A special word of thanks is due, I think, to Mark Whitnall, a reader who recently went slightly beserk and bought me an extraordinary amount of 'music scores' using the 'Buy Me A Coffee' donation mechanism. His donation was more than sufficient to allow me to make a long-wanted purchase of the full score of Parsifal, which I've been reading ever since whilst following along with the six different recordings of the work that I have. It is always amazing to me to discover how much more of the music you hear when your eyes tell you you're supposed to hear something specific!
It's been an immense pleasure and I am very grateful to Mark -and, indeed, to all my regular readers, whether they've donated or not.
The thumbnail to this post reveals another addition to my listening room since my last post: a Tannoy HTS100 sub-woofer. I've had it for nearly 15 years (I think we purchased the complete 5.1 surround system in Sydney, back in 2011), but it has seldom been used. I thought I'd bring it out of its retirement in the loft and see whether it added anything to my musical experience (I believe it's really more intended for adding thumping bass to movie soundtracks as you watch them, so subtle it probably isn't). It's because it's currently something of an experiment that you see wires sticking out of the centre console: if it ever passes the test of 'useful', I'll tidy all of that up.
Whether it gets that far is a bit debatable at the moment, though: my first use of it was to 'enhance' a 1957 recording of Callas in Il barbiere di Siviglia... and it nearly drove me mad: I could hear every damn foot shuffle of the singers, along with what sounded like tanks rolling past the recording studio! The thing essentially sounded like the low rumble I sometimes get from my tumble dryer when sitting in the far end of the house. Annoying, present but indistinct and not at all pleasant. 🙁
Then I read the manual 🙂 As it turns out, the recommendation is to keep the sub-woofer volume right down and only increment it slightly to the point where you can feel a little bit of additional bass, without it getting to earthquake levels. I'd had the thing turned up waaay too far, basically... and with it set down at something only just above minimum, I will confess to hearing subsequent recordings with a nice bit of extra oomph without it sounding unnatural, rumble-y or 'boomy'. I am just not sure if the modest amount of additional bass is worth sticking a giant cherry-wood box in the middle of my listening room. Remember, the aim was to have an invisible audio system here, as far as possible. The new amp sitting discretely on top of the centre console I can live with: I am in two minds about the joys of living with a huge lump of wood underneath it!
I also am not keen on the fiddling that goes on with these things. Not only is there the sub-woofer volume to adjust, but its crossover threshold can be mucked about with. Turning the crossover knob up means the sub-woofer plays higher frequencies; turning it down means the sub-woofer only handles the lowest of frequencies. Currently, I've dodged the question by sticking it in the middle and letting it handle low frequencies, but not just the lowest ones. I've no idea if that's a good thing or not: a lifetime of pernickety knob-twiddling awaits me, I fear!
Anyway: my thanks again to Mark and to all other donors. Your support means the world to me and has the happy side-effect of allowing me to enjoy my music, with or without added bass, to a much greater degree than before.