TAD 3401 Kondo M7 Ongaku 47 Labs Gaincard

Click pics to enlarge. TAD 3401 flanking Kondo M7 + Ongaku. Seng is a classical music man, and his wife is a bookworm. Even without children, their rooms are filled to the brim. 

Virtual Home Visits (6): TAD 3401, Kondo, 47 Labs revisited by Seng

Editor's Note: Regular readers shall remember my Hong Kong friend Seng, whom I featured in Home Visits many times. Before I left HK I consigned  to him my most treasured stuff, including a pair of the TAD 3401. The initial setup was reported here, and I urge you to read it as you will see the rest of the room as well as even more equipment. The following are his words.

When the speaker first came to the house, it was placed in the adjacent side of the living room (refer to link above) which was really too confined a space for such large speakers. I then moved them to the wider side of the room and the sound stage was much improved.

Before the Ongaku, I was using the 47 Labs Gaincard with the Kondo M7. Daniel [Ed: see Footnote 1] has come and listened to the system. He commented that the system sounded very direct and particularly good in playing jazz, the only weakness being the lack of micro-dynamics.

After switching to the Ongaku (I know it may not be a fair comparison), I understood what he meant. The sound of Teresa Teng became sweet and attractive. Before that, I did not find anything special about her vinyl. Now, I know why people like her so much [Ed: see Footnote 2].

Editor's Footnotes: 1) Daniel, aka Danz, is Seng's brother-in-law. More than 10 years ago he contacted me about Tannoy (I wrote a lot about Tannoy in the HK forum r33) and I have featured him regularly in my Home visits. Those are among the most interesting of my posts, and it chronicled his whole journey; should you be interested you can read everything by entering the word "danz" in the blog search (top left). A few highlights: here for my first visit with Tannoy Canterbury; here for his Wavac; and here for his Tannoy Kingdom. I met Seng through him. 2) I was in my early teens when I first watched a very young Teresa Teng on Hong Kong TV (our TV set was black and white). Due to her popularity in China when the country was opening up, generations of Chinese knew her songs by heart. In the mid-eighties, when there was an intelligentsia of Chinese artists and writers in NYC (most returned to China), I held parties for them sometimes at my home. I only have to play Teresa Tang (on my Dahlquist DQ-10's) and everybody would get up and do ballroom dancing (very popular in China then). For me, Teng is the best Chinese singer ever (I am a native mandarin speaker, whereas most HK people speak Cantonese and tend to gravitate to Cantopop). Her voice is sweet and there is an artlessness in her approach. Many of her songs are covered by female wannabe's, but no one can surpass her. Below I attach the youtube of one of my favorites, "sea tune", which is among the least covered because no one can approach it her way.