Finally, there is a place where you can objectively test the wire. German Hanowa Hannova in the Yangjiang World Audiophile Audio Museum, adjusted a reference room, welcome all audiophiles with their familiar audiophile wire, signal line, power line, horn line have a can, here for a detailed audition comparison, the result is in the hearts of the people, we are not too much rendering.
Since it is in the museum, of course, the equipment used in the collection is also the original design, and there is no additional addition or subtraction. In order to be able to continue this activity, the equipment used must first be fixed, and turning over the boxes and cabinets in the warehouse is the first problem. It is reported that at present, the hardware collection of the World Audiophile Audio Museum exceeds 3-4 thousand pieces, leaving aside some inappropriate products, just choosing speakers makes people's minds swell. The sound direction and style of the entire sound system, the speaker accounts for more than 50% of the factors, so start with the rationale. We want the speakers to be large enough to produce as much sound as possible in the full frequency domain, and four-piece speakers such as Gryphon, Genesis, Cicero Cessaro in Germany, and Classics Audio in the United States are not suitable. In addition, it is also hoped that the speakers are more modern and neutral, so antique equipment cannot be selected, speakers with too low sensitivity such as ATC or PMC must be excluded, and B&W Nautilus needs four sets of power amplifiers to promote it. Finally, the TAD Reference One entered the eye, this pair of speakers using coaxial mid-treble has an amazing bandwidth of 21Hz to 100kHz (-10dB), sensitivity of 90dB, maximum sound pressure of 115dB, average impedance of 4 ohms (minimum 4.1 ohms), with a monitor speaker pedigree, and is very suitable for fever use.
This pair of speakers is designed by Andrew Jones, and his classic "Dancing" speaker in KEF should still have the impression that the old enthusiasts who jumped to the German ELAC Yili a few years ago have a very high degree of completion at a lower price, which is very powerful. Andrew Jones equipped the Reference One speaker with the "CST Coaxial Unit", inspired by KEF's Uni-Q unit, but combined with TAD's beryllium diaphragm technology, it emphasizes the importance of time phase consistency, which can be said to be a model of the new century of coaxial units. The time phase consistency is like the anti-hand vibration function of the mobile phone photo, which can compensate for the time difference between the middle and high notes, so that the knot image is clearer and the sound field is more stable. The key part of the CST coaxial unit lies in the 16 cm beryllium diaphragm midrange, because the beryllium metal is very rigid, the ductility is not good, and the unit to die cast a large area is very easy to break, so we have never seen beryllium midrange. The technology used in TAD is called evaporation, which vaporizes the liquid beryllium at high temperature in a vacuum environment, allows the steam to adhere evenly to the copper mold, and then dissolves the copper mold with pickling to remove the beryllium diaphragm, which is very expensive to produce.
A 10-inch woofer that inherits the TAD
Two 10-inch four-layer cloth edge bass from the diaphragm material and structure are newly designed sandwich composite structure including two layers of bulletproof fibers, the middle plus a very light foam material, the composite structure can eliminate the sound characteristics of the material itself. In order to enhance the power endurance, the bullet wave inside the woofer is still double-layered, which continues the characteristics of the TAD professional pedigree. The matching OFGMS strong magnet is actually a "short voice coil, long magnetic gap" design, the voice coil has a moving distance of about 30 mm, so it can fully squeeze the air to emit a very low frequency of 20Hz. The circular box is slowly bent and formed in the mold with many layers of splints, the plywood is 50mm thick, and the engineers also installed a birch skeleton inside, the thickness of the skeleton is 21mm, TAD is called SILENT, inspired by the keel of aircraft and ships to change to the use of box strengthening and shock suppression. The bottom of the speaker has a horn-like rail, which reduces the airflow as the bass airflows to the bass reflection hole at the bottom. The base is made of birch and aluminum alloy composites, which has the advantage of high rigidity. TAD says that the Reference One can only produce up to 50 pairs a year, so in addition to the powerful performance, there must be beautiful and luxurious elements, such as attaching precious Pommele Sapelli veneer (the same as Bentley Bentley car trim), and then painting and polishing many times, repeatedly taking three weeks to complete, the cloudy wood grain is beautiful. When it was first launched, the price of the speaker was about 500,000 yuan, and the branch director of Pioneer stationed in China was appointed every two years, and they said that whoever introduced it would be responsible for selling it out, so Pioneer never officially promoted TAD, and there were very few domestic users.
The speaker decides, what amplifier to use to push it? In recent years, TAD has successively launched the Evolution series of electronic products, such as D1000MK2-S SACD player/ digital broadcast all-in-one machine, DA1000 decoder, TAD-C2000 pre-stage, TAD-M2500MK2 post-stage (Class D amplification output power 250W/8 ohm, 500W/4 ohm), etc., all of which are heavyweight productions. It's really heavy! The SACD machine weighs 18.5 kg, the double mono rear stage weighs 43 kg, and even the front stage has 23.5 kg, because the chassis is milled out of the whole aviation aluminum CNC, and it is conceivable that the price will certainly not be cheap. Unfortunately, the museum has not yet had the opportunity to collect, so it is necessary to find another target. Mr. Chen, the Chinese general agent of Hanowa Hanova in Germany, also believes that in theory, the speaker can be driven very well by 50 watts, but for it to emit surging energy and control the low frequencies well, high-power rear stage is still needed.
So a round of collocation attempts began. The first to play was Audio Research's Reference 3 Bladder Pre-Class + Reference610T Mono Rear-Stage, which is densely packed with 19 stout tubes (including 16 6550C) above the nuclear bomb launch chamber of a nuclear submarine, weighing up to 154 pounds each and 600 watts of exaggerated power per channel. Indeed, the driving force of ARC is not hindered, in addition to having a dense combination of majestic boldness, high density and full energy can also make the speaker disappear in the room, warm and feminine transparent sound loose and pleasant. But pushing the TAD Reference One speaker, the speed and transient response are poor, the stability is grand but not dexterous enough, and the extremely high frequency air sense also lacks a trace of appeal. The second to play is the Voice of Berlin Burmester 909MK5 stereo rear stage, the chrome panel can be said to be a common element of their home equipment, and this flagship rear stage combines the two conflicting qualities of roughness and meticulousness, showing the momentum of the emperor, from the weight of 80 kg, the output of 600 watts / 4 ohms can already be seen. The speed came up, and the control of the 909 MK5 was beyond imagination, maintaining a good proportion of the body even at extremely high sound pressure, and its extraordinary control was also manifested in details that were not forced. Similarly regrettably, the back of the Berlin Voice is clean, clear and rational, but the diving and energy of the bass are slightly light and unstable, and the looseness and elasticity are not enough.
I don't mean to disparage the two amplifiers in the slightest, they are classics, but the combination and personality are not very suitable. Finally moved the Guifeng Gryphon Mephisto mono rear stage, each 108 kg weight, output power 200 watts / 8 ohms, 1600 watts / 1 ohm, peak output of 9000 watts 0.25 ohm load, and another Big Mac. Ordinary enthusiasts are afraid that they will never have this opportunity in their lifetime, they can move the amplifiers heavier than people in and out of the house at will, and several little brothers in the museum often practice, and have long practiced special skills, so that they can be positioned in three or two clicks. One of the godfathers of fever in Taiwan, Dr. Cao of Taipei, a pair of TAD Reference Ones in the family has been used for many years, and has changed several sets of amplifiers to serve, and finally got it with Guifeng Greyphon Mephisto mono post-stage. Sure enough, the performance of Guifeng post-level is relatively balanced in all aspects, and the museum also has Gryphon's split pre-pandora, which should be the best choice, and the result is still used after the comparison of Audio Research's Reference 3 bile pre-level collocation, the sound is warmer and more generous, relaxed, and the sound quality is more attractive.
What is the effect of pushing the TAD Reference One speaker with the Guifeng Mephisto mono rear stage? High power plus large speakers, not only is not rough and arbitrary at all, but has a clever balance, upward tip has a beautiful extension, glossy and bright and not harsh at all, low back is warm and thick, vocal lip type changes, musical instrument charm twist, all kinds of details set off an excellent sense of life. The cohesion of the strings, the details of the strings and the correctly realistic timbre are full of a sense of nobility that is shiny and slippery. The soundstage space is wide, showing a sense of transparency in the sunlight in the delicacy, and the excellent depiction can clearly distinguish the distance between the instrument and the instrument, constituting a changing sense of hierarchy. Of course, adjusting the sound is not a one-step measure, and Mr. Chen, the Chinese general agent of Hanowa Hanova in Germany, hopes that this combination can show a vast and open three-dimensional spatial effect, especially the sense of space above the speaker, but the TAD Reference One is only 1.3 meters high, which limits the height of the positioning of the image.
So the positioning challenge began, each speaker weighing up to 150 kilograms is not able to move at will, or front or back, or wide or narrow, or inverted or pendulum, in short, a variety of attempts have been made. Every time I fine-tune, it always takes several people to work together to succeed, and I think I don't have enough waist strength, so I can only shout cheers from the side. Another problem arose during the adjustment process, because the museum room was too large, the energy of the speakers was over-diluted, and it always felt that the extremely low frequencies sounded too addictive. We used Jennifer Warns' "The Hunter" album as a tuning reference, and this record is as brilliant as the previous "Blue Raincoat" recording. The bass performance of the eighth song "Way Down Deep" is unfathomable, wave after wave, the lines are clear and sticky but elastic, and the vocals come out of the background, with a first-class sense of layering. The ninth title song of the same name, "The Hunter", begins with a melodious string, and the full and plump effect is convincing. In some positions, the string group we hear will be reduced from 50 to 10 people, and the very low frequency of the big wave will become a small splash, although the overall clarity and sense of line are very good, it is really not rich enough. Some positions can make the singer gain ten pounds, the cello volume expands, and the timpani drum shows the shock of the bass drum, but it also loses the transparency and cohesion of the sound field. It can only be said that the final decision is a "more ideal compromise" for this space.
I've always believed that the biggest key to tuning is the bass, as long as the bass is full, plump and clear and fast, the treble is usually not too hard to hear, that is, with a pyramidal balance. When the space is too large and the speaker cannot provide enough bass energy, the easiest way is to add a separate subwoofer, but there are not many subwoofers specially issued for audiophile speakers, and home theater products often have a sense of volume and no texture. So in the adjustment process of the museum, try to add the Zhenli Genelec studio subwoofer 7382 SAM, which is a relatively special design, a total of three 15-inch woofers, built-in 2500 watts of Class D amplifiers, the lowest frequency can dive down to 15Hz (-6dB), the maximum sound pressure of 129dB, each weighs 145 kg, the studio can hide the huge box under the mixer, home use may be difficult to set up. Genelec's design must be connected to a computer to perform various adjustments to the crossover point, crossover slope, Q value, phase, and level with dedicated software. But the museum can not find the software at once, so it can only rely on the ear to move the position, the human ear is not sensitive to low frequencies, so it is difficult to accurately achieve the perfect connection, especially the TAD Reference One itself has a 20Hz extension capability. The final result barely passed, in a space of nearly a hundred square meters of bass strings can already have a sense of weight in groups, rock and roll electric bass is also powerful enough to Q, but the speed still needs to be further corrected.
In the whole system tuning, the power cord, balanced signal line and speaker cable of Hanowa Hanova of Germany were used throughout the process. Since the power plug of the Rear Stage of Gryphon Mephisto is a 20A square hole, the connection to the American Standard connector must go through a conversion head, which proved to be a huge impact, and Hannova has asked Germany to urgently ship to support. New Sound first introduced the THORN ACOUSTIC company, where the current operator Sebastian Sperl is the head of a rock band. In 2012, they began designing and producing speakers in collaboration with the Italian speaker manufacturer SICA, and in 2015 launched monitoring series, singing series and several home theater series under the ZtM Speakers brand. In addition, they also launched more high-end audiophile cables, speakers and other products under the Hanowa brand. A company has done electric guitar amplifiers, produced pianos, and finally returned to speaker design and manufacturing, and the long accumulation of experience has become the greatest wealth. This, coupled with Sebastian Sperl's inroads in the rock band, let him know how to make the sound equipment produce a sound effect that is close to the scene.
After a long period of exploration, the R&D team led by Sperl believed that all fever lines, no matter what kind of structure, were equivalent to an equivalent circuit, and any one parameter change in this circuit would produce one or more relative changes. For example, the change of capacitive response and inductive response will produce changes in pure impedance, which in turn produce various different parameters, which are similar to the changes in the line composition of the chip in the equipment. Chen Guorong once introduced that the purpose of HANOWA wire research and development is mainly to overcome the problem that it is difficult for the traditional two-channel system to fully express the sense of stage sound field, and the key lies in sufficient frequency bandwidth, extremely low resistance and capacitance. HANOWA wire is made of 5N single crystal copper conductor with high purity, thick wire diameter, few crystals, no directionality, anti-corrosion, and extremely low electrical impedance, and only when the material is right can it be closer to the ideal. The lower the electrical capacitance of the wire, the cleaner the sound performance, HANOWA made an isolation sheath with high-density polyethylene material and Teflon, which was effectively reduced to about 90pF per meter. The study also found that the isolation of external electromagnetic interference, and even do not interfere with the nearby wire to improve the overall sound significantly, Hanover from the IT industry to find inspiration, the use of super six types of data cable practice to resist internal and external interference, including static electricity, electromagnetic, radio frequency, vibration interference, etc., each wire has a multi-layer shielding layer to adjust the overall performance. The signature series connector does not use wattgate and other products, all of which are customized with German VIABLUE products, processed with high silver tin, and the production and testing are all completed in Germany. In addition to the huge and stout plug, the cable body is also tuned with a leather jacket, and the whole series of signature board wires have a similar appearance, beautiful and textured. Because the wire diameter of the wire is very thick, coupled with the multi-layer shielding structure, the line body is hard, can be the lightweight CD machine "lifted", the turn behind the back plate is not very easy, this is the only two disadvantages, other parts of the author think are positive effects, of course, the price if the people are better.
In fact, I pay more attention to the parameters indicated by Hanover wire. Almost all fever lines do not indicate parameters, but they have real differences, and the basic electrical characteristics of wires are capacitive impedance, impedance, and inductive reaction. In addition to impedance, the items of wire testing also include tensile strength, voltage resistance, structural loop loss (the strength of signal reflection in the entire frequency range), attenuation (the factors affected by conductor thickness, length, material, etc.), proximal crosstalk (influencing factors such as strand distance, insulation thickness, distance between lines), integrated proximal crosstalk, equivalent far-end crosstalk, time delay and so on. This involves materials science, cryogenics, quantum physics, metallurgy, the chemical action of physics... Because it is not easy to explain, some manufacturers may not understand it themselves, so the fever wire is reduced to "metaphysics". No! Its practical science can explain it. The test data is not necessarily equivalent to sound performance, because there are also factors that are difficult to grasp such as EMI interference and shock absorption, but science will not be superstitious.
American music ribbon Nordost is the earliest to publish the electrical characteristics of the wire brand, such as the capacitive impedance of 32.0pF / ft, the inductive impedance is 0.46 uH / ft, through these data we can know that its speed and transient reaction must be very fast, the factory claims that the conduction rate can reach 90% of the speed of light (theoretically the current is propagated at the speed of light). The same conductor, you can control the line spacing and weaving to get different senses of resistance tolerance finished products, respectively, represent different frequencies through the performance, can change the adjustment sound like EQ, this is one of the fun of playing with wire. German Hannova believes that the capacitance value should be low, but it is necessary to avoid the side effects caused by the rapid agility of the music ribbon, such as the low frequency is clean and condensed but the sense of volume is not rich enough (the resistance value is too low), the sound field is transparent and clear, but the audio and video lack of a sense of substance. Hanover's capacitance value is only about 30pF per foot, even beyond the music ribbon, which is an interesting contrast to Cardas Clear's 446pF, and HANOWA cable is probably the champion of the lowest capacitance value of the current fever wire. When the capacitive reactance is lower, the faster the current speed; the higher the capacitive reactance, the slower the current speed, how to pinch it depends on the designer's choice.
Some people think that the power line can partially replace the capacitive role in the power amplifier, as an energy accumulator, playing a role in key moments, reducing the instantaneous current demand brought about by sudden high and low changes in music. For example, although the power line from the substation to the home is fixed (water pipe), if the fever power line is very thick, it is equivalent to installing a water storage tank, which can play a key role when a large amount of water is suddenly needed to extinguish the fire. Hanowa wire is practiced by using thicker and more core conductors to store more energy without reducing the water flow rate of the water pipe, while improving the patency of the water pipe with a 5N single crystal copper high purity material. How thick is it? According to the agent Chen Zong, the general WBT, WATTGATE and other power heads can not accommodate their conductors, can only choose the German VIABLUE custom products. In addition, they have carried out a lot of research on the twisting distance of the conductor, so that the electrical characteristics of different parts of the wire tend to be consistent, and the instantaneous effect on the transmission current is higher, that is, it is required to flow both one ton of water and only one gram of water in different microseconds. If the thickness of different parts of the water pipe is inconsistent, it will not only affect the flow rate of the water or even cause many eddy currents, but also the current eddy current will produce a magnetic field, which will have a greater impact on the stable flow rate of the current. In the past, the higher the purity and finer the wire rod sound analysis power, the faster the speed; the relatively low purity and thicker the wire sound, the looser the sound, the slower the speed.
At present, I have used a number of HANOWA power lines and balance signal lines in my home, the horn line has not been replaced for the time being, my experience is that the Hanover cable is fast enough, the analysis is high enough, the dynamic is strong enough, the background is quiet enough, the low and medium frequencies are full and strong enough, and the ability to create a three-degree sense of space is super strong. The sound I like is relaxed without pressure, with the feminine transparency of the static speaker, the stage is unfolded behind the speaker with a fan-shaped structure, the front and back layers are clear and orderly, the timpani drum and the big drum will not rush forward in the last line, the lower plate is wide and elastic, and the German Hanover wire is currently the only product that can meet all my needs. As for its secret? Maybe it's the result of a combination of factors! Talking too much is also regarded as a bragging, gunner, so HANOWA simply adjusted the system in the World Audiophile Audio Museum, so that all audiophiles can compare with their familiar wires, and when the equipment combination, positioning, and space are fixed, they have a better chance to enjoy the fun of playing with wire. Welcome!
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