Here are my reviews, which already appear in
another thread:
Review 1:
I live in London and have been to Spiritland numerous times since it opened in September. I recommend going if you are in London. The food and drink are good, and unusually for London, the atmosphere of the place is relaxed and does not revolve around drinking oneself into oblivion.
The system, which is the one in the picture in the Times article, consists of the large one-off Living Voice speakers in the photo, with Atelier du Triode amplification for the main arrays and Living Voice solid state amplifiers for the woofer units, along with various front ends and, reportedly, a custom mixer of some kind. The system sounds impressive in terms of its dynamic range and frequency extension. In other respects, it has problems--principally, boomy bass, lots of "horny" coloration, and a general lack of any sense of imaging or an ambient soundfield. (I usually sit either at the middle table or at a stool in the middle of the room; I am always in the sweet spot.)
Therefore, it is not the best sound system in the world and is not even as good in basic audiophile performance parameters as the relatively modest system in my living room. Admittedly, I have never seen Spirtland's big Kuzma turntable or Revox reel-to-reel deck in use, but I don't think it's fair to judge the system on the basis of those front ends if they are rarely or never used. The usual front ends are Technics SL-1200s, which evidently have been modified, along with computer files, which, I understand, are run through a DCS converter. (I have not seen the DCS converter and cannot confirm its existence.)
The biggest problem with Spiritland is that letting most DJs touch this kind of equipment is like putting a small child at the controls of an airliner. On Saturday night, the featured DJs ran the tweeters extremely "hot"; the sound was painful. They succeeded only in ensuring that the room was mostly empty (there were perhaps a dozen people in the main room at 11:30 p.m.).
So, go when they don't have a featured DJ (which is during the day, every day) or when there's some indication that the DJ will know what he's doing (e.g., the DJ will be doing a Rudy Van Gelder retrospective). I do recommend the place, and the food and drink are excellent. There's no dancing and no excessive drinking at Spiritland--it's civilized, relaxed and focused on the music.
Review 2:
I went to Spiritland again, and tonight the featured event was a Rudy Van Gelder retrospective.
There was a crowd tonight, perhaps because of the Times article. The ambient noise level was higher than on my previous trips to Spiritland, but I felt that I could still listen to the system. The vibe was fine, though the rest of the crowd did not seem particularly interested in the music.
Disappointingly, the DJ did not use the big Kuzma XL table, sticking to the twin Technics 1200s. On the one hand, the system's sound quality clearly holds potential. Playing those classic Van Gelder records, the system realistically reproduced the sound of horns, and from my seat in the middle of the room, I heard a stable center image on every record played tonight (whether stereo or mono).
On the other hand, boomy, lumpy bass ruined the sound of piano and double bass. The placement of the two big woofer units--while it looks cool--is probably suboptimal. (A photo showing the woofer placement, taken on a previous visit I made, is below.)
In addition, we heard a few CDs before the jazz began. It appeared that the CDs were played through the analog outputs of Pioneer DJ decks--not through a DCS converter. (Only the analog outputs on the Pioneer CD decks were connected, so I don't believe an external converter could have been involved.)
I keep going back to the place hoping to hear one of the three high-end sources (Kuzma XL, Revox reel-to-reel deck, DCS DAC) advertised on their website in use, but the Spiritland staff and their DJs persist in playing everything from Pioneer and Technics DJ front ends.
A disappointing evening from my curmudgeonly audiophile perspective.
And a photo:
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=29667&d=1478123743
