can your hifi be, never mind the soundstaging and imaging? it is in the tone, my friend.

i am amazed that i could go on blogging for that long. most bloggers gave up after 3 months. 3 years, 580 posts and 100,000 page views are definitely a milestone in a niche hobby like ours.

occasionally, there are some readers who try to spoil the party but most of the times, the moderator in me could make them see the bigger picture and act within the decorum of a good reader. as i have said, this is not just another me-too blog/forum/website. i don't allow it to be. it has too much personality ;-)

i don't know how many regular readers do i have (seriously) but to those who derive their daily joy from reading my scribbles, i thank you. you are the reason for me to go on.

i really hope i could continue blogging for another 30 years!

Willy, a jovial guy who always has a smile on his face, I met him in this year KLIAV show via a mutual friend. He visited me and listened to my system a few weeks later, and last night was my turn to reciprocate.

It was a good night listening to music for myself and maggielurva. Let’s start with Willy’s system from the top – his frontend was a Marantz CD7, the ‘statement’ CDP from Marantz and Ken Ishiwata, a CDP that I lusted after. Seeing a Marantz brought back fond memories as I grew up with the CD63SE and then the CD17MkIIKI. Marantz never failed to sound musical to me, and Willy’s system with the CD7 in it proved to be even more so in this regard.

The CD7 fed a Pass Labs X2.5 preamp, which in turn was connected to a pair of Pass Labs Aleph 0 monoblocks - 75watts of pure single-ended class A power into 8 ohms, double that into 4. I am a Pass Labs user myself, and once owned the 0’s littlest brother, the Aleph 3. I regretted letting go of the 3, I hope Willy would not make the same mistake with his 0s, they are absolutely a classic from Pass Labs (to me, all Alephs are, and I have to admit I have a bias towards the Aleph sound).

At the end of the chain was a pair of Audio Physics Spark. Slim and elegant these 2.5-way floorstanders were. Audio Physics are renowned for their soundstaging capability, and Willy’s Sparks lived up to this reputation, throwing a soundstage that was nicely 3-dimensional.

Willy has also addressed the electricity quality issue by installing an IsoTek power line conditioner. His cdp, turntable (a Rega with diy Pass Labs Ono, I gathered, which we did not listen to) and pre-amp were plugged into the IsoTek, and the Alephs were plugged directly into the wall.

The listening room was of a cozy size, I estimated it to be 10’x12’ (just a guess). Willy has done some acoustic treatment, such as diffusers on the front wall. He also ingenuously incorporated diffusion / absorption into his CD rack at the first reflection point at the side of the speakers.

Once Willy cued up the music, I was attracted. The sound had a natural body, was coherent, and came with an inviting tonality, it has airiness, richness and excellent harmonic structure. I believe it was the Pass Labs doing their talking here to an extent, it certainly was a presentation that I was well acquainted to. The sound was well-lit but not bright, I personally would prefer a slightly mellower top but that is a matter of taste. Vocals and violin were articulate and attractive. Violin, especially, had sheen and brilliance that came close to real life.

Despite their relatively slim stature, the Audio Physics had a big sound. These fellows were not afraid of big swings in dynamics and indeed they handled any such challenge with aplomb. Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez (ASMF, Marriner) presented just such an opportunity, the guitar was intimate but the sound would simply swell whenever the full orchestra came on.

Best of all, Willy’s listening room came with a cute little Miss. That is Willy’s little daughter, ever the daddy's girl, she would accompany her father during his listening session for hours.

With that, what more can a man ask for?

and that's abc records, headed by simon tsui.

the major players in chinese audiophile music recording include rain forest (now without lily chen, their trump card, who has signed to a mainstream label), perfect, hugo, rock in (hk), musiclab (hk), musicnet (hk) and a few whose names i can't remember, but among all these players, abc records is my fave label. in case you haven't read my previous posts, one of my best chinese audiophile recording comes from abc records - a-ming, the chain-smoking chinaman with the husky voice. the vocals are so well recorded that one would swear that he could taste a-ming's nicotine-tainted voice from afar! abc's teresa teng remastered series (pictured above) are also a perpetual best-sellers in the market.

canada-based tsui is a man of refined tastes. apart from investing in cutting-edge technology, he also believes in the "western" ways of doing things. for starters, he engages an english graphic designer for all his cd cover design work for he believes cover design is a major attraction for an album and in this respect, the westerners are more superior than his own chinese people.

tsui most recent collaboration with mark levinson opens his eyes to the genius that is mark levinson. tsui openly acknowledges that mark is a remarkable recording engineer.

in advancing the audiophile recording technology further, tsui's latest breakthru is what he calls the "HD-mastering CD". as a audiophile music producer myself, i know too well the loss between the master tape and the final commercial cd. my 2v1g master tape is easily 20-30% better sounding than the commercial cd!

the path between the master and final commercial cd involves too many variable - from the glass sampler to the disc replication process to the material of the disc is made of, all these carry a certain amount of fidelity loss.

tsui collaborates with germany's golden ear studio for this project. it has taken him two years to reach commercial viability. you can read all about it here.

one thing of interest here, tsui admits that "for audiophile recordings, chinese repertoire has a bigger market internationally". i fully concur with his observation!

yes, this one is a keeper.

bought it last night and have been spinning non-stop since.

if anne murray is a piece of hifi then she simply has the most gorgeous tone. in this fabulous cd, she even has a "ghostly" duet with dusty springfield in "i just fall in love again", this track itself worthy of the cost of this US-pressed CD.

trust me, one you read the liner notes where the 12 different iconic female legends (including carole king, sarah brightman, ONJ, k.d.lang, shelby lynne, shania twain) expressed their feelings of excitement in collaborating with anne murray, you would be so moved that you want to read it over and over again.

2v1g will be covering anne murray's "you needed me" in NBT gig in october and the duet here with anne murray and shania twain is the best source of reference for us.

the producer is phil ramone.

review to come.

my pride and glory.

it has been with me for the last 4 years, beating many intruders and competitors. 4 years is a long time in the ever-changing hifi scene and i dare to say it is worth every penny i spent on it.

but it has to go, now that i have found a new love.

stage III magnus is the 2nd ranked interconnect from stage III concepts. i have got two pairs out of 4 pairs in malaysia. it is a true collector's item.

this is balanced XLR connection, 1.5m in length. Condition: 8.5/10

stage III magnus has the most exquisite tonal color and highs amongst all the interconnects i tried all these years. it is especially glorious for tube-based systems.

RM4,300 per pairs. RM8,000 for two pairs.

call 012-2083790.

"If you want the subtle infusion of valves; if you want to be able to eliminate a preamp from the equation; if you value not just sonics but pride of ownership from massive construction and unusual cosmetics - the Droplet CD player from Opera Audio is the one". Quote from Srajan Ebaen, Editor of 6moons.

if hifi is a fashion, this will win some awards. this is the kind of hifi that your wife or girlfriend would approve, sonics notwithstanding.

a flagship product selling at only Rm12K? we are not kidding. opera consonance 5.0 droplet cdp is the object of desire/review for master ken. i say, ken, it is high time to replace your meridian 508.24!

if the droplet is a woman, she must be the most voluptuous and curvaceous female species on earth. accordingly, she runs hot, i mean, temperature-wise. it also comes with a complimentary 2-tier marble stand which i find too heavy to carry home.

i expect it to sound seductive, warm and romantic.... much like the imaginary woman that it suggests....

as usual i will pass it to ken, then hifi kaki then back to me for an all-round assault on this gorgeous beauty.

while mulling over a cup of teh tarik, hifi kaki and i brought out the subject of forming a hifi club in malaysia (since the idea was mooted by one hifi dealer). though the discussion here is purely academic, i would share it you here what is exchanged between us.

first, we are going to call the club "hifi utopia", not because we like the jmlab speaker but as an oxymoron to celebrate the idiosyncracies of this hobby. hifi utopia may never happen but at least that's what the club strives to achieve. the club mascot would be a happy audiophile kissing a hose-sized interconnect. just joking ;-)

there are a couple of critical success factors for hifi utopia:

[1] the club must provide real benefits to the members. this can come in the form of equipment on-loan , such as the cable cooker for members' use (great idea that was), a loaner record-cleaner or interconnect/power cords/etc etc contributed by dealers for the sole usage of the club's members

[2] a real discount for members for purchase of goods from participating dealers

[3] regular experiential sharing in the form of forums, talks, seminars - and NOT house visits, please. the club would invite hifi luminaries (local or overseas) to share their knowledge on a particular domain. dealers can be the sponsors for such events.

[4] some well-to-do veteran/senior audiophiles to provide funding for the club. the president should be someone level-headed, respected widely and preferably rich, not a recalcitrant like maggielurva.

[5] a regular platform for dealers to showcase their latest products. the club can organize listening sessions in dealer's showroom (or some neutral place) where members can mingle (or bicker!) in a conducive environment. of course, refreshment and food would be provided by dealers.

other less effective forms of sharing which we are not too keen include:

[1] regular talk-cock-sing-song sessions. this has proven that it won't work in the malaysian context due to our over-inflated egos

[2] house visits. this again is a waste of time knowing how malaysians behave when they listen to other systems.

as far as membership goes, hifi kaki feels that it should be by invitation (extended by the dealers to their valued customers) whereas i feel that it should be open to all and sundry. a lot of newbies (e.g the bunch from low yatt forum) want to come into hifi but have no means to gain knowledge or access to good hifi. hifi utopia would be a good avenue and access path for this bunch of newbies.

these are the basic guidelines for hifi utopia. do you have more to add?

the audio creations boys are offering this special discount to all readers of desirable audio.

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contact: Mikey 012-3315669