Malcolm Steward: audio journalist

This column came from a high-end supplement produced back in the early ’90s by a rather straight-laced magazine and edited, I suspect, by a dear pal who was then imbibing and cultivating a trademark 1000-yard stare… Oh the fun we had in those boozy, herby days…

 

“Write something about tweaking,” said the Editor. “Can’t,” I replied, “I’ve given it up.” Actually, I haven’t; not completely; I just tweak vicariously nowadays. I’ve done my share of soldering, coning, spiking and all that life-consuming shit. Nowadays I’m happier to let someone else toil and simply reap the benefits if the operation’s a success.

I’ve not joined the only-nutters-tweak brigade. In fact, my system has undergone some ludicrous improvements recently thanks to the efforts of one who tweaks with a vengeance, Mana Acoustics’ John Watson. Any of the digital’s-perfect-so-let’s-stop-this-nonsense-now persuasion would be deeply dismayed by the transformation of my Naim CDS CD player wrought by relocating it from a four-tier Mana Reference table to Watson’s maddest, baddest seven-tier stand. Although the cost of this Ultimate Behemoth is way above typical tweak level it still qualifies because of its nature: only a determined, perfection-seeking audiophile would countenance supporting hi-fi components on six sheets of laminated Medite, one of glass, fifty feet of sand-blasted, powder-coated iron and fifty-six hand-turned adjustable spikes.

After hearing the platform’s effects upon my CDS I straightaway ordered seven-tier number two for my Pink Triangle modified, battery powered, DC-motored, tweaks-a-go-go Sondek, which became petulant when I started ignoring it. The UB’d CDS was smokin’ while the four-tier table supported Linn sounded rather tired by comparison. Now that both sources are on an equal footing, in terms of supports, the deck again sees as much use as the CD player.

Detailing the dramatic improvements these examples of the welder’s, glass blower’s, Medite board laminater’s and spike-threader’s arts have wrought isn’t easy. I reckon that discussing the gains in neatly compartmentalised, quantitative terms is missing the point, although there have been definite leaps in dynamic scope, frequency extension and imagery, all of which are readily discernible if you want to get into a/b testing tables, which I don’t. The improvement I value most – and it’s one that’s demonstrably attributable to parking the sources on the seven-tier towers – is that the system sounds less like a hi-fi system in respects that I find particularly rewarding. For starters, when I crank it up to the levels that, I’m told, only Paul Messenger and I deem appropriate for fully appreciating the devil’s music, there’s less sense of strain or of any component threatening imminent self-destruction. That alone makes these lounge monsters worth entertaining.

The second gain, one that will doubtless appeal to a wider audience but which is certainly linked to the first, is that the seven-tiers reduce the mechanical quality that tinges the performance of every system I hear, no matter how esoteric, sophisticated or costly it might be. Face it, your hi-fi, regardless of the badges it wears, doesn’t really sound much like real music, does it? No guitarist is going to walk into your room while you’re playing Led Zep II and say, “Hey, neat trick; now tell me where you’ve got Jimmy Page hidden.”

While the new Mana tables can’t pull that kind of stunt, they come a damn sight closer than most “accessories” – if you really want to denigrate such fundamental items by referring to them, as many consumerist audiophiles do, as though they were on a par with stylus cleaning brushes. They radically diminish that ever-present feeling that your system is playing a not very convincing con-trick on your senses. In hi-fi reviewing argot, the music flows more naturally. In musical terms, good playing grooves, makes more sense and communicates far more fluently; it touches nerves.

Other smaller Mana additions to the system that have helped it towards convincing my ears that J. Page Esq. really is lurking behind the drapes are speaker stands for my active Naim SBLs. Don’t bother pointing out that my SBLs are floor-standers because I’ve worked that out for myself over the seven or so years that I’ve owned them. Let’s call them speaker plinths to satisfy the pedants, stumpy one-tier widgets that raise the Sibyls a couple of inches off the floor. Don’t ask me how they work but they do. John Watson’s theory – which he also applies to the SoundStage platforms that are the basis of the seven-tier tables – is that they provide a “suspended floor” for whatever’s resting on them. That’s a plausible explanation but how come they improve the sound of speakers that were already parked on a suspended floor?

I would have been better able to test the second-floor notion more thoroughly had not the floor beneath my CD, turntable and electronics recently been replaced. The original wooden floor was becoming unstable – probably from the weight of the four heavily laden Mana tables it supported – and the only solution was to have the house-tweakers in to rip up the offending woodwork and fill the hole with concrete. A not exactly cheap operation but at least now I can walk past the equipment without trashing whatever expensive cartridge I happen to be baby-sitting.

The performance gains elicited from sorting the floor, installing the Ultimate Behemoths and the speaker plinths have all been far more than subtle. These and my experiences have made me redefine my notion of tweaking to exclude anything that provides those marginal improvements that so many audiophiles enjoy chasing. I had my share of the lots of pain for little gain tweaking in the days when setting up turntables was more about persistence and prayer mats than pleasure and platter mats. I can think of many more profitable ways of spending an afternoon than dressing arm-cables and swapping suspension springs to squeeze another gnat’s worth of whatever out of my system. Such activities generally result from an inability to see the wood because your vision is impaired by trees. We’ve all been there, gleefully demonstrating how their latest tweak adds another hundredth of an octave of bass to the system while its treble strips the enamel from listeners’ teeth.

Tweaking that involves little reward is out. I now want dramatic improvements not minuscule differences. I only want advances of the magnitude that will have Jimmy Page knocking on my door saying, “Excuse me, pal, but this is weird: I’m standing in your doorway yet I can hear myself playing Kashmir in your living room!”