Richard H. Mak

rick-mak Richard Mak is a full time investment manager. When he is not trading equities or reading research reports, he is himself a Part-Time Audiophile—and by all account—a very serious one!

Richard journey started when he was twelve years old in Hong Kong, when little boys were playing with their Apple II computers or roaming the playground, he was spinning vinyl on Luxman system and a JBL speaker. The hobby pretty much stuck with Richard his entire life, and he has since built a big part of his social life around audio and music. Well—that, and wine.

Contrary to most audiophiles, Richard does not believe high fidelity to be the ultimate goal in high-end audio. He believes that people are the ultimate goal. Two people listening to music together is more fun than one, and three is better than two. Four is a party. Sometime after five is when the police start showing up. When music brings people together, and people become friends, that to him is the ultimate goal of being an audiophile. This does not mean audio will become mediocre when it comes to the pursuit of high fidelity, in fact when friends get along, the combined knowledge of a group of people will open doors to better methods, better skills, better sounds, but most importantly, better relationships between people.

As such audio and music have been a blessing to Richard, as he has met more people through audio than anything else in life, which is why he continues actively promote his audio club.

Richard has been writing reviews for about 10 years. He is currently the Analog Editor at Mono & Stereo, and Editor-at-large to Part-Time Audiophile. He has also written for TONEAudio and Dagogo.com. Richard’s focus is with analog audio, he has set up over 2500+ turntable cartridges in his lifetime; AnalogMagik is his own proprietary solution to the challenge of cartridge setup.

System Objective

To recreate music as close to live music as possible. Richard room’s, however, is not designed for solo listening although he does have a “sweet spot”. He wanted his dedicated room to resemble a comfortable living space where he can enjoy music together with his family and his friends, which is why he has built a wine cellar to the left and an open bar to the right. Many in the industry have been invited to Richard’s listening parties, which he believes to be much more fun than solo listening.

The dimension of the room measures 17.5″ x 29.5″ x 9′.

Music

Richard has approx. 10,000 LPs, the majority being classicals, including a complete collection of DECCA Originals. He also enjoys folk, indie rock, and some folk music. Jazz, however, is not his thing. He also has a music library with 320,000 songs, a non-stop 24/7 playback will take 9.5 years to completely play through.

Turntable Setup

Turntables: TW Raven AC, JC Verdier La Platine Vintage, Rossner & Sohn Das Forumslaufwerk No. 26.
Tonearms: SME 3012 V1, V2, V3, Rossner & Sohn Si1.2, DaVinci Virtu, DaVinci Grandezza, Schroder Reference, Graham Phantom 2 Supreme B52, Reed 3P, Primary Control and more.
Cartridge: My Sonic Lab Ultra Eminent BC, Kondo IO-M x 2, Clearaudio Goldfinger Statement, ZYX Premium, Lyra Olympos, Phasemation PP-1000, Dynavector XV-1T, Ortofon SPU Reference, and more.
Phono Stage: Audio Research Reference 3, Audio Research Reference 2SE, McIntosh MP1100, Tenor Phono 1, CH Precision P1+X1, Kondo M7 + KSL, and more