Andy Blanch’s Double Euro Champ SQ Vectra

Do you know, that by comparison to say, birds, bats and dolphins, we are blind and stupid? We hear a ridiculously narrow passband of frequencies, fit for nothing more than telling that it is OUR baby, weeping in the back of the cave. And we cannot process stuff we hear like they do, either. Birds can hear and use ultrasonics and when slowed down, are proven to trill and use notes way beyond our hearing. Starlings, in particular make a ‘˜buzzing’ sound sometimes. That’s the stuff you cannot hear. A bat can find and catch a moth in darkness with echolocation, fabulous ears and even flanges on their noses used to receive sound. And a dolphin can find squid with underwater clicks.
So why is it so damn hard to make music through speakers? As against made ‘˜live’ through loudspeakers, to sound really and I mean really clean, clear and emotionally potent? Well, to get around the live-electric thing, an electric guitar and a synth, or an electronic drum kit can ALL make a ‘˜signal’ that can poo on the limits of any recording device, (as can your voice) pretty much, up to now. So the ‘˜live’ sound of that stuff through a stage system will be far punchier and more dynamic than a recording. (That said, the world of recording is also changing with FLAC and a big announcement regarding high definition music on Talk Audio coming soonish) And for the real-world thing, that is about something called ‘˜rise time’.
For although I clearly resent having hearing less detailed and directional than a mouse, (despite having pointy pinneae like Spock, which I gather helps with HF detail) we can hear far more than we realise. The speed of sound in air is slow compared to say, water. Underwater, you can only tell if a motorboat is getting nearer or farther away, by loudness and when out snorkelling for hours, I would have to look up to check and wave a steel crab hook in the air if I felt they had not seen me And if you close your eyes and rustle your fingertips together and move them around your head, you can clearly tell where they are, even if it is someone else making the rustle while you don’t peep.
And rise time is the speed at which a sound is propagated. So a fizzy drinks bottle may hiss gently when opened and if released quickly make a very high rise time sound that scares cats. A pebble on a window makes a POK of such high rise time, it can wake you up, despite ‘˜not’ being loud. Gravel upon ice makes the most delicious sound, partly through that high rise time stuff, as it hits.
And making a speaker create the edges of guitar strings, the mouth sounds of a close-miked Adele, or the simple tinkle of a bell tree or the pish of a brushed snare all savagely high rise time sounds, takes a combination of expensive and sexy stuff as well as consummate skill in the application of it.
First, you need an exemplary source of the music and to use a good recording. In the car I look at and listen to here, this is an Alpine, obviously one of their finest and able to take the car to European league finals wins and silvers. This is the Alpine DVI-9990R and feeds the equally superb Alpine PXI-H990 processor. That the sounds and signals from recordings come through this and even get time-aligned and equalised digitally, without adding colouration or any audible distortions is testament to the sheer expertise of the Alpine technical and engineering people. Just fabulous.
Alpine DVI-9990R

Alpine PXI-H990

The sound system looks really simple on paper. Two two-channel DLS Ultimate TA2 amplifiers are used, one per side. One channel feeds a passive crossover that feeds a DLS Scandinavia three inch mid and a one inch tweeter, while another feeds a six inch midbass driver, each side to form a semi-active system. A further mono amp feeds the single woofer that has been builded into the cubic that was once the glovebox. For in common with the very best cars for sound, that DLS Nordica ten inch sub-bass transducer is actually in the how-do-you-DO-that (?) position of being in the front of the car, with the main music-making components.
Those DLS Scandinavia range tweeters in the front are in custom ‘˜A’ pillar constructions and that serious issue of rise time is dealt with by mounting the drivers not just in MDF and composites but to fabricate metal parts and supports such that the very monocoque, the steel of the car’s bodywork, is being used to contain/restrain/HOLD the speakers in place. After all, a good stand versus an amazing stand for top end HiFi ‘˜bookshelf’ speakers will allow you to hear the difference between a wooden-tipped drumstick, or a plastic-tipped one, when tapped on the bell part of a cymbal. That is, in words a ‘˜ping’ versus a ting’!

This goes not just for the tweeters but also the midband drivers in the completely refabricated and retrimmed dashboard-with-no-air vents and even the midbass drivers in their own enclosures within the doors. All mounted ultimately to metal, to keep the output from being smeared by a less than rigid mounting.

The two stereo DLS amplifiers are the DLS Ultimate TA2 model. Pretty, simple to look at, astonishingly high, yes ‘˜rise time’. Although in amplifiers, this most crucial of all sound quality attributes is found in the ‘˜slew rate’ of the amplifier. This specification is about how many volts per microsecond the output voltage can increase. You can see this effect also via an RCA cord when testing RCA wires on an oscilloscope. Send a ‘˜theoretically limitless’ really high spike down the wire to the ‘˜scope and see how big the signal is at the other end. Andy has used fat-conductor, well engineered RCA wires and they do not seem to get in the way of the sweet dynamic signals getting into these amplifiers and allowing them to do their thing.
Their thing, being ‘Tube Amp 2’ by name, in fact also includes nice costly parts and a really big signal to noise ratio, the other ‘˜big’ important specification for a good sound quality amplifier. That means that while there can never be ‘˜nil’ hiss-in-the-box, it is so quiet and deep in the distance as to be not discernible. Anything over a true 90dB is OK, these are rated at over 102dB and their insides are so exotic, they brag about them. For the knowledgeable, they are a dual mono AB design and use a UK-made military-specification tube or glass ‘valve’ from the 1980’s as part of the preamp section. Sexy!

A large part of the TA2’s design urge is thus to try to ‘˜disappear’ and be ‘˜a straight wire with gain’ meaning the audiophile does not want to hear anything added to or smeared by the amplifier. Just wants it made into caviar and Louis Roederer Cristal Champagne for the speakers just the best food.
So, when the speakers get theirs, it is clean, dynamic, equalised, time-aligned to tickle the driver like an embrace of musical loveliness the resultant like of which not many recording studio engineers will have experienced, let alone fellow audiophiles.
For the result is beyond delicious, it is superb. The sound is divorced from the speakers you can see. It seems to be hanging before you, a sweet, wide soundstage with depth fore and aft somehow by psycho-acoustics and odd cues to those ears I was so rude about earlier, for in truth we can hear more and do more with what we hear, mentally, than we know.
There is even a blind child who has been in the news recently who has started to make clicks to ‘˜see’ obstacles in his way.
The whole sound, from the tinkliest highs to a really rich and integrated bass, is just seamless. In an instant, you are no longer ‘˜listening’ to the equipment but the bit of music you are playing just grasps you by the soul. It was beautiful and ultimately a challenge to put into words. However, in the video below, I do try note the delay in this feature was a problem I had had with the first take on video of the motorised amp rack in the car, as to keep full function and access to the spare, so as not to lose points at the contests, this is a big scorer. The first one, made at the Modified Nationals, corrupted somehow probably me being cavalier with throwing SecureDigital storage cards around.

And if you have read this far and would like to watch the stills as a slideshow well click this link with a cup of tea and a biscuit in hand
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