300B push pull stereo amplifier (20 watt at 8 ohm). This is truly special because of: (1) purity of tone, and (2) amplitude of dynamics, and (3) agility of attack.
It is a vivid example of achieving “Super High End” for the broader market. And I don’t say this lightly because I have a list of formal criteria defining the meaning of it. I shall share it in the future. But the best is to experience on site.
I truly love the ARNE particularly when Takatsuki 300B tubes from Japan are deployed. (These tubes work wonder with Zanden Chouku 長空 and Zanden KAUN 火雲 as well). Then, I moved on to install Revopods underneath it. The amp sits atop SRA Virginia amp stand. The ARNE is also connected to the Tripoint Troy Elite via Dalby Ode Grande ground wire. The excellent sonic fundamentals of ARNE drive me taking turn to power it by Skogrand Beethoven and Argento FMR EE in order to test the limit of the amplifier on the Vertere Electrical Phase Management Centre (negative electric polarity is selected for ARNE). You don’t need to walk this far like me.
I wept when Sally Yip 葉蒨文 was performing 情人知己 2012 港樂 LIVE Concert. The format is 24/96 given to me by Edison Wong inside his CORE server playing through the Wadax Arcadia DAC. Delivery of Sally’s dynamic range is flamboyant. The instrumental arrangement of this song complements the gradual buildup of emotions before finally bursting into explosive dynamic continuously for a minute. It has become one of my top demonstration tracks. It is damn touching.
I recorded a short clip by iPhone 8. I sent it out to a group of non-audiophiles intentionally because they have no bias. This 1 minute video subsequently brought me 3 prospects whom have no practical knowledge of Hi End audio. But they were all emotionally touched by the music via the video. They will visit AE this weekend.
Never would I anticipate a casual recording resonate so much including a taxi driver. The driver commented the realism of Sally’s voice. He could tell she was singing in a live venue. He thought I was watching YouTube. Before I got off the car, I showed him the video. It turned out he is an audiophile too. I didn’t carry any AE business cards yesterday. I told him my company name.
After being spoiled by many different mega systems lately, I think it would not be easy for Chris to surprise me with any "normal" systems. However, I found I was wrong when I visited AE Sheung Wan to listen to Arne to drive a pair of new speakers Casta.
Arne is an integrated amp with 300B tubes, my expectation would be mellow and soft sound with limited dynamics and speed. Surprisingly, the music playback was full of power and passion, the speed is quite fast, and yet the vocals were very touching with the emotions and musicality of 300B tubes!
I must agree with Chris that Sally's live performance was very touching and real. Emil Gilel's moonlight piano sonata playback was crisp, full of body and authoritative bass energy, with very well rendered imagine and soundstage.
Thanks to Arne's push-pull design, this "humble" system can reproduce very realistic, musical and touching sound, and yet with strong energy and punchy bass.
The performance of this set up is well beyond its price tag. Once again I was wowed by Chris!
Jeff, Arne is beyond expectation at this price level. It's quite musical. If you are not chasing for ultimate resolution, and just want to dive in music, this amp can deliver joyful experience.
Maybe someday I could try a 300B in my place, though I am very satisfied with Cessaro amps now.
I do think your mega sensitive speaker system justify to have another 300B amplifier to swap. Had you tried ac active preamp in the chain? Roy’s review of your system is well read. It is very fresh approach to have Roy writing about your system.
I do concur an active preamp would deliver the ultimate control on the minute contrast and most subtle energy disburse. Roman, you should seriously consider. You started some years ago in a more humbled setup where a passive preamp would do more than the necessary job to meet your expectation. Now the benchmark has been exponentially alleviated which allow little room for imperfection.
It would be interesting to see how an active preamp and a 300B amp could perform in my system, though I still believe Ralph designed the best combo, Air One and Air Two for these extremely sensitive speakers.
Roman, at your mega level, I think it is not a bad idea to have a different favor. It is not about which is the best. It is about exploring the system deeper and deeper. Each tube have different characteristics. 212 sounds different than 300B. Passive preamp is quiet, but you may want to explore more on the control aspect of the system. Your system allows millions of opportunities to test the limit.
Cessaro Firebird has been back to my place for more than 2 months since the August Hifi show during which I encountered a minor capacitor problem in one of the Eric when I had a chance to have a short rendezvous with Riviera AFM-50 pairing with Firebird. Riviera opens a new musical perspective for its special research on neuroscience on distortion correction/adjustment deployed in their amplifiers. In terms of driving power, AFM-50 has ample control and driving capacity on the 1-treble-2-midrange combo in Firebird leaving the 6 x 12 inches woofer to the baton of XiangYu power amp.
Riviera+Firebird is pleased to the ears delivering an organic and moisturised vocals and chamber music with string instruments. The musical enjoyment of Riviera stems from the naturalness and non captivating presentation. Firebird is definitely not a power hungry speaker in which case whether it is AFM-50 or 100 may not make a day and night difference in terms of powering up the drivers. On the other hand, I would imagine more power will render a better control and contiguous energy propagation when the music demands it.
Firebird is a fully integrated speaker system with endless opportunities on fine tunings of the subwoofer section harmonising with the upper compartment totally taking away the pain on phase distortion among all the 9 drivers on each channel! XiangYu built in the Firebird is driving 6 x 500W channels and that explains why we need a 20a power cable instead of 15a. By the way, I am using JMF RevC Carbon 20AMP power cable to feed XiangYu from the Vertere Phase Management Center switching to Negative phase. This JMF power cable has been researched for use with power amp with noise filtering done on the carbon connector on the male end resulting to a much cleaner supply of power. Setting to positive phase would render a slightly blurred and collapsed soundstage.
When Lars Eric is back in command, I am utterly thrilled by the spontaneity of the entire frequency spectrum with seemingly endless extension on both frequency ends. All musical movements are in synchronised fashion without lagging behind or leading ahead on certain frequency. Agreed that Firebird is not equipped with a tweeter and then how can there be endless extension on the treble side if this is the case. When the bass compartment is magically blended with the upper frequency range, the treble extension can arguably be heard with a very natural decay until it quiets down naturally.
Has Firebird set free the true potentials of Eric or has it actually set free the music from my system, I really have no clue or a definitively answer. All I can hear now is more transients and dynamic variations across other entire spectrum regardless of the type of music being played.
I can feel your excitement of your new speakers! The bass configuration of this speakers must be damn tremendous just by reading the spec. But I enjoy even more your maturity in describing what is going on. Subwoofer integration is not a topic for the fainted heart. Not many understand. Confusions however continues to proliferate. What guidelines do you follow to set the parameters of the sub? Ralph seems have done a great job on this sub. I read many positive comments everywhere.
Had you read the review of Lincoln Cheng on PT’s system at home? Integrating the Cessaro sub with a low sensitivity Goebel speakers sounds like looking for troubles. I don’t read Chinese. But what does Lincoln say?
Firebird is a mythological creature only appears in fairytales. Sometimes, I am confused it with phoenix (also a legendary creature which may not be real) which lives in flames or surrounded by flames. To me, both firebird and phoenix symbolise a strong desire to live at a time of difficulty, energetic and is often connected to holy feeling of Devine, God’s messenger, etc.
The choice of Firebird By Cessaro radiates the victorious emergence of an almighty speaker system eclipsing not just other contenders in the market, among the siblings in the Cessaro family, it could well be a new born star! Not until PT has acquired 2 XiangYu subwoofers in his home system would I know after months of being with Firebird, I could only scrape the surface of its true potential in terms of maximising the flexibility it renders in terms of a full reproduction of the frequency spectrum especially the extension into the deeper bass in a linear fashion.
Bass, arguably, depends on the room the most and therefore any spike or dip in bass compartment can be properly compensated by setting of the PEQ parameter in the XiangYu. One could boost up to say 6db in the zone of 30hz +/- 4hz if it is found to have a dip there. Likewise, a spike can just be removed vice versa. Firebird is shipped with some factory setting in enabling the high pass (at say 23hz), low pass (at say 55hz) which define the operating zone of the bass subwoofers. One could also set the compensation to say 6db+ if there is dip in the 30hz +/- 4 hz. These parameters can be adjusted or even disabled depending on the room characteristics. The amount of study and experiment that PT has conducted is enough to write a small book which could nicely be used as a reference when one want to integrate XiangYu with a speaker to create a smooth runway for any music to landing down or taking off! Thanks to PT for all the sharing on Sat and afterwards which help me to make further fine adjustments!
With a more proper setting for my Firebird, the accuracy of the musical articulation and the eloquence of tone come out more naturally without any hint of stitching and gaps. The briskness of the organ in Cantate Domino, the radiant tempos of Mutter and the emanating orchestral Albinoni by Karajan are just flipping my heart back and forth!
Ralph gives the holy birth to Firebird and PT teaches it how to fly with eternal flames!
Comments
Arne is an integrated amp with 300B tubes, my expectation would be mellow and soft sound with limited dynamics and speed. Surprisingly, the music playback was full of power and passion, the speed is quite fast, and yet the vocals were very touching with the emotions and musicality of 300B tubes!
I must agree with Chris that Sally's live performance was very touching and real. Emil Gilel's moonlight piano sonata playback was crisp, full of body and authoritative bass energy, with very well rendered imagine and soundstage.
Thanks to Arne's push-pull design, this "humble" system can reproduce very realistic, musical and touching sound, and yet with strong energy and punchy bass.
The performance of this set up is well beyond its price tag. Once again I was wowed by Chris!
Even you were impressed by this “small” system!
Maybe someday I could try a 300B in my place, though I am very satisfied with Cessaro amps now.
I do think your mega sensitive speaker system justify to have another 300B amplifier to swap. Had you tried ac active preamp in the chain? Roy’s review of your system is well read. It is very fresh approach to have Roy writing about your system.
Cessaro Firebird has been back to my place for more than 2 months since the August Hifi show during which I encountered a minor capacitor problem in one of the Eric when I had a chance to have a short rendezvous with Riviera AFM-50 pairing with Firebird. Riviera opens a new musical perspective for its special research on neuroscience on distortion correction/adjustment deployed in their amplifiers. In terms of driving power, AFM-50 has ample control and driving capacity on the 1-treble-2-midrange combo in Firebird leaving the 6 x 12 inches woofer to the baton of XiangYu power amp.
Riviera+Firebird is pleased to the ears delivering an organic and moisturised vocals and chamber music with string instruments. The musical enjoyment of Riviera stems from the naturalness and non captivating presentation. Firebird is definitely not a power hungry speaker in which case whether it is AFM-50 or 100 may not make a day and night difference in terms of powering up the drivers. On the other hand, I would imagine more power will render a better control and contiguous energy propagation when the music demands it.
Firebird is a fully integrated speaker system with endless opportunities on fine tunings of the subwoofer section harmonising with the upper compartment totally taking away the pain on phase distortion among all the 9 drivers on each channel! XiangYu built in the Firebird is driving 6 x 500W channels and that explains why we need a 20a power cable instead of 15a. By the way, I am using JMF RevC Carbon 20AMP power cable to feed XiangYu from the Vertere Phase Management Center switching to Negative phase. This JMF power cable has been researched for use with power amp with noise filtering done on the carbon connector on the male end resulting to a much cleaner supply of power. Setting to positive phase would render a slightly blurred and collapsed soundstage.
When Lars Eric is back in command, I am utterly thrilled by the spontaneity of the entire frequency spectrum with seemingly endless extension on both frequency ends. All musical movements are in synchronised fashion without lagging behind or leading ahead on certain frequency. Agreed that Firebird is not equipped with a tweeter and then how can there be endless extension on the treble side if this is the case. When the bass compartment is magically blended with the upper frequency range, the treble extension can arguably be heard with a very natural decay until it quiets down naturally.
Has Firebird set free the true potentials of Eric or has it actually set free the music from my system, I really have no clue or a definitively answer. All I can hear now is more transients and dynamic variations across other entire spectrum regardless of the type of music being played.
Marvel
I can feel your excitement of your new speakers! The bass configuration of this speakers must be damn tremendous just by reading the spec. But I enjoy even more your maturity in describing what is going on. Subwoofer integration is not a topic for the fainted heart. Not many understand. Confusions however continues to proliferate. What guidelines do you follow to set the parameters of the sub? Ralph seems have done a great job on this sub. I read many positive comments everywhere.
Had you read the review of Lincoln Cheng on PT’s system at home? Integrating the Cessaro sub with a low sensitivity Goebel speakers sounds like looking for troubles. I don’t read Chinese. But what does Lincoln say?
VR
The choice of Firebird By Cessaro radiates the victorious emergence of an almighty speaker system eclipsing not just other contenders in the market, among the siblings in the Cessaro family, it could well be a new born star! Not until PT has acquired 2 XiangYu subwoofers in his home system would I know after months of being with Firebird, I could only scrape the surface of its true potential in terms of maximising the flexibility it renders in terms of a full reproduction of the frequency spectrum especially the extension into the deeper bass in a linear fashion.
Bass, arguably, depends on the room the most and therefore any spike or dip in bass compartment can be properly compensated by setting of the PEQ parameter in the XiangYu. One could boost up to say 6db in the zone of 30hz +/- 4hz if it is found to have a dip there. Likewise, a spike can just be removed vice versa. Firebird is shipped with some factory setting in enabling the high pass (at say 23hz), low pass (at say 55hz) which define the operating zone of the bass subwoofers. One could also set the compensation to say 6db+ if there is dip in the 30hz +/- 4 hz. These parameters can be adjusted or even disabled depending on the room characteristics. The amount of study and experiment that PT has conducted is enough to write a small book which could nicely be used as a reference when one want to integrate XiangYu with a speaker to create a smooth runway for any music to landing down or taking off! Thanks to PT for all the sharing on Sat and afterwards which help me to make further fine adjustments!
With a more proper setting for my Firebird, the accuracy of the musical articulation and the eloquence of tone come out more naturally without any hint of stitching and gaps. The briskness of the organ in Cantate Domino, the radiant tempos of Mutter and the emanating orchestral Albinoni by Karajan are just flipping my heart back and forth!
Ralph gives the holy birth to Firebird and PT teaches it how to fly with eternal flames!
Thanks for both!
Marvel