To cut a long story short, the AT crew said this system performance is 喜出望外。Lincoln commented right st the first few minutes that the sound is very pure and clean with very low noise floor and almost nonexistent of reflective sound.
When the system's noise floor is low (inclusive of room noises), the music simply flows. We listened to all kind of music. The crew started heating up too.
Then Listened again. Very good. Rebecca told me Eddie is a hard working audiophile based on the playback quality of this system. On the way back to Hong Kong by taxi, they all endorsed this system. Again they were surprised by the vanishingly low noise floor.
In the end, I revealed to Lincoln that the Cessaro Air One preamp is a passive preamp. He said Ralph has done a great job and started analysing the merit of this system using Air One as a reference point. He asked me the output gain of Wadax, and sensitivity of Chopin. He understands quickly the merit of this system in technical term quickly.
I missed the party but I know Eddie has been seriously ignited for the past few days to ensure the visit last night is a successful one to ear witness on his years of endeavor. Great job Eddie and please share a bit more!
Cessaro made a presence at the Munich High End 2016.
This presentation made me think about the possibility of having a horn
loudspeakers system in my home... if it's big enough. They are really something
to behold!
Mono and Stereo, 2016 Munich Report by Dato’ Danon Han
I listened to the Cessaro Air1/2 system
driving the Beethoven horn in Ralph’s place in 2015 and feel very glad to see
the same pair of amplification driving his mega system in the 2016 Munich
show: Gamma F4. Technical details aside, according to Ralph,
the Air2 power amplificer has a limited supply of only 10 pairs due to the
scarcity of the WE tubes. The design of
Air1/2 is specifically to match the high sensitivity of his speaker system to
achieve the highest level of serenity and yet not at the expense of harmonic
decays and dynamic contrast.
Cessaro room is one of the few that I
visited and re-visited again in order to validate the relative performance of
the various setups that I think are the best among all the rooms. It is certainly of the few I think are the
best and in recent discussions that I shared candidly with PT, while the norms
that we both share in terms of system evaluation are literally remain the same,
my listening preference is slightly different from that of PT. He is more on an expressive and direct
passage while I am more after a subtle and natural depiction of the music. No right and wrong in any of these
preferences especially we don’t have any indifference in what to be uphold:
transient, linearity, dynamic contrast, roundness.
Listening to the Gamma horn in the Cessaro
room always gives me a mild breeze of musical flow like canoeing in a stream of
river across the mountains. One can feel
the windings of the river and when it comes to a waterfall, my heartbeats raise
not really expecting a free fall jump into the pond. The entire listening journey is pleasant and
smooth not having any slight feeling of spinning in a super sport car on the 38
corners in the Shek O road in HK. When
sitting in the Cessaro room listening to music after music, time flies easily
and I cannot recall if I indeed debated couple of times with Master Chik and PT
whether it is as impactful as in another room for the same piece of music or it
should have created the same powerfulness of this climax. Is it
a personal bias, I will leave it to others to chip in their view.
The overall presentation is quite unique to
me and in particular, I enjoy the fatigue-free of listening which I can indulge
hours after hours and would not think of changing the record till the needle
reaches the end with the music still lingering at the tail end.
Ralph is cool. 7 out of 10 amps are sold. 3 pairs to Indonesia who previously saw Kondo as the holy grail all swapped to Cessaro Inc. Another 2 to Australia, and 2 to HK. The sales pitch is only for Cessaro Horn speakers. A very clever close loop sales tactic aims for exclusiveness.
It makes sense to use passive preamp to mate with high sensitivity horn system only if the source component has strong output gain. For AE dudes, phono built either by trinity and Wadax has more than enough gain, not a problem but I suspect phono around 60db is inadequate. The performance of the electronics in this case is determined by the quality of the source especially output gain. The tactic is to pour in as much as energy from the source. That will have direct impact on dynamic and transient presentation. The phono cable thus matters more than interconnect under this configuration. My latest experience with Argento FMR phono cable confirms my argument. I am shocked by this phono cable's energy and dynamic, compared to Van Den Hul platinum phono cable that I had been using for 2 years. (I have been using have an air 1 preamp, mating with Zanden 300B to drive a pair of Wagner in my study room. A small Thales turntable, Wadax trio phono.)
If the VDH phono cable is in the chain, with Air One as the pre-amplification, dynamic contrast is inadequate to critical ears. Changing power cables downstream does not resolve this issue. After consultation with PT, the trio must set to output with 5V. (I had been using 2V) Bingo, no more issues with dynamic.
But still my system doesn't qualify in PT eyes as Ultra End small system when he visited me last time. He always says control could have been better. The progression of dynamic isn't comprehensive. I said to myself, "what the fuck! Isn't he is supposed to please me after spending the money?" Well knowing PT for almost 8 years, he always got a point with facts backing him up.
So he sent me a pair of Argento FMR phono cable without telling me. My secretary told me I got a cable. Since there is no fucking business with investment banks now, I left office at 11am. Went back home. Installed the FMR phono cable.
The next Whatsapp to PT is: "Fuck you. You are right again! I got what you meant now! Fuck you again and thank you."
Comments
In the end, I revealed to Lincoln that the Cessaro Air One preamp is a passive preamp. He said Ralph has done a great job and started analysing the merit of this system using Air One as a reference point. He asked me the output gain of Wadax, and sensitivity of Chopin. He understands quickly the merit of this system in technical term quickly.
最後亦多謝大草兄出手fine tune Chopin 位置，衹需幾mm
Chris 馬上可聽到1個更有血肉的葉振堂
Cessaro made a presence at the Munich High End 2016. This presentation made me think about the possibility of having a horn loudspeakers system in my home... if it's big enough. They are really something to behold!
Mono and Stereo, 2016 Munich Report by Dato’ Danon Han
I listened to the Cessaro Air1/2 system driving the Beethoven horn in Ralph’s place in 2015 and feel very glad to see the same pair of amplification driving his mega system in the 2016 Munich show: Gamma F4. Technical details aside, according to Ralph, the Air2 power amplificer has a limited supply of only 10 pairs due to the scarcity of the WE tubes. The design of Air1/2 is specifically to match the high sensitivity of his speaker system to achieve the highest level of serenity and yet not at the expense of harmonic decays and dynamic contrast.
Cessaro room is one of the few that I visited and re-visited again in order to validate the relative performance of the various setups that I think are the best among all the rooms. It is certainly of the few I think are the best and in recent discussions that I shared candidly with PT, while the norms that we both share in terms of system evaluation are literally remain the same, my listening preference is slightly different from that of PT. He is more on an expressive and direct passage while I am more after a subtle and natural depiction of the music. No right and wrong in any of these preferences especially we don’t have any indifference in what to be uphold: transient, linearity, dynamic contrast, roundness.
Listening to the Gamma horn in the Cessaro room always gives me a mild breeze of musical flow like canoeing in a stream of river across the mountains. One can feel the windings of the river and when it comes to a waterfall, my heartbeats raise not really expecting a free fall jump into the pond. The entire listening journey is pleasant and smooth not having any slight feeling of spinning in a super sport car on the 38 corners in the Shek O road in HK. When sitting in the Cessaro room listening to music after music, time flies easily and I cannot recall if I indeed debated couple of times with Master Chik and PT whether it is as impactful as in another room for the same piece of music or it should have created the same powerfulness of this climax. Is it a personal bias, I will leave it to others to chip in their view.
The overall presentation is quite unique to me and in particular, I enjoy the fatigue-free of listening which I can indulge hours after hours and would not think of changing the record till the needle reaches the end with the music still lingering at the tail end.
You are spot on, without a competent source, the performance of the Cessaro system is tremendously compromised.