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The Inaugural Southwest Audio Fest
1416 Van Zyl Audio Horn Systems And Silversmith Audio
This room was of great interest to me as it was my first opportunity to hear a full Silversmith Fidelium loom of speaker AND single-ended and balanced interconnects - outside my own reference system.
System details:
I'm not sure what laptop was used as the file and streaming source to feed the Mojo Mystique DAC, but everything was connected using a loom of Jeff Smith's new Silversmith Audio Fidelium cables. What is Fidelium? Hell if I know, but the affordability of the material versus its extremely high level of performance has reset the bar for cable performance in my experience.
The analog output from the DAC was sent to the Class D Audio Mini GaN 5 amplifier, which in turn powered the Van Zyl Audio Alpine mid-horn speaker and its companion BB-10 bass horn. The Alpine covers a frequency range of 125 Hz to 20 kHz using its 8-inch Tang Band full-range driver, crossed over to a time-aligned AMT tweeter. The BB-10 bass horn subwoofer has a backloaded 10" driver, powered by a Dayton Audio SPA250DSP 250W Subwoofer plate amplifier with DSP. The overall presentation included nice shimmer and sparkle and presented with wonderful string tone. While the tone was very pure and honest, because they were so close to the front wall, they offered a fairly shallow stage. They also seemed remarkably lean in the lowest registers for a system using a powered subwoofer.
1401 - 3mA, UHA, And High End by Oz
I was more than anxious to see what both Oz (Ozan Turan), owner of Norwalk, Connecticut's, High End by Oz distribution, and Greg Beron of Washington, DC's United Home Audio had been able to pull off here, as when these guys get that perfect storm of electronics, transducers, cabling, and room integration just right, it is something to write home about.
System details MBL 1621A CD Transport - $33,400 ThraxMaximinus Silver DAC - $38,500 Thrax Ares Signature Integrated Amplifier - $21,500 Thrax Enyo Signature Integrated Amplifier - $12,500 Viva Solista Integrated Amplifier - $24,500 Lansche Audio Model 5.2 Loudspeakers - $57,000 S.I.N Audio Power Distributor PSD-10 Unlimited - $23,500 Albedo-Silver Metamorphosis Interconnect and Speaker Cables - $8,500 to $29,000 Albedo-Silver Gravity III Power Cords - $13,000 Ultrasonic Audio Racks - $4,500 per shelf
Sources here were either Berlin Germany's MBLs flagship Reference Line 1621A CD Transport feeding the flagship Thrax Maximinus Silver DAC, from Bulgaria, or Greg Beron's new mid-level entrant from his United Home Audio open reel deck lineup, the Ultima Apollo Reel to Reel deck. On Friday, the system featured the Thrax Ares Signature integrated amplifier driving the German Lansche Audio Model 5.2 loudspeakers, and all gear rested on Ultrasonic Audio Racks, made in Huston, Texas. AC power was managed by the Bulgarian-made S.I.N Audio PSD-10 Unlimited Power Distributor, and all cabling was from Poland's Albedo-Silver, including the Metamorphosis interconnects and speaker cables, and the Gravity III power cords.
Saturday, when I made my notes on the room's performance, they were featuring the Thrax Enyo signature amplifier. Described as a Modular Audiophile System, it joins the growing trend of entrants from manufacturers to present essentially a single-box audiophile solution. A single-ended triode design, using zero global feedback, it offers a fully differential balanced signal path, with transformer isolation for the inputs. The preamplifier board features a switched resistor volume control, hosts their MM and MC phono stage, Bluetooth connectivity, and its DAC supports streaming of multiple protocols including up to 32-bit/768kHz over USB input and DSD. The Lansche Audio Model 5.2 Loudspeakers represent an amazing accomplishment. First introduced in 2017, it is a three-way bass reflex design using the unique Corona plasma tweeter. What the Corona plasma tweeter can accomplish with its hard-to-describe nimbleness of treble reproduction and its absolutely insane sense of precision and speed is nothing short of extraordinary. The current Corona driver is an 8 mm device. Because it directly excites and utilizes the air itself as the medium of transmission, it is not bogged down by mass! An 8 mm long arc is set up between an extremely small, curved annulus in the middle of the combustion chamber and a high voltage outer electrode placed just outside the tweeter's combustion chamber. The resulting sound field it generates, given its absence of any system-generated noise or resonance across its entire operational bandwidth from 1.5kHz to 150kHz, without ever betraying even a hint of harshness or hardness, is simply breathtaking!
Its application here in the 5.2 model integrates it with a 6.5" Papyrus, coated mid-range driver, and a 11" Aluminum Bass Driver. You typically do not hear such exceptional integration and coherence with such a disparity of driver materials, but the Lansche 5.2 sang with one remarkably coherent, clear, and radiant voice, making for one engaging and exceptional loudspeaker. Overall, the presentation of this system was captivating. The upper-frequency extension was seemingly effortless and unrestricted in a way that I cannot describe more accurately, or recall having experienced in quite this same manner before. They simply embody that sense of graceful effortlessness, of unfettered extension, and the perception of the "space" and "air" around the instruments that allows them to regenerate the final measure of trailing ambiance and decay. They render full-scale orchestral pieces with bustling life, full of air, space, sparkle, and remarkably vibrant detail, and string tone is unnervingly honest.
Listening to "Ain't No Sunshine," from Tommy Schneider's 2013 Plan b3 release brought such an engaging sense of the space of the venue, and the vitality and dynamics of the instruments, yet was so relaxed and was delivered with effortless flow. There was a disarmingly honest sense of tonality and texture. When Greg cued up "Stimela" from Hugh Masekela's 1994 Hope release, I was nearly overwhelmed by the tonality of Hugh's flugelhorn, which was just so honestly rendered. If you were there, you know why this room earned its spot in my top five... If you weren't, go out of your way to hear them at any upcoming event. You won't be sorry.
1418 Songer Audio
I was very interested to get into this, the last room from this report, both to hear Ken Songer's latest and because I had not yet had the opportunity to spend any real time with the new LampizatOr Poseidon DAC from Poland. And though I'd heard good things about Portland, Oregon's Songer Audio and this new S1x speaker, this would also be my first opportunity to hear them either.
System details:
Here, the UK's stalwart Innuos Statement streamer fed the remarkable looking, featured, and sounding LampizatOr Poseidon DAC. While I had not had much exposure to the Poseidon, I own the Baltic 4 and was privileged to spend many months with the flagship Horizon, so, I had a good sense of what I may expect of the familial flavor and transparency. Though this was my first time hearing much of the gear in the room, including Serbia's Trafomatic Rhapsody, I have to say, the performance was very respectable, especially in terms of its ability to render faithful tone color. The Songer Audio S1x Field Coil speakers are centered around their latest V4 Nova driver, using a redesigned steel geometry milled from ultra-low carbon steel. The field coil pole piece is made from Permendur, a cobalt-iron soft ferromagnetic alloy using equal parts of cobalt and iron notable for its high magnetic saturation level, said to offer the highest saturation flux density of any commercially available metal. The use of a new solid copper phase plug helps to lower inductance while offering better thermal performance to the field coil motor. The entire Nova voice coil wire is given a deep, three-day cryogenic treatment, during which the wire metal is compressed, becomes more conductive, and its natural crystalline structure is restored. The result is an obvious elevation in clarity, detail, and accuracy. Oh, and the power supplies for them allow for users to make fine adjustments to the voltage, in turn affecting the tonal character of the loudspeakers, allowing for personal tuning to taste.
Falling back on some of my long-time standards, like "Fade to Black," from Dire Straits On Every Street release, gave me my first taste of its authenticity of tonality, and started to reveal its overall clarity and articulation. But it was with that repeatedly mentioned warhorse recording of the Fourth Movement from the London/Decca release of Beethoven Symphony No. 9 "Choral" by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, under Sir Georg Solti that revealed this system's refined expression of the individuality of voices, including the height differences with soloists. While the S1x offered surprisingly good weight for a single-driver speaker, the system was not a miracle worker in this regard, and it also seemed to be a bit scant in its ability to regenerate the fullness and bloom of instrumental and vocal body.
The Southwest Audio Fest Show Is A Rising Star
Till next time, enjoy the music!
---> Back to main Southwest Audio Fest 2024 show report homepage.
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