A visit to my Regular Hifi Shop

Well, as you know i happen to be a hifi Kaki, as hifi kaki's we like to go to our regular or friendly hifi shop just to drop by pay some visit and get to know some new stuff, just like any other blogger, we talk mostly of what we like most and mine happen to be Hifi,
So where is the shop? It is in Dang Wangi, a newly open hifi shop, small one, mainly dealing with used products, nice stuff here, and the owner happened to be the person who sold me a pair of pre and power Audio Research, this guy is a really nice guy, you can visit his blog at http://symphonyclassicaudio.blogspot.com/

So today, Friday the 13th, i went for a visit, as usual, this shop is in Campbell Complex, oposite Sogo and the cross junction, where the public busses meeting point, well let me get a map to show next time,

What is in our recipe today? Well because he mainly deals with used items, so we had a Audio Research SP9, as pre, Carver power amp, Naton Power amp and we tested a couple unit of speakers, Source was California Audio Labs transport tube DAC. Cables were Transparent, monster, and audio quest, couldnt remember the models, but these were the brands,

First up the setup
















JBL L3 model, nice pair of speakers, great tweeter made of titanium. The speaker is being pushed by a carver TFM-15CB amp. dont really know the ratings, but the amp sure could push smoothly without trouble. The JBL performed with power, tight bass and emotion, for a speaker that is kind of old, by the looks. it does sound great, playing various kind of songs, from Vocal tracy chapman, A womens heart, to classical music, and then some classic rock, by issley brothers, then pushing the speaker to limits, testing with some china audiophile cd, it does very well, Firstly the setup was not really fantastic, Harry, who is the owner and also a kaki for many years, said the sound of tracy Chapman was not right, at that time the cables were CD to pre, Audio quest, and pre to power was transparent, it didnt sound that great. then we changed the interconnect of the CD to Pre, to a newly bought used cable, silver coated, and the bass and treble quickly show significant difference, bass was much tighter compared to audio quest.

Harry teaches a very important principle that is to achieve high fidelity in audio reproduction, one must learn the art of matching, it is important even if a equipment or setup does not match




















would not sound as great or good as it was suppose to be, I as a new comer, wont have that touch in matching, due to the lack of experience and also knowledge in what is expected and how to maximise the use of available products.

This 2 way JBL L3 has a bass port at the back, and it doesnt come with spikes,

Oh by the way, i didnt take note of the speaker cables, so i wont be able to tell what brand was it, maybe i could ask Harry later, he is asleep i presume at this kind of time ,

After trying out with the JBL L3, we decided to change and test the OHM speaker

Now the sound was not as good, nothing is coming out, the Carver amp couldnt perform or push the passive woofer of the speaker . The Ohm works in a very unique way, the woofer is a pasive kind, which means no connection or any sort into a crossover, it depends on the compression of the mid range to push the woofer passively from the inside of the box. the tweeter is outside of the speaker box and it can move side to side to suite the sweet spot, Then Harry thought that the amp hasnt got enough juice to push it, and we took the Naton amp, unknown to many including both of us, but the amp does give a lot of surprises, "that one in another story next time".

Sorry forget to take pictures of those, but promise from me next time there will be more pictures of the things we test.















We hooked the Naton amp. And whoa la! the sound comes out, vocals are more prominent and bass is much tighter, with the Carver amp, the sound had no energy in it, In the Naton setup the Ohm speaker begins to shine,

We continued testing since the Naton Amp was hooked up, we took out the 11 ohm Pink Triangle Ventrical Speaker, Small, little but 11 ohm, recomended power 100 watts, which amp does 11ohm at 100 watts, this calculate to about at least 200 watts into 8 ohms to make this baby shine, The pink triangle Ventrical speaker was a headache the last time we tried it, it consumed power like no other speakers available here, even
the Allegro intergrated amp with high current
amp couldnt push this baby, maybe one day, amp














will come by and with proper matching, we will succeed in making this baby sing, its a nice speaker but it is a really difficult to push pair of speakers, the Naton power amp, presumebly a 200 watter did quite well in the pink triangle, and i respect that unknown brand amp, with its raw power, it is kind of rough, but it does make a lot of speakers perform very well, but its vocals are not as smooth as the others like the Carver for instance, and also the Parasound which we tried last week. But the Naton power amp is one amp you should not look down at.
So with the pink triangle test with the usual test CD's i could say it was a Friday 13th days worth spending in this place, Symphony Classic Audio, and i do reconmend those that are looking at used audio items, and also vintage audio could take a look at this place in Campbell complex Jalan Dang Wangi, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Well have a great weekend, and i promise more pictures next time,