Over the course of the Chinese new year, many old and new customers had visited AE for the audition of the Les Miserable soundtrack. 100% of all those who visited me including Mr.Zanden, Cassph, Raymond, WChow, Azzurri and many other seniors had only reached one conclusion: "Very unlikely there will be any system that can outperform AE on this soundtrack." On Saturday, Mr.Zanden brought along his recordings spanning from opera, piano and violin that he tested for almost 3 decades in numerous ocassions across many continents in many mega systems also complimented the uncharted performance he had ever experienced. (I quoted him in the right context. I did not exaggerate anything.) The only commented he gave me is that the addition of a preamp should widen the sound-stage more. I did a demo of using 3 Linebackers together with the addition/removal of Black Body to illustrate once again the battle against noises are still going on in spite of the presence of SRA, Troy and Spartan/Orion.
The perfect state of AE is yet to come because I only have 1 black body. (Cassph took two away from the power amplifier positions before the Chinese New Year after I did a demo of them facing the power amplifiers). Then, the most exciting new is probably the immiment arrival of the ULTIMATE TUBE PREAMP - DALBY D7 SE. Then, I need another 4 black bodies and 3 more line backers to achieve the "perfect state" which I can already foresee.
The addition of Argento Flow Center, Linebackers, Black bodies and the Dalby U-1000 have escalated the performance to a reverent level that really holds my breath from time to time. The reproduction of Helene Grimund's playing on Lizst must be listened at AE1 once to appreciate how far ultra end audio can go.
But the competition still goes on. The criteria is to reproduce track 5 of Les Miserable as close as possible to AE will be the champion. If you guys don't allow me to visit you, I cannot move the competition forward.
Luckily, we still have brave audiophiles like Tim Chung, Marvel and Fire4 etc. But I would like to visit more systems. Please, please, please forget about the idea of beating AE1's performance - the prize is a handsome Argento FMR SE power cord!
The issue here is "what" constitutes the "closest to". Anne Hathaway as expected won the Oscar tonight. I would really love her to be the judge but that is impossible. I can reproduce all the breathing pauses/twist&turn, together with rock solid 3D imaging. Instruments are well separated from each other. Sound-staging is there with reasonable depth and width. But then so what... I don't grab the feeling of what's being experienced at the cinema. At AE, I could vision the whole movie with each character's life and flesh. The achievement was done without a PREAMP! I don't think my setup is "NOT" even 10 miles close to this feeling experienced at AE in spite of the majestic presence of all the required details uncut due to the Tidal Prescenio preamp.
The Cessaro Lizst is truly a master piece horn work. I am never a horny guy. But this pair is truly awesome. It does not has the integration problem of the previous design.
Comments
The perfect state of AE is yet to come because I only have 1 black body. (Cassph took two away from the power amplifier positions before the Chinese New Year after I did a demo of them facing the power amplifiers). Then, the most exciting new is probably the immiment arrival of the ULTIMATE TUBE PREAMP - DALBY D7 SE. Then, I need another 4 black bodies and 3 more line backers to achieve the "perfect state" which I can already foresee.
The addition of Argento Flow Center, Linebackers, Black bodies and the Dalby U-1000 have escalated the performance to a reverent level that really holds my breath from time to time. The reproduction of Helene Grimund's playing on Lizst must be listened at AE1 once to appreciate how far ultra end audio can go.
But the competition still goes on. The criteria is to reproduce track 5 of Les Miserable as close as possible to AE will be the champion. If you guys don't allow me to visit you, I cannot move the competition forward.
Luckily, we still have brave audiophiles like Tim Chung, Marvel and Fire4 etc. But I would like to visit more systems. Please, please, please forget about the idea of beating AE1's performance - the prize is a handsome Argento FMR SE power cord!
The Cessaro Lizst is truly a master piece horn work. I am never a horny guy. But this pair is truly awesome. It does not has the integration problem of the previous design.
When will the linebackers arrive? They are wonderful. When will more BB land? 1 is not enough.