The World's Number One Audiophile?

Posted by: Robert Harley at 6:06 am, December 10th, 2007

This room also had video projection and multichannel capability. Electronics included a Mark Levinson No.40 Media Controller ($30k). The LFE channel was reproduced by a pair of Wilson WATCH Dog subwoofers. Again, the sound was spectacularly great; effortless dynamics, huge soundstage, and tremendous bass extension and power.

On the way to the next stop on the tour, we saw a small room with just one listening seat and a pair of Venture mini-monitors set up for nearfield listening. The main attraction, however, was the adjacent space, which housed a pair of the big Kharma Exquisite Reference loudspeakers. One of the turntables was the giant multi-tonearm Thorens (I don't remember the other), and the CD source was a top-of-the-line Goldmund.

The walls of this room, like the others, were lined with CDs and LPs.

This is where we spent the next 45 minutes listening, with Mr. Li choosing selections from his vast library. Watching him adeptly run the system, along with his ability to put his hands on any piece of music he wanted to play, showed me that all this gear wasn't for the sake of having the gear, but of using it as a vehicle for exploring the world of music.

There was a reason we spent most of our listening time in this room; the sound was extremely warm, beautiful, and musically engaging. Mr. Li had had the Kharmas only two weeks and said they needed more break-in time.

Would we like to see the LP collection? I thought we already had, in the rows and rows of LPs lining entire walls of most of the rooms and in walk-in-closet-sized rooms adjacent to the listening areas. The 60,000-LP archive on the third floor consumed about 700 square feet of floor space, with shelves to the ceiling. The collection was well organized and protected by temperature and humidity control systems.

The music spanned a huge range, and included European classical music, jazz, traditional and contemporary Chinese music, and rock.

We had finished the tour of Mr. Li's house, but there was more. Mr. Li had set up a hi-fi club in a nearby building for the benefit of anyone interested in high-end audio. The club was a large space with about 40 seats and a system consisting of classic Westlake loudspeakers driven by Gryphon monoblocks.

A huge array of top-end sources, preamps, and power amplifiers was arranged behind the system (an amplifier I remember seeing was the vertical tubed Nagra amps, which cost about $40k). The walls were lined not with an LP collection, but with single LPs mounted on the walls as tribute to the musicians and music. Portraits of composers also hung on the walls.

The club also housed the rest of Mr. Li's LP collection. The rest of it? Mr. Li recently bought the entire 200,000-LP archive from a library in Japan. The library, which might have been the equivalent of the U.S. Library of CongressâI couldn't get the answerâhad just digitized all their LPs and wanted to divest itself of the vinyl. The LPs were shipped in containers to the club and were awaiting organization, and, presumably, a new home in Mr. Li's house.

I would estimate that these 200,000 LPs consumed a volume of about 5000 cubic feet. The photo shows one room of LPs; there were three others just like it.

This description doesn't do justice to the vast array of gear in every room and to the massive range and amount of music everywhere. In each of the rooms, I would look around and happen to catch sight of other gear on-handâa Linn CD12 CD player, a Jadis preamp, a top-of-the-line Goldmund phonostage.

The list was seemingly endless.

All this gear is put to good use; Mr. Li opens his house to anyone who wants to come and hear music. He's extraordinarily passionate about music and high-end equipment, and shares that enthusiasm with anyone who's interested. Similarly, the club is open to the public so that ordinary people can come and hear great music wonderfully reproduced. What a wonderful gift to the people of Yang Jiang.