I don’t know about you but I’ve got a sort of natural reticence to turning the volume up very high on my system. The obvious reason is that I don’t want to cause any damage to my speakers or my amp but on thinking about it a bit more and I realize that from past experience turning the volume up is a sort of novelty that becomes tiring after 5 minutes or so without adding anything to the quality of the sound. I suppose I’ve always thought that this was simply because “loud” was in itself tiring but now I think it’s probably more a matter of being subjected to more of those mysterious “fatiguing” elements that can be a part of the solid state experience.
So, a little bug got into my ear the other day and tempted me to see how my amp/speaker [AKSA 55N+ ; PHL,Raven MTM 95db efficient speaker] system would sound if I pushed it a bit. I chose acoustic tracks because it’s easier to detect distortion than with amplified sound and tricks.
I started my experiment with a David Olney song, Jerusalem Tomorrow sung by Emmylou Harris. It’s a far from typical piece of country music with hint of ambiguous blackness and a sparse presentation. By the third run through this track I’d gradually removed about 15db of attenuation from my normal listening volume still leaving me with a safety margin but most importantly with no hint of any form of stress from amp or drivers. This was loud to the extent that it was into the zone where it probably wasn’t a great idea for my ears and I was glad my neighbours live more than 1.5km away. The interesting thing was that normal AKSA rules still applied and instead of being flattened by a wall of sound, I was drawn in by the emergence of a whole series of quieter layers of sound that are usually inaudible or very, very soft.
Emboldened, I decided to get into something a bit more meaty in the form of some Bach organ work, Chorale Variations and Partitas, BMV 766-770. This is part of a three disc Decca set by Peter Hurford. It has all the build up of a five day test match [sorry to those of you who don’t do cricket J ] in that it strategically saves the climax till the end while weaving a great spell along the [70 min] way. At the end it sounds pretty much as though the organist is employing not only his fingers and feet but probably has his forearms and a brick on the keyboard as well. It’s big and I was mightily impressed. Some analysis … The lowest notes of the organ clearly show at least three components. There’s a clear “central” tone that is the basic note, surrounded by a more ethereal “tubey” sound and accompanied by the soft fluffy sound of moving air. Most of this is audible at normal listening levels but much more three dimensional when loud. The “brass” stop mid range notes scorch! A visual analogy struck me, that the sound is like a spray of red flecks on cool background. I have no idea what frequency or what harmonic these sounds are although they are there in small amounts and dissonant in a vibrant brassy way … very gutsy and not audible at lower listening levels! The high notes come through with total clarity and a laser cutting sharpness that threatens to cleanly slice off the top of your head, in the nicest possible way of course.
The overall impression from this experience was not of “volume” (although my ears did need a rest at the end). The AKSA simply revelled in being given the chance to open up and deliver the full spectrum of its amplified message without a hair out of place. The feeling was of enormous power tightly controlled and delivered with complete virtuosity. For everyday listening this sort of volume isn’t practical but it’s undoubtedly a truer representation of an original performance. If we slice 10 or 15db off this we also slice off a large amount of information that isn’t really replaced by injecting a little H2 via tubes. I’d even dare to suggest that an amp running at say 50% is not audiophile in terms of delivering a full and true message but it’s sustainable in terms of preserving our ears.
To do this little test you’re going to need either a 100W Aksa or a 55W with some reasonably efficient speakers [say 92db +]. So, if you haven’t tried it maybe you give your amp its head for an hour or two. C’mon, stuff the neighbours, this is fun!
jules
