Monday, August 27, 2007

LIstening Journey continues...

My listening journey in the car audio world continues...

These past months I have been listening to various car set ups with different equipment. I have come to realize that no two car would sound a like even they were using the same set of speakers. It is the combination of the entire set up that contributes to the overall result.

Even with the exact same components but 2 different car models. It would sound a bit different. The ambiance is different, thus resulting in the 'feel' to be different.

By listening to different amplifiers, it made me realized that each maker of amplifier has its own characteristic. Some would focus their power on the low frequencies as well as mid-highs which would give the 'rich' effect; while some would try to achieve a flat gain response over its frequency range. There is no good nor bad in this case as it really depends on the taste of the listener.

The listener's preference to music would determine the judgement of sound quality by his own ears.

My music taste has recently gone backwards, tending towards oldies, classical, soul and instrumental music. I guess it is because I am enjoying the soothing tones from the instruments and love how accurately a sound system could reproduce the instruments. Love the powerful voices of artist filling up the atmosphere in the car but clearly focus.

I am slowly learning the different terms and the meaning of those terms used in car audio (or audio for that matter). They are tonal accuracy, imaging, sound stage, etc. The difficult bit would be learning to use this knowledge and applying it to my own sound system. The goal would be to have a perfect sound stage and imaging, where the instruments and voices are clearly focus in their respective areas of the 'stage'; and execellent tonal accuracy, where in short is basically reproducing the exact tones you hear from the instruments themselves.

I find that I dun yet quite understand how my HeadUnit's functions works but I will slowly experiment and find out. But of cos, I will sure continue enjoying the music it plays every step of the way while I learn more. :)

Regards,
Ken