So here’s a non-professional report from a non-professional, who is about to trigger the hyperbole clause as much as it may pain Ron for me to do so. Objectivity? You’ll need to ask the guy walking around the halls with the calibrated Brüel & Kjær and Audio Precision. Oh, you didn’t see him either? Subjectivity it’ll be then. So rather than a blow-by-blow replete with beautifully composed and framed photos ala Stereophile or our more dedicated members here, I’m just going to tell you my highlights, ignore the lows, and more than likely reveal way too much about myself in that awkward first-date kind of way that just makes the date excuse themselves to the bathroom, punch out the windows and extricate themselves to the car park.
Overall, I thought there was a good representation of gear. Mola Mola and Vivid Giya G4’s, Naim/Neat/Well Tempered with a nice little DPS power supply, Musical Fidelity/Scansonic, Devialet’s 1000 Pro into Spendor SP200’s, Pass Labs and OVO by Pol Quadens (a new one for me), McIntosh/Sonus Faber, Dynaudio/T+A, Charlin electronics with Reed’s Turntable and Arms, Questyle, and, deep breath…
DCS Vivialdi 2.0/Aurender W20, Spectral DMC30SV/DMA300RS, Avalon Compas, Spectral Ultra Linear 230i Series 3/60HD Series 3/Shunyata Hyrda/Triton/Sigma, Bassocontinuo costing a trillion dollars.
Highlights? Yep… three. Admittedly, that’s not a lot. That’s shows for you. Or maybe, that’s me for you.
KEF brought along their Muons (in matt black this time with orange Uni-Q) and powered it with one point twenty-one gigawatts from Chord’s massive mono blocks. They sounded big. And, er… big. Cleverly, they also bought along their LS50 Sans Fil (“Wireless” in Anglophone terminology) with Blue Uni-Q on dedicated stands. Big boned, punchy, and with pretty impressive room-filling capability (it was a big room), they played the usual audiophile favs and a hilarious dubbed out version of Pink Floyd that only I found funny. (Looking around I may have been the only human being to actually smile or laugh at any point during the day, although the weather was Autumnal, so maybe the chill in the air neutered everyone else’s ability to have fun.) If I was after a wireless solution for a second system, or even a primary one at a summer house/chalet/yacht (none of which I have), the KEF’s would be top of the list. Behind a pair of 1978 LS3/5a's (only one, static display unfortunately).
Speaking of speakers (see what I did there?), YG Acoustics showed the Carmel 2 in a room that was devoid of any sort of light my cheap but thankfully, non-self immolating Samsung Galaxy managed to register. With RedBook (yeah baby!!) played on MBL’s 1611 DAC and 1621 transport feeding a pre/power combo from the Corona line (too dark to see cables, they were black and large, so they must be good) the Carmel’s made Joe Morello’s kick drum sound like all 22 inches were present and accounted for and played by someone who knew when a single stomp could carry a bar without needing to fill it with extraneous rudiments even when performing a solo. I developed quite a crush on them, but when I went back for a second opinion and caught the middle of “Mercy Street” from Peter Gabriel’s still artistically and sonically brilliant album
So, I fell out of like and reverted merely to a high-level of respect and tempered enthusiasm I feel when shopping for a mid-sized Volkswagen. Really good though, and confirmed my bias for two-way speakers of small form factor that don’t overload a room.
And number three? Bear with me…
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts (
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?19789-Horn-Porn-weekend&p=376080#post376080), I heavily prescribe to the growing research-based evidence that music is always a perceptual phenomenon that occurs in a very specific part of the brain wholly separate from other parts that process non-musical sounds (speech, environmental sounds, etc) (1). Though the mechanism by which we experience music can be sound, it need not be - sound is not music, music is not always sound. Simply thinking of a piece of music, either previously experienced as sound and remembered, or composed in the mind of an individual but never heard, triggers the specific population of neurons in the auditory cortex to selectively respond in ways that the areas of speech do not (2). (While there’s yet to be any evidence to support the hypothesis, is it any wonder that ABX comparisons return a null hypothesis when the brain is taxed with discriminatory evaluation processes in which music is reduced to sound?)
What’s really important to me is that I “feel” connected to the music in a way that is not prescribed by the sonic variables alone. I’m no discounting them - I’m saying that frequency anomalies and distortion artefacts are never a barrier to the enjoyment, appreciation and connection to the music which exist separate from the sound of that same music as experienced by the neural populations dedicated to the former. That they can be, doesn’t need to mean that they always are, excepting individuals for whom through choice they will be. That we recognise and respond to music via all manner of low-, mid- and hi-fidelity devices suggests the brain’s ability to seek out meaning in sound culturally-socially accepted to be “music” is independently organised relative to its ability to evaluate it sonically using objective criteria that are the primary function of the auditory system’s tonotopically (frequency-related) concentrically organised structure.
Blah blah blah, right?
What does all this mean? It means that the reason I have gradually (though not exclusively) moved toward vinyl, valves and horns is not that they are measurably “better” relative to other, more objectively superior alternatives*. Rather, music takes on the most meaning for me not when listening for tonotopic, time-of-arrival and sound-pressure-level differences (the what and where), but the things a musician may find relevant when discussing a piece of music (the how and why) through those devices. Flow, momentum, drama, tension, touch, feel… Immeasurable they may be to a mic and scope, but very real to our brain’s neurochemical process of ascertaining meaning. These things - the aspects of music in which meaning is conveyed separate from but related to pitch, time and amplitude - are the things I try and listen for both when evaluating a system of interdependent components and/or enjoying it. I will take artistry expressed via flow, momentum, drama, tension, touch and feel over sound expressed via immeasurably minute levels of distortion and frequency deviation every time. My brain’s very capable of dealing with the latter, but without the former, that little population of neurons won’t be firing no matter how high in fidelity the sound may be. Again, this has nothing to do with me being or even pretending to be a “golden eared” type. This is me articulating our brain’s immensely underrated ability at discerning two very different types of phenomena from the same mechanism, recorded music.
And in my experience, it’s rare to experience a system that conveys meaning in a way that is experientially and intellectually rewarding AND sonically stimulating in equal measure. If push comes to shove, I’ll always choose the former over the latter. Well, the Aries Cerat//Magico/Entreq/SMT system, overseen by Michel (Audio Refinement), Stavros (Aries Cerat), Matts and Sven (Entreq/SMT), is, in my limited time on this Earth, probably one of the few that’s ever come closest to my ideal of meeting both criteria without significant detriment one to the other.
Let’s get this out the way first. I’ve heard Magico’s before and always come away from the experience with various degrees of indifference. Mostly, those systems were digital and solid state-based, and yes, subject to show conditions. After my Aries Cerat experience, they’re still not likely to be added to any short list I’ll be compiling in the near or distant future, but I can say that they worked in the room (which was small) and their non-ported nature allowed a nice amount of pitch and textural information to be discerned. And the Aries Cerat Cassandra Reference Mk II DAC, Impera II Reference Line Stage and facelifted Concero SET 65 monos?
Holy moly.
Every piece of music I played felt important. Urgent. Intentional. Artistically relevant. Consequential. Like it really mattered. Like the musicians who had crafted it were made of flesh and blood and sinew and bone and had connected them to the synapses in their brains through the mediation of their heart and soul. Music burned. It caught fire and took on its own form. It emerged as an entity as corporeal as a living being, and was shocking in its physicality. I uttered various obscenities under my breath as I reeled at its swagger, menace and intensity. I was held in its grip and caressed by its embrace. It swung like the best idler-drives and had continuousness like the best reel-to-reel decks. It delivered the envelope of each note’s individuality in its entirety and yet ever called attention to any single element. Its energy profile was perpetually unlimited, its transient behaviour ephemeral. It was redolent and earthy as the best Bordeaux’s, as refined and complex as a glass of Frey Ranch gin and as heart-stoppingly powerful as a Yamasaki 18 Year Old (that's a whiskey, in case you were wondering). And it was fed from the USB out of a tablet.
But the thing that impressed me the most? The silences. Not that they were black black or blacker black, or whatever the new way of describing black is, though the system’s noise floor seemed very low to me (I couldn’t hear anything from the tweeter when I bent down to take photos - the Entreqs, perhaps?). No. What was truly impressive was something I’ve had from vinyl before, but only rarely, and never from digital. Let me give an analogy here. As someone who’s played music since I was eight (choirs, orchestras, jazz band, brass bands, pop/rock/alt/electronica), one of the things I’ve experienced during performances is what happens when there’s no music to play. As a drummer, primarily, it’s often the case that the music will call for a bar, an intro, a verse, a chorus, a whole section or movement in which there’s nothing written or simply no requirement for me to be playing. In that space, there’s… waiting. But it’s not passive. It’s not a disengaged I’ll-check-my-phone kind of waiting. It’s active. It’s present. It’s a type of waiting in which the music is still coursing through my veins, resounding in my head and permeating my heart - I’m just not playing. The tension of the music - the way it’s held together by the intentionality of the other musicians present and the attention we give to one another and to the song itself - it’s all still there in the silences. We’re all still counting the beat, feeling the pulse, riding the dynamic of what’s come before, and anticipating what’s to come. Before the first note of a symphony is played, every musician, and especially, the conductor, is poised in anticipation. That moment of silence - that moment of tension - is as palpable as any sound that will be made once the hand cycles through the upbeat and gestures for the downbeat.
The Aries Cerat suite didn’t just hold my attention during the silences in between notes, but also in between phrases, and in between movements. It was as if I was a psychologically and emotionally-wired participant waiting, anticipating the next bar, the next beat, the way you watch a conductor for the ictus to reveal the next note. How can a bunch of wires and transformers and valves captivate my attention in the way previously only performing and listening to music live (and occasionally, really good vinyl) has done? I don’t know. I bet my brain chemistry gets it. ‘Cause there was nothing else worthy of my time and energy when listening to music in that room. Music, whatever it was, whether I liked it or not, all had the same utterly compelling grab that was all internally motivated rather than externally generated. Y’know actors who act their way through a scene versus someone who’s ability to be present comes from within? It’s a totally different effect, and the more I go on this journey the more I become convinced the imposter to authenticity is artifice and there was none of it here. Oddly, I would occasionally be so viscerally shaken by a run of notes - all individually weighted in amplitude, all individually separated in time and yet all part of a continuity of intention in which the sum is greater than the parts - I’d look around the room to see if anyone was as moved as I was. Maybe it was missing breakfast (which I do anyway) and having a cappuccino and a Pepsi one after another (sorry about that, body), but the only one who seemed to register what I was registering were Michel, Stavros, Matts and Sven.
Which leads me to an easy and equally uncomfortable conclusion.
There’s no other system right now on the planet that has spoken to me, artistically, emotionally, intellectually and viscerally in the way the Aries Cerat/Entreq/SMT combo did. From my first serious system of all Naim olive badge stuff, up through the black chassis stuff, to a horrible step back into um… audiophilia courtesy of Stereophile and TAS and then a scrappy but hugely educational odyssey through idlers, SETs, stats and horns (good: Shindo, Living Voice, Altec, Western Electric and Quad, and bad: not going there, remember?) until now, it feels like my education in what really matters to me has found its zenith. I’ve heard a lot of stuff and unfortunately, there’s just so little of it I feel comfortable recommending. Sometimes, I’ve walked around not too dissimilar shows and demos to yesterday’s one and felt like sticking up my hand and asking in a squeaky pre-adolescent voice “Uh, is anyone else here wondering where the hell the music’s at?” Like I must be some kind of disparate moron. Like I’m stupid. It’s an uncomfortable realisation that one’s preferences are so far out of step with that which everyone else seems desperate to cram into rooms to hear (no names, right?).
Due to the circumstances of attempting to find the perfect home (it’s a long list and involves goats - ask my wife), we are currently “in between” systems. (Sven suggested I borrow a Silver Minimus. I had to tell him I was very keen but my JBL Go doesn’t have a grounding post). But it’s clear to me that having decided not to buy anything in the interim has been the best decision. It’s allowed me simply to follow my muse and discover for myself what it is that I want and what it is I don’t. Here’s what I want: Less of the more I don’t want. Plenty of systems offer more moreness. And can be had for considerably less - and considerably more. The Aries Cerat may not be the ideal for people whose criteria lean more toward the Platonic than mine, but then, idealisation tends to be the purvey for those content with a plentitude of facts rather than motivated by the search for truth. For me, I can honestly say the Cassandra Reference Mk II DAC, Impera II Reference Line Stage and Concero SET 65 monos are the Holy Grail and I discovered them in a small hotel room on the outskirts of Brussels.
But wait - there’s more!
I haven’t always enjoyed the fraternity that is often the world of audiophilia. Too many dour men bemoaning the lack of soundstage specificity, and exalting the attributes of Eva Cassidy. (Sorry, but it’s kind of true, right?). I had never met Michel, Stavros, Matts and Sven prior to yesterday. But I can say should you find yourself slow dancing in a burning room (John Mayer, great line that) they would be the first to pull you off the dance floor to safety. Gentlemen of the highest calibre whom I enjoyed every second with, and would give plenty more up in order to enjoy their company again. What’s more, they seemed entirely comfortable that a young(ish) man whom they had never met before decided to take up residence in the corner and barely leave (a little bit of room gain for the lower mids which was quite pleasant). I even enjoyed - no, scratch that, relished - the opportunity to grab a coffee with Stavros (he insisted on paying much to my annoyance) in which we discussed life, the universe, playing bass, mechanical springs and flywheels and transformer cores. He was incredibly unassuming, modest, technically proficient and pleasantly contrarian. We even talked about the ethics of the audio business and why utility value is in scare supply. It felt like a privilege and not once did I get the sense he had more important things to be doing (though he probably did), before departing back to Cyprus that evening.
At the conclusion of the day’s schedule, they invited me to play a small collection of Flac files I brought on a USB stick - some James Blake, John Zorn, Massive Attack and Emmylou Harris, stuff I like but don’t often hear at shows or in demos, and to placate the sensibilities of whom ever else may have been present though Sven and I did manage to discuss Swedish metal a little later. In a way, it told me nothing more about what I had already heard and experienced, except that these were men who loved music as much as I do and take as much enjoyment in the sharing of it together as a common pursuit that has continued to define our lives in one way or another.
We ended the day with Michel escorting us through the bustling streets of downtown Brussels in which we found a fantastic Indian restaurant to share a meal. Michel, Matts, Sven,his lovely partner and I ate, drank and told stories. They also continually made fun of the fact that I left my wallet in the car (totally by accident, still in the carry bag given out at the doors) but paid for me anyway. Hi-fi is hi-fi and people are people. I heard probably the best one I ever have, but the day was made so much richer because of the presence of those four people. I’m looking forward to seeing them all again.
Photos below.
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*Valve linearity when measured below the point of distortion and compression driver modulation when driven below a certain threshold can certainly be superior to their solid-state and cone brethren in some regards, but we’ve been there before, haven’t we?
(1) “Distinct Cortical Pathways for Music and Speech Revealed by Hypothesis-Free Voxel Decomposition, Sam Norman-Haignere, Nancy G. Kanwisher, John H. McDermott, 16 December 2015,
Neuron.
(2) “Measuring the representational space of music with fMRI: a case study with Sting”, Daniel J. Levitin & Scott T. Grafton, 12 August 2016,
Neurocase.