James is an avid music lover, and an accomplished tuba player, a difficult instrument which he started learning at the age of nine. He has represented Singapore in many overseas wind band competitions and was a founding member of The Philharmonic Winds, the premier Wind Band in Singapore.
James’ real interest lies in the realm of digital audio systems, where he marvels at how digital systems translate digital signals into sound. He started dabbling in DIY audio electronics in his teens, and throughout his university days. He graduated from the National University of Singapore with a bachelor degree (2nd Upper Honors) in Electronics.
James has a privileged career in audio digital electronics design in Singapore.
Working at Philips SG, he was part of the design team for the first SACD player to be fully designed in Singapore, the 963SA, and lead the design team for its successor, the DVP9000SA. He was part of the sound tuning team for these landmark players.
Prior to joining Cirrus Logic, the premier Audio Semiconductor, he was at Behringer, where he designed and developed a series of guitar amplifiers.
At Cirrus Logic, he focused on the application design and support of cutting edge audio codec technology and complex digital audio DSP systems. Supporting and winning over many multinational corporations, he is involved in many different types of digital audio product developments, including high end hi-fi, AVR, sound bar, MP4 player, soundcard, tablet and smartphone application. Rising through the ranks, he became the audio specialist for the Asia Pacific Region.
Effective Audio Mod started in 2003 as a hobbyist’s pursuit to express his love of DIY audio. He is very intrigue by the process of getting the best performance from fundamentally well-designed equipment. He firmly believes that modifications of sounds and well-designed equipment, is the way to get the best value and performance out of astronomically priced hi-fi equipment that has limited engineering content but a huge marketing budget.
Over the years we have grown steadily to become the premier digital audio modification place in Singapore. In 2013, James decided to pursue his passion full-time and set up Sound Affairs Pte Ltd to offer the most natural, live, and musical experience right into your listening rooms.