Len's News, Notes, and Stuff

Chasing the Triangle – Sound Systems Keep Failing My Audio System Torture Test

For the past 4 years, I have been chasing a triangle.  4 years ago, I experienced sublime aural pleasure that I have, unfortunately, been unable to repeat.  I have been unable to hear the triangle in Bond’s Hungarian Rhapsody.

I’m not a musical purist.  I don’t know how to read music.  I can’t tell you how Conductor A with The Acme Symphonic Orchestra sounds different from Conductor B with the Booville Philharmonic.  I played one damn note when I found myself behind a French horn in highschool music class.  After 2 years, including 2 months of early-morning remedial/punitive music practice, no matter what I did my horn made the same uninspiring blaaaaaat.

No, I am not a musical purist, but I derive intense pleasure from excellent music.  I demand crystal clear highs, and clear, powerful lows.  I demand angelic treble, and demonic bass.  I demand a musical experience that immerses me in the sounds of the music.

4 years ago, I hooked up my then-new high-end Sony headset to a computer system with some arcane sound card whose name I don’t even remember now.  I had the computer on overnight playing a variety of tunes to break in my headset to ensure the best quality sound I could get from it.  The next morning, I played one of my reference tracks, a lovely, full, and complex neo-classical track by the British quartet, Bond.

I closed my eyes and just listened to Hungarian Rhapsody.  I heard the instruments all around me.  I heard, of course, the strings front and centre.  But I heard everything else as well.  Most notably, I heard a triangle dinging from the back of the orchestra.  TINGGGGG!  It was sharp, it was clear.  It was unmistakable.  I could hear the triangle’s quiet ting die out gradually after each hit, and each time it was hit anew I heard it cry out with absolute clarity.

I have not heard that triangle since that day.  I have not found a sound system that will replicate the absolute clarity of sound from the lowest bass to the highest treble.  I have not found a sound system that will reproduce the sound of that triangle tinging in the back of the orchestra.

I’m not talking about not hearing it because it’s been muddied.  I’m talking about not hearing it because, as far as the sound systems I’ve tried since then, it doesn’t exist.  Had I never heard the triangle myself, I would not believe it was even there.

I have good sound equipment.  Not the best, mind you.  Not yet.  But my headset was a good $400 unit, and my earbuds are good $300 units.  I did extensive research before choosing my two MP3 players, neither of which is an iPod, in order to obtain maximum sound quality.  I have two very nice stereo systems in my home.  Yet, nothing I have will replicate the triangle.

To this day, I still run what I call the Audio System Torture Test when I test new sound systems, or when I set up a system to sound its best.

I run the following:

• Charlotte Church’s Mary’s Boy Child
• ATB’s 9PM
• Bond’s Hungarian Rhapsody

Charlotte Church has (or perhaps more properly, had) an excellent singing voice.  She was young, so in some places she sounds a little unpolished.  But be that as it may, she had excellent highs in her vocal range – clear, in control, and reasonably powerful.  Mary’s Boy Child is what I use to test how well a sound system can handle the human voice and how well it handles treble.

ATB’s 9PM is what I use to test bass.  There are plenty of good, modern tracks to test bass, but I know this track.  I know what it sounds like on excellent systems.  Plus, it has a good, strong dose of treble in it as well – and best of all, at the beginning of the track, it’s treble, followed by relatively pure, uncluttered bass.  It’s good for testing out what a system can do for contemporary, or as I prefer, techno/trance music.

Bond’s Hungarian Rhapsody is the combined torture test for a sound system.  It’s all there.  The bass is there, the treble is there, and best of all, the track is complicated.  There are lots of instruments involved in a high-tempo, high-energy environment.  How well can a sound system keep up with the demands of treble, of bass, and still keep everything separated, clear, and enjoyable?

One of my stereos at home reproduces the clear trebles of sopranos excellently.  My other stereo reproduces bass in a way that gets me smiling every time.  Neither passes my Audio system Torture Test.  Neither of my MP3 players, lauded as they may be (as far as stock, unaugmented MP3 players go) by serious audiophiles, even comes close to passing the test.

In fact, nothing I have put to the test in the past 4 years has passed.  Nothing since that heavenly combination of computer, sound card, and my Sony headset has stood up to the challenge.

Indeed, very simply, nothing has replicated the triangle.  I have not heard it since.

And I miss it.