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| Those extrapolating from the truly spectacular Chinese veneer skins of Franck's Tango R loudspeakers would be disappointed. The solid-wood HeartSong as per my samples was nowhere near finished to the same standards yet. By extension, cosmetics were not competitive with truly fine audio furniture like Finite Elemente for example. Imperfections in the hard woods weren't fully sanded down to 3000 grit. Certain cuts betrayed blade marks. Drill bores weren't properly deburred. The triple planks of Yellow Heart required to make a shelf weren't as tightly flush as desirable and the seams rough to the touch. The bonded Maple inserts of the legs weren't always flush. Some shelves bowed. Despite zero metal claims, certain steel tacks fixing the Rosewood strips to the frame rails protruded (right). Hab Tchang had not sufficiently put the 'fine' in woodworking to use. |
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Installed, much though not all of it became invisible. While it admittedly did not compromise functional or audible performance, the upscale pricing creates less tolerant expectations. Yes, wood is an organic material. It suffers innate imperfections just like leather. In the furniture and garment industries, there are acceptable ways of dealing with those. Other ways betray either lack of skill or insufficient attention to detail.
To what degree HeartSong production standards will improve remains for the next reviewer to call. The palletized packaging left little to be desired though I would still replace the nastily brittle styrofoam with open-cell foam before signing off. Otherwise that critical part of the recipe is already mostly perfected.
But I won't be the only one to think certain of these close ups hard to reconcile with either the tall sticker or ASI's prior output. It's peculiar because the evidence wasn't limited to a single oversight. It was patently standard operational protocol. Franck's keeping the business in the family is admirable but he'll have to act the disciplinarian boss until QC is competitive. If Jacob George can do it in India with his modular Rethm Talaam rack system, an American wood shop must also. End of finger wagging. |
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About performance. Aware of my room's layout, Franck Tchang had dispatched two 3-tier units and two amp stands. This would accommodate even the most complex system of two-box source, two-box preamp and mono amps I was liable to run. As it happened, my Rosewood Tango speakers, red carpet with yellow details, Cherry-red Yamamoto kit cladding and Ivette's large Geisha painting against yellow background really couldn't have asked for a more perfect color match than the HeartSong's unique combination of Purple and Yellow Heart.
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The racks are surprisingly heavy to formally veer into the high-mass camp à la Walker Audio.
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The fixed shelf spacing seems well chosen to suit even tall-ish tube amps.
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My oversized Yamamoto A-09S had thus far always proven too broad-shouldered to really fit on my Ikea-sourced butcher block platforms. The HeartSong amp stand finally was sized just right. |
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I distinctly remember setting up my first Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack in Arroyo Seco, New Mexico. Resolution shot up and bass weight which I'd previously misconstrued for true substance reduced as being really caused by distortion which the rack's noise attenuation schemes cancelled. The overall sound got leaner but much cleaner and rather more intelligible. The variable bass systems of my Avantgarde Acoustic Duo hornspeakers which I owned at the time easily redressed the tonal balance shift by adjusting the bass attenuator and low pass settings.
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HeartSong insertion* vis-à-vis the already wooden Ikea Molger slat racks now took a different exit off audio's mainstream boulevard. Instead of sharper leading edges and heightened attack crystallization of percussive stuff, it was in the subsequent harmonic rise of tone colors where the HeartSong contributions focused. Once again the chosen name is quite descriptive. It correctly hints at lyrical rather than energetic qualities, at cantilena roundness over adrenaline caffeine. The effect is very much related to prototypical tube flavor instead of transistors. Call it less noise-floor centric and object focused but keener on tone color enhancement, fleshiness and smoothness.
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* The racks are to be oriented such that the one-way bores of the maple leg inserts aim at the wall, not listener. (The thru holes by design vent sideways but the cross channel is open on only one end.)
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The before/after delta of performance seemed smaller compared to how what I'd used years earlier—pARTicular—found itself trounced by Alvin Lloyd's carbon-fiber / metal / Sorbothane constructs. Granted, I'd gotten serious about room treatments only later. My present installation combines a plethora of acoustic resonators, SugarCubes and four traditional man-sized trap absorbers behind the seat. Much of the 'dust' which speakers throw into the experience by exciting all manner of resonance interactions has already been cleaned out. |
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If half—or more—of the home work has been completed, it's perhaps less surprising in hindsight that the upgrade step from a performance rack should be lower. Be that as it may, it's what transpired. Quantifying the improvements would require a test bench. Qualifying them by stating what areas they made themselves known in is quite easy. Particularly on my Yamamoto A-09S which I run with Emission Labs 300B XLS and 5U4G rectifier all adorned with Duende Creatura Teflon tube dampers, bass damping—how cleanly notes start and stop—improved enough to be clearly noticeable on rollicking fare like Caravan Sarail's Walking to Kashi [published by Saphrane and conceptually related to Jamshied Sharifi's masterwork A Prayer for the Soul of Layla and also the Hadouk Trio]. |
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Amplitude presented with control is usually welcome. The Yamamoto is unusually endowed in bass amplitude—the preceding Yamamoto YDA-01 DAC is exceptionally strong in that area to boot—but in matters of control, the FirstWatt F5 and J2 transistor amps (not to mention the massive ModWright KWA150) are clearly better. With the HeartSong rack, the Yamamoto reduced its handicap. Over the Pass amps meanwhile, the increase of tone saturation was the more obvious benefit. In general drier and less fleshy than their valved counterparts including the German Octave push/pull pentode MRE-130 tanks, these amps now had deeper richer timbres.
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Naturally, swapping out racks upsets the cabling and circuits usually left on indefinitely must be powered down. That throws other variables into the mix. Because of it, my comments merely point you in a particular direction about what type of improvements to expect rather than attempt the capitalist answer to "how much?". Conceptually, I find the reason why one would pick the HeartSong rack very much related to why people add a valve preamp into an all-transistor system. It's about fluidity, dimensionality and tone body.
I also see a parallel with pulling out speakers as far from the rear wall as decor consideration allow. At the recent Milan Top Audio show, I became very much aware of just how audible walls behind speakers really are now that I've effectively lived without such a wall for an entire year to become forgetful about what's normal. A wall behind the speakers can telegraph as a constant echo-iness and insert a very fine blur of thickness. Removed, the soundstage liberates from the boxes and the objects on the virtual stage gain distinction and separation (depth gain can be startling but that's the most obvious result).
These are the types of effects the HeartSong racks create. I'd expect that in acoustically untreated spaces—i.e. normal living rooms, not audio studios— the power by which these effects assert themselves would be greater still. Once Hab Tchang brushes up on the finish quality now that the design is locked in, Acoustic System Int. will have a very strong contender in the 'enhancement' rather than 'subtractive' class of performance audio furniture. With the right kind of interior design, this product also presents a very attractive alternative to the more commonly seen wood species and their more muted—dare one say boring?—colors.
Manufacturer's reply:
I took note of the criticisms and fully agree that the finest finish and QC must be lifted up on the regular production.
Best,
Franck Tchang
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Acoustic System International website |
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