iFi Zen Blue Bluetooth H9A Wenliang

Letter from Hong Kong (20-2): Eric L pitches $7 generic Bluetooth Device against $125 name brand.

Editor's Preface: This Second Article from Author Eric L is a delight. It starts with how he got into HiFi in a Hong Kong era that I had missed, but that would be familiar to many of my HK friends. And then he went into Critical Mode and the Result Surprised him! I absolutely relish his completely unbiased comparisons. At the End I'd like to say a few things in the Postcript. The above is another of Eric L's photos.

How I started my HiFi Journey I started listening to music when I was a little kid of 6. I grew up with music from LPs, played through a Thorens Turntable and a Sansui SS Stereo Amp [Editor: HK in that era was not what it is now; that setup would be at least mid-fi]: Sound of Music, Beatles and Carpenters. For some reason, I also liked to play Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, even if I was not exactly a classical guy. When I grew older (still some 40 plus years ago) I started to hang around HiFi shops like Excel in Central, HK, a renowned stereo shop selling Linn Sondek , Naim (I'm still a fan of older Linn and Naim stuff), Mark Levinson and JBL 4343 etc [Editor: Excel is still around]. There was also Radio People, that carried B and W, KEF 105, Quad, Nakamichi cassette deck etc. Of coz, the salesmen knew exactly that I could not afford to buy even a screw off any of their products but they still had fun teasing me and occasionally would allow me to sneak behind the big spenders to listen to some of their exotic setups [Editor: how heart warming! Try that today!]! That would have definitely made my day and enabled me to boast to others; but wait, there's none like me at my age group to boast to...

My Uncles I'm lucky in a way that I have a few uncles who owned some really expensive and exotic equipment. One owned a full set of Cello (total 8 pieces): Performance Amps, Preamp , their crazily expensive equalizer and flagship Stradivarius speakers, plus dCS DACs. He would invite me to his place from time to time to "enlighten" me and my friends (I got company finally~). Of course, no matter the sound was good or not, or if I knew if it was good or bad, I would pay him back with generous eulogies and praise to secure a future invitation, hehe! Down the years, as I came to know a bit more about the meaning of good sound, I can safely say that his stereo system did have amazing dynamics and sound effects. Another uncle had a completely different approach and they both would laugh at each other's setup; this one was using a Philips CD100 connected to unnamed 845SET monoblocks driving a pair of Top Tannoy. Imperial Sound? Quite musical to my limited ears.

All through my journey, I kept asking what the best sounding system should sound like. I kept finding cheap ghettoblasters with poor HiFi attributes to be extremely musical despite exhibiting a lot of distortions. On the contrary, the more expensive the equipment, the better the soundstage, depth and slam, the more embarrassingly the lack in excitement and musicality! It is so hard to have HiFi attributes coexist with feet tapping musicality! One thing I truly look for is honesty of a system. After all, the sound coming out of it cannot be better than the actual recording or performance, be it live or a studio effort! Well, stereo equipment is not an art to me, it's more like a craft instead. It has to portray the essence of music such that one can effortlessly immerse in it.

Back to HK Coming after the LP era, CD  was hailed as the most convenient format that can replace cassette and analog. Since my Red Dog RCA LPs that I bought with my pocket money were all given away generously by my cousin (thanks a lot pal!), I sold my  system in Canada (LP12/Ittok2/OrtofonMC20 Naim pre-power/ Linn Kan) before coming back to HK. I had to start from scratch again, yet another painful search for musical truth!

After a long search for the absolute sound of my own, with limited financial capacity, and numerous failures, I finally came to realise what I'm looking for. Thanks to a few experienced veterans, in particular Dom (HK distributor of 47 Lab, Sparkler Audio, Mussette, TotalDac etc; he persosnally uses the Pitracer CDP and 47 Lab's top turntable and the extremely scarce Miyabi cartridge, among other exotic stuff), I settled down with Gaincard as my ultimate amp. With a mere 25Wpc, it fits the job perfectly for my purpose - that is to play music which can touch my soul. I'm also extremely satisfied with my Dynaudio Crafft, which I think can sound as natural and dynamic as many speakers up to 3 to 4 times its price today. Even after 30 years, the sound is still as good. Is it the best? By far no, but it ticked all the boxes for me!

Everyday you learn something new! Three Bluetooth Receivers under 125 USD Face Off

So much for the babbling. After you heard about my $7 USD cheapo BT receiver (H-9A), I got another cheap BT (Wenliang) from my friend. AI also acquired an iFi Zen Blue. So I was ready to carry out a mini face off of the three! Source is still the almighty You Tube through my ancient 10 year old Mac Air which no longer supports the latest IOS.. Plus I have my Sparkler CDP 503 II Spiral back. I also borrowed from my friend Kwong a pair of Silvercom silver I.C. and some cones bought from Taobao (again). I was ready to rock and roll.

My anchoring system is the 47 Gaincard and the newly acquired icOn4 TVC AVC Line Control and Dynaudio Crafft. The newly acquired icOn 4 is so good that it blends into my system effortlessly and seamlessly. I would talk about it more perhaps in another separate post. But this is definitely one of my most important purchase recently, since finding the perfect linestage to match with my Gaincard is actually more difficult and demanding than one would imagine!

Fast forward to Father's Day weekend; I negotiated a full weekend's privilege to listen to music almost all day long (if not, it would take another week or two to complete this A/B/C comparison). Analyzing is usually demanding in terms of the focus and concentration needed to critique the minute difference between one piece and another. But interestingly this time, this was not so much the case!

H9A out, ZB in I unplugged the cheapo H9A and hooked up the iFi Zen Blue (ZB). I was expecting some sort of improvement over the H9A, but the sound , though different, did not seem better. I decided to run more songs through it. The night before, the ZB somehow refused to produce sound even when paired but it miraculously worked smoothly the next morning. Occasionally it would get unpaired but pressing a few buttons would make that work again. It's a nice looking device made of metal and has a "zen stone" shape. After fiddling with different combination, I sensed something was missing with the ZB which I could not explain. 

ZB out, Wenliang in I then hooked up the Wenliang that my friend Kwong lent me to see if I had missed anything. The unit is well built with a built in LPS but unfortunately once it was hooked up the sound became one-dimensional and soundstage had collapsed completely. I immediately unplugged it and listen to my CDP which was a treat but I sensed the sound can be further improved (perhaps another post). Now I began to question myself if my previous wonderful BT experience was for real??

H9A back in On the morning of Father's Day, with the special freedom granted me in full effect, I woke at 7am and the first thing I did was to unhook the ZB and swap back in the H9A. Voila, everything came back to live again!!! All the musicality, involvement, soundstage, airiness, PRAT were in full swing and I was involuntarily tapping my feet and following the tunes with immense pleasure and delight!!

I tried all the songs that I have used as reference, esp the Youtube Tiny Desk 's Free National mini concerts. I just loved the vibrancy and sophisticated dynamics of the musicians ! I even tried Chris Jones' No Sanctuary and compared it to my Audiophile CD version - I must say perhaps the BT is 80% in hifi terms but I feet no loss of musicality. Man I can live with it any single day!

ZB may have an edge on speed and instrument spacing, but the airiness as well as the ebb and flow of music have been largely missing, even simply lacking. Sadly my very high hopes did not pan out; of course, I would not give up that easily. Be prepared for a follow up once I can get a handle on it.

In the end, I am keeping my H9A. I also learned that they have a latest version with BT 5.0 and an additional USB input too, and for almost same price! I have already asked my friend to buy a few more H9As for me as spare, LOL!

Free Nationals at Tiny Desk
Chris Jones "No Sanctuary"
Nils Lofgren' keith Don't Go" Nils Lofgren's guitar is so fierce and piercing and his voice so sincere that how can one not be touched by it?

Liang Bo 's "That Boy" is so polished, forceful, soulful that I think even those who don't understand Chinese will like the song. [Editor: this video is from a Chinese version of America Got Talent; this fellow took the crown]

FKJ performance at "Live at Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia" is so spiritual and uplifting that I can dive into music while watching the grandiose and breathtaking scenery. Such a treat. These are songs that I must play once or twice every other day or two~ Another live performance from FKJ at La Fee Electricite is shorter but no less impressive and this is the one that i would loop as well! Yet another favorite is FKJ and Masego playing "Tadow" and I can't stop tapping my feet on this one. Those slickest saxaphones, but both of them are crazily skilled and talented!

Man, am I having so much fun listening to Bluetooth! With a sea of live performances not available on Spotify and CDs, I am in heaven!

Editor's Postcript: 1) We thank Eric here for bringing us more Virtual Home Visits as well as more music suggestions, and we look forward to more articles from him in the near future - a round of applause for cheap fun!; 2) After I posted my BT experience, Eric left comments that echoed mine and one thing led to another. I think I can relate to his experience (and that of my HK friend icefox) but those who have not yet used BT, or who dismiss it (including some of my friends), may not. The important thing of course is: does BT get across the music experience? We obviously think so, but you have to try it as a musical, not hifi, experience to see; 3) The H-9A may be viewed as a David by some, but I actually think there are many David's, such as my Aukey and HK-008 that I wrote about. BT is very basic, and there is not much that you can do to improve or degrade the sound. Newer chips may be more inclusive but they are still functionally similar to older ones. In all these devices, the onboard digital to analogue conversion and power supply are generic and rudimentary. I think there is no need to hunt for a particular model - just experiment on your own. As a corollary, the still inexpensive iFi is not a Goliath either. After run in, who knows? Perhaps Eric L will reconsider. Also, it has digital outputs, which from my experience is unquestionably an upgrade path, though that feature can be had for much less too. Of course, that's an extra component and another cable. As I have said, the built in digital to analogue conversion in cheaper devices cannot be very good and an extra DAC of one's choice will reap benefits. Until the next round...