The Sound Of Music

I finally realised that I have a million-dollar sound system right in my own home.

Ok, a million dollars worth is a bit far fetched, but you get the point. It's darn expensive but goooood.

I'm not much of a sound system person and the only sound system i own is a humongous, passed-down-from-2-generations system which is taller than my CPU. It's ancient because you won't find such bulky systems anymore. Technology has compressed current sound systems to sleek and compact ones which look absolutely fantastic, nothing like my bulky system connected to 2 mid sized speakers which are located at the other end of the room. And the worse part - the CD deck is spoilt. For ages actually, but thank God i still have a decent computer should i feel the need to blast away.

Anyway, back to The Sound System. No, not my bulky one, but the bloody expensive one that my dad owns in the living room. Today i had a taste of why he was so proud of his system that he freaks out whenever we use it. Its good. Really good.

My dad and I were in the living room as he compared his System to an ordinary one. Our first disc was Eagles' Hotel California. I don't know why but even at electrical shops, people love to test using this song. He played it with the ordinary system and told me to listen to the background carefully. It was a chore at first cos I don't concentrate much on the music usually. I'm more of a lyrics and words person.

After a few minutes of playing Hotel California on the ordinary system, he switched it to His System. And i was amazed. I could actually hear and feel the difference. And if someone like me could tell the difference, I believe a true appreciator of music would truly love the vast difference. Its hard to tell you the difference through words, but basically one of the biggest difference is in the drum bass (the bong bong sound ^.^) in the beginning of the song. In an ordinary system, the drum bass is something like "Boooong, Booooong", but when the song is played via The Great System, the true bass sound stood out - "Bong, Bong". It was short and deep and beautiful. Even the sound of people clapping right in the beginning of the disc was crisp and clear.

The second disc that was put to the test was Titanic and the results were still the same - His System brought out the orchestra clearly and beautifully, something that would be hard to hear on an ordinary sound system.

But wait. The best has yet to come.

His System was only connected to the ADCOM power amplifier. The blardy expensive McIntosh power amplifier was untouched, waiting patiently for the chance to strut its stuff. And the chance soon came. On my request, he played the famous Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On after connecting The System to the McIntosh power amplifer.

Again, its hard to describe the sound. With the McIntosh power am, Celine Dion's voice is actually seperated from the music. Yup, you'll hear the music in the background and Celine's singing is brought to the front. Amazing. This is music and it was so beautiful that when my dad switched the CD over to the ordinary system, i cringed.

What you normally hear on the ordinary system is a jumble of instruments fused together with the vocals. It doesn't bring out the vocals, nor seperate the individual sounds of the instruments, the way McIntosh does.

But hell, that's what people are paying tens of thousands of dollars for.

P.S: And no, McIntosh is not the company which makes Apple Computers. They're different companies altogether. ^.^