The lifetime journey of an audiophile can be long and varied. From the first music you heard as a kid on a hand-me-down radio to the hair-raising experience of hearing a world-class esoteric audio system, the enjoyment of music can still exist at all levels of audio reproduction. If the sound you hear is the result of what you make with your own hands, an even higher level of satisfaction results. In a world where manufactured devices come from a far-away land and are increasingly dense and disposable, being able to make and control a key aspect of your musical enjoyment is a precious ability.
There are many reasons why DIY (Do-It-Yourself) audio is feasible and enjoyable:
- The human ability to process and enjoy sound is extremely complex and not fully understood. Subtleties in the reproduction of sound can enhance (or detract from) our enjoyment and these subtleties are often under the control of the experimenter.
- Old analog recording and amplification techniques from 50 or even 75 years ago still provide incredible musical enjoyment. These techniques can be readily constructed by a skilled amateur, unlike, say, movie or video techniques.
- Unlike someone interested in chemical experiments, electronic experimentation is free and uncontrolled (so far) and old surplus electronic parts and equipment are readily available, allowing experimentation on a budget.
- Some aspects of audio reproduction, such as analog amplification and mechanical design, are accessible to the amateur. Fancy college degrees or expensive industrial equipment are not required.
- There are many facets of audio reproduction, each with a deep history and technology, allowing almost unlimited fields of exploration for the inquisitive mind.
- With sufficient knowledge and skill, it is possible to build an audio system that sounds better than any commercial system available.
The result of these is that home-built or -modified audio equipment can be a fascinating and enjoyable hobby. However, my appreciation of this has been dulled over the last few years as I have become more involved in consulting on commercial designs (mainly for Artemis Labs), and the increasingly high-quality, and in some ways, uncompromising high-end systems I have been exposed to. When your audible senses have become fine-tuned and almost any system shows various flaws, it is easy to fall into a superior, dismissive attitude to lesser systems. I have never been a believer in the one, ultimate “absolute sound”, but I was beginning to adopt an elite attitude about audio equipment, thinking that most systems “sucked”. This attitude is readily reinforced by attendance of trade shows like the CES where (for a variety of reasons) the vast majority of the sound actually really does suck.
I had a pleasant reminder of my DIY audio roots, however, during a recent visit to Thailand, where my friend, Kamon, spent a day to bring me around to visit various audio DIYers he knew in Bangkok. For example, here is Kamon and Mr. Pae (described in my posting from October 2007) discussing the system in his house in the outskirts of Bangkok:
Note: The following pictures can be seen at higher resolution if you click on them.
