Insights from Mr. Hiromitsu Numazaki, General Manager, Technical Development Department, TAD

Posted by Tan

Mr Numazaki, in his position as General Manager of Technical Development, serves the role as TAD’s Chief Designer for Electronics. I had the pleasure of meeting him at KLIAVS 2024, where we discussed various aspects of TAD. Here are some interesting highlights from our conversation (this is not a verbatim transcript, but rather a write-up to convey the essence of our discussion).

left: Mr. Hiromitsu Numazaki, General Manager, Technical Development Department, TAD;  right: Mr. Takehito Sekiguchi, Sales and Marketing Department, TAD

Tan: Currently, TAD’s product line seems to be complete for both the Reference and Evolution series. What are your plans moving forward? Do you intend to expand your product lines, perhaps with something more high end? Or something below the Evolution Series?

Mr. Numazaki: Indeed, our current line-up is complete. We shall continue to incorporate improvements and updates into our designs over time. As for a higher end product line, there is nothing concrete yet. Indeed, many of our distributors/dealers and customers have asked us to come up with higher end models.  We are thinking about it - what are the things that we can do to substantially better the designs we have right now, this requires a lot of thinking and design effort.

As for a product line below the Evolution Series, we do not plan to introduce one.

Tan: Can you tell us about the design philosophy between the Reference Series and the Evolution Series? Do they share similar designs?

Mr. Numazaki: We apply the same design philosophy to both. The Reference Series represents the ultimate expression of our designs while the Evolution Series is a scaled- down version. For example, the transport mechanisms used in the TAD-D700 and TAD-D1000 disc player are of similar design, and both are made by us, the one in the TAD-D1000 is just less elaborate. For the Reference Series we push the boundaries further, in the disc player and preamp, we beefed up the power supply and placed it in a separate chassis, resulting in significantly better noise performance, giving a much quieter background.

Tan: TAD’s product update cycle is quite long. Unlike some hifi brands that update a model every 2-3 years, TAD’s product updates are few and far between. The TAD-D600 disc player, for instance, took more than 10 years to be updated to the TAD-D700.

Mr. Numazaki: We must be certain that there are substantive performance improvements before releasing a new product to market. Our products are already of very high quality to start with, which is why our update cycle is long. The TAD-D600, which I designed, actually took 12, 13 years to be updated to the TAD-D700. It took me 5 years to improve the player’s internal master clock, and another 3 years to enhance its power supply, among other design improvements.

By the way, since we do our own design and manufacturing, we provide technical support for all our products, all the way back to the first generation.

Tan: You also don’t significantly change the look or aesthetic of your products from one generation to another.  

Mr. Numazaki: Yes, the chassis is an integral part of our design. Changes to the physical design affects performance, which means we’d have to review and revise the circuit design, reroute the cables and connections, etc. These will add cost to the product, ultimately impacting our customers.

Tan: I have been asked this quite a few times by friends - what is the difference in sound performance between the M700 monoblocks and the M700s stereo power amp, aside from the M700 being more powerful?

Mr. Numazaki: If we think of the high, mid, low frequency regions as a triangle, then the M700 would be like a equilateral triangle, while the M700s would be an isosceles triangle, with a narrower base (representing the bass region). This also gives a listening impression that the M700s has a bit more treble energy in its tonal balance.

The M700s is also slightly quieter. As a 2-channel amp, the M700s has more electronic components, we pack the parts closer together with shorter signal path, which actually gives a slight improvement in noise performance.

Personally, I tends toward bi-amping with a pair of M700s, with the top and bottom of the loudspeaker separately driven, and also for the slightly better noise performance mentioned earlier.

Tan: Thank you for your time and sharing. I look forward to have more interaction with TAD in the future. 

By the end of our discussion, I could not help but be convinced that TAD is a company that steadfastly upholds a very high standard of excellence. While it is a high-end brand with a corresponding price tag, the substantial effort, thoughtful design, and superior quality behind all its products are evident.

My Best of KLIAV 2024

Posted by Tan

In this post, I’d like to share my list of top 5 systems that led in sound quality in the recently concluded Kuala Lumpur International Audio Visual Show 2024.

I found that the sound quality of the systems on show was very high overall. The rooms seemed to be friendly to most systems, I didn’t come across any system suffering the biggest audio bane, the annoying bass boom  for example. 

I prefer systems that sound alive and lifelike, not a fan of a lazy or overly laid-back sound. Music in real life, even from just a solo voice, a single instrument, playing a slow song, always has a certain liveliness to it. A system that doesn’t convey that musical ‘tension’ will render the music un-interesting and will fail to hold the listener’s attention.

My choices here are selected based on the music I heard when I visited the respective rooms on Sunday afternoon. The systems are presented in the order that I heard them in the Show, there is no implied ranking. They range from the highend to the mid-tier, so it was not a matter of the more expensive the better.

1. Perfect HiFi – Nagra electronics, Sonus Faber

Perfect HiFi got it perfectly right this year. The Sonus Faber Amati loudspeakers used in this year’s demo were smaller than the SF models used in the previous years, but with the Nagra electronics, these Amatis had the command of the big hall. Bass was solid and very assured, further up the frequency spectrum there was an organic-ness, a flow to the music that was the strength of Sonus Faber. The sound never turned aggressive or harsh despite playing at a high volume level

2. AV Designs – Innuos streamer, complete TAD system

Huge soundstage, wide ranging dynamics, big sound. The top loudspeaker model in TAD’s Evolution range, the TAD-GE1 (Grand Evolution) is not a small loudspeaker, but they did look somewhat small in this big conference room, regardless, the pair of TAD-GE1s produced a room-filling sound and the whole system practically disappeared into the immersive soundscape.

3, HiFi Creations – Pink Faun, Playback Designs, Accuphase, Clarysis

HiFi Creations’ debut of the Clarysis panel loudspeakers was impressive to say the least. I loved their top to bottom seamlessness and coherence, there was no feeling of different drivers playing separate spectrum of the music. Transparency was excellent with a wide-opened window into the soundstage. Bass performance was a surprise to me, I always had the impression that bass was not a strong suite of panel speakers but what I heard here was well defined, deep and punchy bass notes.

4. Dream Audio – Shanling, Denon, Polk Audio

The first thing that attracted the attention of visitors to this room would be the flashy and flying saucer like Shanling CDP, but when I sat down for a longer listen, I noticed that the music coming out from the Polk Audio floorstanding loudspeakers (the extreme left right speakers in the photo) was quite nice to listen to. It was a lively, balanced and musical presentation. These loudspeakers are worthy of serious consideration indeed if one is putting together a mid-level system.    

5. D&A Analogue HiFi – Melody. Canton

These Canton bookshelf loudspeakers were absolutely punching above its size, they are worthy of their 'Reference' label indeed. I enjoyed the tonal balance of this system very much, the sound was rounded, had a pretty good body and no lack of details. The music presentation was lively too. The Melody tube amp were a very good match with these Canton loudspeakers.