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This weekend I made an interesting experiment.  I had a visitor yesterday. The gay is not what I call overly critical and overly demanding listener but he is not a typical Audio Moron and has from my point of view a proper and sane reaction to the things – a seldom quality among audio hoodlums. He also does hear the things, perhaps not by the external or what I call “tactical” hearing but calturalsy - a good and valuable quality in my view, also very seldom among people who practice audio.

We spent 3 hours together and were mostly concern with some aspects of sound of top his top flying tube tuners vs. the tope flying SS tuners but before to do out audio experiments I spend an hour or so to play his various material for him in order him to get a familiar how the playback sounds generally and get comfortable with its sound.

I played explicitly FM recordings off my DAW. I was not sitting at the “sweat spot” but was somewhere else but I clearly heard that it was “bad electricity day”. The sound was flat and quite compressed. An addition of a few dB of volume added pressurizing, almost painful harsh force on ears.  Bass was also very flat with no texture. He did not complained a lot (well if person for a first time exposed to BSO live FM recording in full bloom then it is difficult to complain regarding how bad sound is) even those I felt that he was concerned about the sound of thin mass-strings (that in my vow was absolutely unlistenable). Since the APS people still blowing me and the Avicenna Regenerator is not here yet everything was plugged in the wall. I know that Melquiades’ HF channels are very little sensitive to eclectic power but Lavry 924 DAC through everything go in case of my DAW use is superbly sensitive to electricity and there is nothing the I have can help it.

So, I decided to make some change. I played a cut off my reel-to-real player. It is battery-power and has no contact to great at all, driving Milqs directly. All problems with electricity gone right the way and upper range was soft and non-abusive as it shell be. Furthermore, what I did not tell to my guy was that I was playing Dolby B recorded tape without Dolby decoding (this recording allowed to do it - Kodaly Op.7). Believe me or not but the system handled it wonderfully with no signs of stress at HF.

Well, I figured out – if digital is dead then I need to put the heavy artillery in the fight I begin to spin records. With my TT setup I have an interesting tool - I run my input-choke powered “End of the Life” Phonostage via an RCA-made 100W isolation transformer from in 1920 or 1930. The transformer is absolutely unique as it completely cures all electricity problems. None of the other isolation transformers (and I have quite a few) help to my phonostage. Also, this RCA transformer doe NOT help to any other devise I tried it with. I have to note also that this RCA transformer in some case does not help to phonostage as well (depends what specifically is wrong with electricity) but it is VERY effective in I would say 95% of all cases). So, the analog sound very nice this time. I was able to play is as loud as I wish (I plays it 6-8 loader then Digital files with no complain from my visitor), the basses were as they shell be (you need to hear what the New Jubilee does with bass!) and the top regions were as soft as transparent as I would expected, with no signs of any kind to force themselves to listener’s perception.

In the end of out meeting I asked my typical question: what among all played material my visitor found was the most memorable from this listening session. The question is not as simple as it might appear and has nothing to do with steadying of glitzy effects. I did not played crappy music and all performances were of very high caliber. Also, my visitor was not a typical audio idiot in his search of a cheap thrill of showy sonic sensations. I knew what I was asking and he understood what I meant. His response was peaty much what I expected – he music played from reel machine and LP cuts were the very first records that he named.

Well, what is next? The APS people promised me that this week then will eventually send me the new revision of their generator. Folks this is going on from the June of last year. My only positive expectation at this point are purely kabalistic – it will be the 7th PurePower APS regenerator and I hope my  Jewish heritage would kick in and bring me luck with this 7th unit. The Avicenna power regenerator I hope will be here before end of the year as well. Let see how that baby will push up against the electrician problems. The last battle between me and audio? Eh!

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