Installing Aries Cerat Symphonia horn speakers

morricab

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Last year, I travelled to Brussels to attend the New Music High End Innovation Show, the purpose of which was to listen to the Aries Cerat Kassandra II Ref DAC, the Impera II Ref linestage, and the Concero 65 SET amplifiers. After hearing a collection of tracks played in a tiny space, augmented with Entreq boxes and SMT diffusors, and with a speaker that I personally have not so far developed any affection for, I walked away from that room with two things: Some newly made friendships in Stavros and Michel, and the lingering suspicion I had experienced a collection of components that would likely form the basis of the last system I will ever own.(1)

Really? Really really.

I know. It seems like a rather impetuous statement to make. But made it I did, and for those interested, you can read the rationale for it here:

Given everything I think I know about life, the universe and hi-fi, nothing present nor past has changed those thoughts, with the exception of the feeling that A) I was probably not hearing the full potential of it, sat on the carpet as it was and subjugated to show conditions, and B) the desire to own horns, despite having been underwhelmed by most high-efficiency designs and their (many) shortcomings in the past, still required further exploration. Could the Symphonia be the answer to all my hopes and dreams, and the vanquisher of all the phase anomalies and driver integration issues that beleaguered other designs?

First, a little about me. Not a professional reviewer. Not even a part-time or wanna-be one. Don’t have a hi-fi blog, a Pinterest account or a Facebook page. Don’t import, distribute or sell audio gear. In other words… just some anonymous guy on the Interwebs, typing an opinion. I’m guessing that means you can take it or leave it, or type some reply vehemently disagreeing with everything I’m about to write. I’ll be okay with any of the above.

To spare those of you who hate long, drawn out, verbose posts filled with subjective feelings and intellectual excogitations, yes, the Symphonia is the greatest speaker I’ve ever heard. And yes, once we’ve finally… finally… found a house to call home, we will assemble a complete Aries Cerat system with the Symphonia taking up several cubic meters of whatever sort of living room we end up living in.(2)

But to those of you who love long, drawn out, verbose posts filled with subjective feelings and intellectual excogitations, allow me to explain…

Most of the systems I’ve owned in the past, and indeed, most of the ones I’ve heard at friends, and dealers, and distributors, and hi-fi shows - irrespective of pedigree and price - did, er… stuff. Y’know, you’d put on an album and sound would come out the other end, having been transformed from some form of electricity to some form of acoustical energy. And for the most part, many times I’ve thought, ‘Oh, that sounds… like, er… things’. You know it’s not “real”, but like a magician performing at your child’s birthday, at the time it passes for moderately distracting entertainment - though you tend to surf the internet on your phone a bit.

But lately, I’ve been noticing an interesting phenomenon. The magician that turns up at your kid’s birthday party has got a lot more fancy. They’ve put on mascara and a bit of lip gloss, and smartened up their cape. They wear shiny shoes and a shiny tie and have a shiny forehead. You can’t look at your phone anymore because all the attention is on them and their shiny bits.

My basic conviction for any note created via the volition of a human being attempting to make music is that it will contain three fundamental measurable attributes depicted thus (Illustration 1):


View attachment 32180


That is, it will have a fundament frequency (with associated harmonic content), it will have amplitude which varies over the note’s envelope, and it will have a duration in which it starts and stops measurably over time. Theoretically, any system, and specifically, any electro-mechanical transducer has the potential to allow the note to be converted into acoustical energy in which the relationship between pitch, time and amplitude will be proportionally distributed thus (Illustration 2):


View attachment 32181


However, this is not what I’ve been hearing from the majority of systems. To me, most of them alter the relationship between pitch, time and amplitude, decreasing the proportionality in order to sound like this (Illustration 3):


View attachment 32182


That is, the emphasis has shifted toward the reproduction of frequency (linearity and extension with a reduction in harmonic distortion), at the expense of time coherence and dynamics. It’s like that kids magician in your garden… An excess of distracting bling to divert your attention away from more problematic areas, like the fact that he sucks at performing magic.

Lest you think I’m about to name a whole bunch of names and point fingers, I’m not. No system is perfect. None that I’ve heard reach the theoretical limit of reproduction when compared to the real thing. Historically, my own move toward idlers, SETs and horns(3) was in part a reaction against the number of systems that chased frequency linearity and extension over everything else. They sounded amazing but the music - the bits of it that were time and dynamically-related - were relegated to the minor divisions, and some didn’t even bother showing up. Boring. Lots of very expensive and technologically sophisticated sounds masquerading as music, and failing.

So, are you expecting me to say the Aries Cerat Symphonia with the full caboodle of Aries Cerat electronics has finally solved all the electro-acoustical problems of the world and is the first one to ever perfectly reproduce a note with its pitch, time and dynamic relationship holistically intact?

Okay. Why not? That’s pretty much what it sounded like to me. It’s certainly the first horn I’ve ever heard do it. And anyway it’s just an opinion from Some Guy on the Internet, right?(4)(5)

For those of you who are already readying your fingers to type a dismissive reply that I haven’t heard every other system (true) and that I don’t go to enough classical music concerts anymore (also true, the last one was the Emerson Quartet, I think…) or that I haven’t recently had my ears tested, read up on Toole and Olive, or passed multiple ABX tests to determine my level of objectivity (that’s all true too) let me say this - it was just like any other system I’ve ever heard in that it sounds like a system playing music. You can stop reading there if you need.

But oh my lord, there’s no other horn - and hand-on-my-heart I swear on my deceased family member’s graves - no other speaker irrespective of topology or hybridisation that has smacked my intellectual pretentious about and left me laughing, awestruck and close to tears on several occasions with the same sheer force, power, subtlety, delicacy, viscerality and engagement I’ve had from playing and listening to live music over the last thirty-five years.

No, I’m not saying it’s the same as live music. I know I’m listening to a recording. I’m saying that it produced the exact same response in me as I get from playing and listening to live music and with the same level of intellectual and emotional intensity.

Need some audiophile specificity? Okay, try this: This is the first speaker I’ve ever heard that manages to convey the propagation of acoustical energy of musical instruments as bespoke and individuated entities. What…?

Upon arriving, the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s "Pathétique" was playing as conducted by Valery Gergiev. I’m not very familiar with the composer’s work (though I like him), and I’ve not owned any of Gergiev’s either. But this is what immediately captured my attention: Every instrument propagates acoustical energy in a unique manner, right? A piano creates acoustical energy in a way that is wholly dissimilar to a guitar or cello despite having tensioned strings, and in a way wholly dissimilar to a drum, despite having a percussive mechanism. Its energy is released into the air by exciting the strings held within the frame and then amplified through the soundboard and into the case, into the floor boards and then back up into the piano. Most speakers I’ve heard - no names…! - differentiate the sound of each instrument individually, but not how they create that sound. The Symphonia somehow - and y’know, I’m just some guy who works in advertising, how the hell would I know, you should ask someone way cleverer than I am - manages to not only create an explicitly tonally, timbrally and texturally individuated sound from each instrument, but does so in a way that also individuates the way in which the sound from each is propagated into acoustical energy. That’s a first for me. No other speaker I’ve ever heard has done that and made it so apparent.

And whatever the hell reason Tchaikovsky decided to score the orchestra to jump from pianississimo to fortissimo at just over nine minutes in, I can only imagine it must have been to ensure future generations of audiophiles listening to 101dB-sensitive speakers could scare the living c*** out of guests unfamiliar with the work and make them physically jolt upright out of their seats. Like happened to me. (They laughed.)

But enough with the tomfoolery! Auditioning expensive hi-fi systems should be a dour and solemn act filled with female singers of dubious artistic merit. And because I pride myself on having music taste no self-respecting hi-fi store would ever play, I cued up Battles “Race In” from their debut album Mirrored, visa Michel’s EVO server. John Stanier’s choppy syncopations introduce lots of looping in which a few quick strokes and plucks of guitar strings are then sampled and looped through analogue and digital delays. What’s really interesting is that those initial human-made strokes retain their humanity through every iteration. The little inflections of tension applied to the strings and then released still have a envelope of life that survives on their own beyond the sampling. It means that for an album created with live drums and guitars but using extensive manipulation in both the analogue and digital domains, it feels so very much alive and flesh-and-blood. Like it was music by, er, humans, rather than sound created by machines. Weird, right?

Is Battles too post-rock and too compressed for you? How about Tim Hecker, then? "The Piano Drop" from Hecker’s 2011 release Ravedeath, 1972 starts brutal and ends brutal. Shimmering synths get square-waved into oblivion and modulated into harmonically saturated pixels of white noise. It’s utterly fantastic. And again, so human. It’s as if the dislocation and disquiet Hecker expects me to feel is more truthfully and forcefully articulated. Is it that the Symphonia manages the whole pitch/time/amplitude relationship so proportionately? That the single 8” heavily-modified Fostex woofer is barely moving despite the fact my chest is imploding from the impulses of the low-end which is harmonically full and yet temporally integrated with the rest of the transient? That there’s no hint of honk, cuppiness, woofiness, bloat, boom, incoherence, phasing, resonance or whatever else horns are supposed to suck at?(6) I don’t know, I just know music that’s that offensive shouldn’t be so completely assuring, emotionally engaging and intellectually enveloping. Yet it is.

Stavros actually laughed out loud at this one. I couldn’t tell if he was laughing at me, my music taste or the sheer ridiculous width that Fabio Perletta’s Ichinen ?? cast in that room. Yep, massive width. And layered, front to back. And when it got quiet, like real quiet that micro-tonal minimalist composers like Perletta like to tease out the tension in, you could separate out the noise-floor of the recording from the noise-floor of the system. I mean, insert your favourite cuss-word here. It was that gosh-darn impressive.

Finally, some grown-up music. I love Arcadi Volodos. And I love Frederic Mompou. I discovered Mompou first, in 1995, when Herbert Henck released the complete Musica Callada on ECM. Four years later I discovered Volodos when I heard his Live at Carnegie Hall on Sony. Never did I imagine that the ferocious intensity of Volodos’ technical prowess would ever be bent to the will of a Spanish composer whose output was shaped and defined by the impressionism of Satie and Fauré. Yet there’s something very definitely romantic about the way Volodos plays that imbues his work with an emotional resonance that goes way beyond the dexterity of his virtuosity. It’s not technique for technique’s sake. And here, in the slow incantatory and bell-like miniaturist compositions, the space, weight and filigree of tiny notes given flight for ephemeral moments to wash over one another before finding their life brought to an end by the piano’s damper felt have never seemed so tenderly created, crafted and curated whilst revealing more of the piano’s complex harmonic character - each informing the other in an exchange of initiation and reciprocation.

Is that it? Five tracks and that’s enough to make a decision for the rest of my life? Yep.

Okay, well, we did listen to some other stuff. Michel and Starvos took back control of the server (hastily, or so it appeared to me) and played a selection of Loreena McKennitt, Dire Straits, a jazz combo recorded in a small club in front of a small (and mildly drunken) audience, and Simon Preston playing Bach’s organ works. And just because you might as well, a track from the Kodo drummers absolutely laying into the skins of their ?-daiko. None of it bothered the Symphonia. It was like, “Really. You think turning electricity into sound is hard for me? Pfff.”

I know what you’re thinking. A single 8” in a back-loaded horn can’t do bass. Three separate driver technologies won’t integrate seamlessly and coherently in time and phase and will be dynamically compromised relative to one another. Horns don’t do imaging. They’re coloured and nasal and throaty. Sorry, but whatever sonic criticisms you might have, the Symphonia flicked them away as effortlessly as one might an ant from one’s pant leg. Oh yeah, and turned it all into meaningful, important, living, breathing music better than any other speaker I’ve ever heard. And all from Redbook - take that high-res!(7) I didn’t, not for one second, think “(Sigh), I wish we were listening to vinyl…”. Or anything else for that matter. You want to be in the moment even when just listening to averagely-recorded faves and be moved to tears by it? The Symphonia will scrape every single emotional intention from whatever you throw at it and treat it all like it matters to you. And all the stuff I heard at the Brussels show? Though there mostly in form then, now - much like when God breathed into Adam’s nostrils - fully alive.(8)

Still not convinced? I get it. Honestly, I’m not here to convince anyone. That I’m convinced is enough for me. No system will appeal to everyone. And even had you been there yesterday and loved it, you may have like Stavros, Michel and I, still moved the couch back and forward and played with vertical height and adjusted toe in and each come to different conclusions about how to tailor the sound closer toward individual preference. Michel and Stavros both believe the Symphonia is actually extremely room-friendly (and from what I heard, I have absolutely no reason to doubt it), but there’s a level of performance laying dormant still yet to be unlocked (crossovers were brand new, and drivers still needed running in). Me? I would have liked the couch to be about 30cm further back, with the speakers toed in a touch for a little more centre-fill at the expense of staging width, and the speakers to be angled up at the back to be more on axis for a greater window into their extreme phase and time alignment rigour (I was the smallest one there, so was sitting a little lower than everyone else). That it’s all innately in there already, means extracting it is so much easier.

I often find myself bemused by posters with few posts making extravagant claims for components made by some company that lacks the pedigree of well-established brands with large marketing budgets that advertise in you-know-what. It’s like their credibility is just ripe for dissection. And yet here I am extolling the virtues of the only system I believe is worth my money from a company that’s the same age as my children. But do more posts make for a more credible opinion? Isn’t it more true to say that an opinion is exactly what it is and no more than that? Is mine anymore credible because I type a lot of words? Because I played music most of my life? Because I used to produce and engineer albums for indie rock bands? Nope. If you’re still reading (and my word, if you are, my hat’s off to you), then please be assured, mine is worth whatever you want to take it for, even if that’s nothing.

In the mean time, I just feel so very grateful that Stavros and Michel, aside from being great guys whose company I enjoy immensely, have brought to the market a speaker, and indeed a system that feels more like an investment in personal growth and cultural enlightenment than it does the purchase of a bunch of inanimate objects costing more than many people (if not most) earn in a year. That both are true, doesn’t make it any less or more of a justification, but one I can honestly say I believe is worth it, even if you may not. At the very least, if you make it to Munich, you’ll be able to hear it for yourself, and then call into question my credibility to my face.

Best,

853guy


(1) For the main system. Still possible we’ll assemble a family system with some fancy dynamic drivers, and if I have my druthers, an office system based around ESL 57s or LS3/5As just because.

(2) We’ve been looking for a property for over three years. As well as providing a home for our family, we’re wanting it to provide forms of income either from agriculture, animal farming and/or as accommodation, while permitting my wife and I to continue to freelance. Oh yeah, shelter for chickens and goats. We’re getting closer, but we’re not there yet. And in order to keep our powder dry financially speaking, we won’t be purchasing depreciating assets until we know what we’re in for. Ugh. Maturity. It’s so… adult.

(3) It's not that I believe idlers, SETs and horns are inherently superior simply due to their topology. Like all things audio, implementation trumps ideology, especially once real-world results are taken into consideration.

(4) Based on a direct, first-hand audition using music I am intimately familiar with and actually listen to in real-life in an extremely well sorted acoustically treated room - I believe some people consider these sorts of experiences to be preferable to opinions offered without the former.

(5) I work in advertising, remember. So there is that. Take my opinion with a large helping of salt, now with 25% less iodine for slim, healthy eyes!

(6) To be fair, many of them do suck.

(7) The Mompou was actually a 24/96 download in FLAC from prestoclassical.co.uk.

(8) Genesis 2:7

Believe it or not, I read your whole post and that is pretty much what I heard in 2014 with an all AC system. Question though what % do you think was the speakers and what % the AC electronics?

I think Stavros is one of the few, if not only, persons making the real deal today and for a price that, while very expensive, is not obscene.

I love my Two-way, full horn Odeon La Bohemes, they work amazing in my small listening room but if I had space and funds I would get Symphonia as well. Interestingly, my Odeons back load a 10 inch driver and it doesn't move regardless of the SPL or bass content and so never sounds strained or distorted. Sign of a horn done right.
 

Jazzhead

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853guy , that's some mighty fine prose there . An enjoyable read . Look forward to hearing the Symphonia @MOC.
 

853guy

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Believe it or not, I read your whole post and that is pretty much what I heard in 2014 with an all AC system. Question though what % do you think was the speakers and what % the AC electronics?

I think Stavros is one of the few, if not only, persons making the real deal today and for a price that, while very expensive, is not obscene.

I love my Two-way, full horn Odeon La Bohemes, they work amazing in my small listening room but if I had space and funds I would get Symphonia as well. Interestingly, my Odeons back load a 10 inch driver and it doesn't move regardless of the SPL or bass content and so never sounds strained or distorted. Sign of a horn done right.

Hi Morricab,

To be honest, it’s kinda reassuring you say that (and amazing you actually made it to the end).

Reading back over what I wrote I’m like, ‘Is this even saying how I felt?’ It just seems like a bunch of incoherent rambling for someone who is clinically insane (possible that’s true). It’s difficult to describe. It’s like Calvin and Hobbes attempting to describe the third dimension when they themselves are two-dimensional - it’s like you need a whole new vocabulary, or even a whole new language to describe what you hear. And then you think, ‘Maybe I’m just making this all up in my head… Perhaps beta-testing those drugs in college for that big pharma company that got shut down by the FDA was a mistake…’ It’s weird.

So I take your post to mean two things, either: A) I’m not crazy, we’re hearing the same things and Stavros is indeed just incredibly talented and makes components that have bettered systems in which the price/performance ratio is clearly skewed disproportionately toward price; or B) We’re both crazy and perhaps should seek professional advice.

And your question in terms of percentages is a really good one. I guess it’s a version of: ‘Can I get the AC magic just with the amps (and/or the speakers)?’

I heard a lot of really good things at the Brussels High End show from the AC stuff - certainly enough to eliminate most other brands I had been considering - but it was clear the speaker used was a limiting factor. I think if you were stretched for space/disposable income, assembling an AC system without the Symphonia’s could still be incredibly rewarding, and possibly better than many other candidates for similar money (or more). At the end of the day we all have to work within limitations, and I would still encourage anyone to go hear an AC component even if not planning to go the whole hog.

But I guess it’s that oft-told cliché of if you want to really hear the system at its best, you need the Symphonia. It’s like it doesn’t bring its own set of values - it’s the electro-acoustic manifestation of the all the values already inherent in the DAC, pre and amp. To then use another lesser speaker would be like inviting Cecilia Bartoli to dinner and asking her to lip sync to her songs. You’re getting a very life-like facsimile of her, but you’re not getting what makes her amazing. To me, it’s best articulated as an asymmetrical relationship in which the holistic nature of the delivery of each note is rendered so much more explicitly via the Symphonia in a way that leaves you in no doubt that it was already present and fully-formed further up the chain, but has now been given a voice that manifests as a physical presence. Like as if someone tells an amazing story around a campfire and then your favourite director makes it into a feature film, fully realising what was already there.

I guess what I’m trying to say is what I meant in the creation of Adam analogy. Adam was formed into a man by God’s hand but it wasn’t until God breathed into this nostrils that he started to live. When connected to the Symphonia, the entire AC system lived. And breathed. And sighed. And…. you get the picture I guess.

One of the things I forgot to mention in my post above when listening to the Symphonia that I didn’t hear at the High End show was something I discussed with Stavros about paradoxes. With the the DAC, pre and amps music is given (or perhaps more correctly, “restored”) a sense of tension in which the interplay of the musicians gives flight to a note which is created, curated and then curtailed in preparation for another. Rather than being boring, the sense of waiting creates an anticipation that feels active instead of passive. I actually alluded to this in my High End write up, in which the silences take on meaning as an essential part of the music. Rather than silence being the absence of music, it instead becomes one of the things that defines it.

But via the Symphonia, that same tension is still present, but is now presented so effortlessly. So many other speakers tend to do the opposite - create a sense of boredom despite the speaker itself being filled with tension. Does that make sense? It’s like the speaker is so effortful in its delivery that it renders the music as being insipid and lifeless, whereas the Symphonia renders the music as continuous, intricately woven and “tensioned” but delivers it to the listener so effortlessly.

It would be very hard for me to live without that quality now that I’ve heard it elucidated so clearly. And while one of the attributes I find in good horns (or as you say, “a horn done right”) is the effortless delivery, I’ve still never heard one that’s as linear, time and phase coherent, and makes even music taste like mine redolent with intention and purpose. This is the first speaker I feel makes no apologies for anything, and yes, I realise that’s borderline crazy to type.

Be well, Morricab.

853guy
 
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853guy

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853guy , that's some mighty fine prose there . An enjoyable read . Look forward to hearing the Symphonia @MOC.

Hi Jazzhead,

Shucks, that’s nice of you to say. I’m glad you managed to get through it unscathed…

Michel has a really brilliant room, so fingers crossed the space at Munich provides at least some of the magic I heard yesterday. If for any reason you find Munich a let down, I’d really encourage you to take a trip to Brussels at some stage. My personal belief is that the Symphonia still has a lot of performance up its sleeve, so a visit to Michel at a later date will possibly prove even more rewarding.

And hey, I guess I’ll see you at MOC!

Cheers,

853guy
 

Ron Resnick

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853guy, I enjoyed very much your thoughtful, descriptive and introspective post. I am very happy for you that you found a system you could be happy with forever!

Did you listen to vocals on the AC system (beyond Dire Straits)?

What fraction of your personal listening preference is allocated to vocals versus classical and jazz?
 

flyer

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Hi Jazzhead,

Shucks, that’s nice of you to say. I’m glad you managed to get through it unscathed…

Michel has a really brilliant room, so fingers crossed the space at Munich provides at least some of the magic I heard yesterday. If for any reason you find Munich a let down, I’d really encourage you to take a trip to Brussels at some stage. My personal belief is that the Symphonia still has a lot of performance up its sleeve, so a visit to Michel at a later date will possibly prove even more rewarding.

And hey, I guess I’ll see you at MOC!

Cheers,

853guy


Hello 853guy, we certainly could not wish or hope for a better write up and I feel humbled as well by your compliments about my room!

Actually, by the time you came to the room, the system had been playing for less than two days. As you wrote, the final final set-up was (and is) not yet found but ... already to the level you describe.

Also for me it has been a frustrating journey to get to this and looking back, it is like the story of connecting the dots from Steve Jobs. Having to develop from a pure melomaniac to a being an audiophile and now having the feeling I can go back to being a melomaniac.

Regarding Munich, the room there will be slightly bigger than mine but its acoustic behaviour will for sure be very different. We will do our best to minimize its negatives, we can't promise more than that!

Many thanks again for your visit and your kind words.

Michel
 

853guy

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Aug 14, 2013
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853guy, I enjoyed very much your thoughtful, descriptive and introspective post. I am very happy for you that you found a system you could be happy with forever!

Did you listen to vocals on the AC system (beyond Dire Straits)?

What fraction of your personal listening preference is allocated to vocals versus classical and jazz?

Hi Ron!

Thanks, that’s kind of you to say. Yes, I hadn’t expected the process to be that easy, to be honest. I thought it’d be a lot more arduous, travelling to shows, dealers, awkwardly asking fellow audiophiles if I might intrude on their systems and families. I had a short list of gear I wanted to hear (Aries Cerat being one), but was thinking it would be difficult to hear any of it in ideal circumstances, and certainly didn’t imagine I’d get to hear it together, having been set up by the designer and distributor, in a very, very acoustically sorted room in which I could listen to my own music. Perhaps I’m fortunate in that we don’t have a system at the moment, so we’re literally starting with a blank slate and I’m not needing to try and accommodate an existing reference.

I’m guessing your question is: ‘How did the Symphonia handle vocals?’ Am I right?

My personal listening tastes are pretty broad, and I tend to clump around a genre for a while exploring that. Lately it’s mostly been a lot of technical metal and micro-sound/minimalist electronica, with a little bit of modern classical here and there and some Coltrane. So it’s been very little solo vocals (outside of band stuff like, say, the XX’s new album), but that could change tomorrow.

My experience with most demos is that the dealer or show will already have a lot of vocal and classical stuff (as well as plenty of Krall, Barber, Warnes and Cassidy) so I try and take stuff that doesn’t usually qualify as appropriate for demos, but is more representative of what I actually listen to in real-life. And if a system can’t handle Battles or Tim Hecker, then it’s not worth my time no matter how much it might excel on more purist “audiophile” tracks of which I personally have very little comparatively.

Just a note on vocals for me personally… I find a lot of vocalists are over-miked, are too high in the mix, and generally receive too much compression. They end up being extremely breathy, very wide, and with an over-exaggeration of fricatives, sibilants and extraneous sounds from the tongue and mouth. It’s not so much a complaint (as I just take whatever I can get and be grateful for it), but an observation in which using vocal tracks for auditions is made slightly more problematic. Again, that’s just me.

However, we do listen to a lot of female vocal stuff not limited to PJ Harvey, Emmylou Harris, Ane Brun, Björk, Hope Sandoval, Diamanda Galas, Marina Topley Bird, Elizabeth Fraser, Maria Callas, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, and the holy trinity of Aretha, Ella and Billie, et al. But even then female vocals as a ‘genre’ would possibly make up less than 5% of what we actually listen to. Pavarotti is my favourite tenor as uncool as that might be, with Björling not far behind, and we do have a lot of choral works as well.

The only other vocal track we listened to on Sunday was Loreena McKennitt (though unfortunately I’m not sure of the name of the track). However, though I can’t honestly say we listened to a lot of well-recorded female vocals, there was absolutely nothing I heard on Sunday that would lead me to believe that the Symphonia would treat it any differently than it did solo piano, symphonic works, and heavily-modulated square-waved analogue synths.

And although this is a complete assumption on my part that Michel is free to contextualise, my guess is that if vocals were a large and significant part of your musical diet, I believe, based on what I heard on Sunday and relative to the finitude of my experience, the Symphonia would reveal the character, intonation, phrasing, tone, texture and timbre of whoever you were playing - the how and why of their craft - with more grace, authority, power, delicacy and “breath of life” than any other horn, and possibly - though I guessing, right? - almost any other speaker. Is that caveated enough?

Be well, Ron.

853guy
 
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853guy

Active Member
Aug 14, 2013
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Hello 853guy, we certainly could not wish or hope for a better write up and I feel humbled as well by your compliments about my room!

Actually, by the time you came to the room, the system had been playing for less than two days. As you wrote, the final final set-up was (and is) not yet found but ... already to the level you describe.

Also for me it has been a frustrating journey to get to this and looking back, it is like the story of connecting the dots from Steve Jobs. Having to develop from a pure melomaniac to a being an audiophile and now having the feeling I can go back to being a melomaniac.

Regarding Munich, the room there will be slightly bigger than mine but its acoustic behaviour will for sure be very different. We will do our best to minimize its negatives, we can't promise more than that!

Many thanks again for your visit and your kind words.

Michel

Hello Michel!

The pleasure and privilege was all mine. You were an extremely gracious host, allowed me to play music that many would consider noise (fair enough, really, considering what I played), had me sit in the middle, enabled me to move the couch, and even permitted me to use your bathroom. You are a true gentleman, and I’m grateful you’ve made the process so easy for me. Thank you.

I wish it was easier to tell the truth. It feels like on one hand I’m exaggerating, and on the other, being too conservative. But as far as heavily subjectivized opinions go, yes, I think your room is incredible, and yes, the Kassandra, Impera, Concero and Symphonia are simply the finest components I’ve ever heard, despite the reality there are still asymmetrically-significant gains to be made from small incremental steps as I’m sure you’re finding.

I completely relate to your journey and your melomania. To me, hi-fi often seemed like a Faustian bargain in which one needed to sacrifice the music they loved on the altar of sonic perfection. Could one ever find contentment, no matter what music they liked? Was it too much to ask to have music that sounded like music rather than just sounds? Thankfully, like you, my journey is (almost) at an end in that I can see the promised land, through am yet to cross over as you have.

Looking forward to seeing you in Munich. I’m confident that those who have ears to hear will find the Symphonia worth the time it takes to experience it, and “listen around” any sonic anomalies introduced by the room.

See you in a couple of weeks.

853guy
 
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flyer

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And although this is a complete assumption on my part that Michel is free to contextualise, my guess is that if vocals were a large and significant part of your musical diet, I believe, based on what I heard on Sunday and relative to the finitude of my experience, the Symphonia would reveal the character, intonation, phrasing, tone, texture and timbre of whoever you were playing with more grace, authority, power, delicacy and “breath of life” than any other horn, and possibly - though I guessing, right? - almost any other speaker. Is that caveated enough?

Hi, effectively we didn't listen extensively to any vocals while you were here, as you didn't bring any really and from the people in the room, I am probably most inclined to listen to vocal and choral, all classical. And as you said, I like to give others what they come for: the hot spot and their music!

But no worry, I can fully back the claims made. Actually, the difference for the better becomes even more apparent with voices. Whether it are complex choirs, where every voice gets its place and texture or a Christophe Prégardien in Winterreise or Jose James, it all is rendered with the most disarming fidelity! It is not embellished neither, but as you wrote so well, it gives you the impression you might well as be at the live venue.

But many times this is claimed as a virtue of such or such equipment, in good faith.

What is also used and so stereotype is that 'now you have to relisten to your whole music collection to rediscover'. Well, I always kind of laughed at such expression, until now... damn Stavros for having envigoured my musical appetite to such insatiable degree :)

Best,
Michel
 

PeterA

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Congratulations. I've always been intrigued by horns but have had little opportunity to hear them. The photos, descriptions and sonic impressions of this system are very well done. I admire 853's writing ability and this thread has some excellent examples of it. Here is a more pithy example, which I wrote down and now quote: "I love talk. It’s cheap - and it’s fun. But in the real world - in a non-linear and asymmetrical environment - all that matters is the result."

It seems from reading his "talk" that he has found the "result" that he has been searching for. This forum is a good place to share one's findings and to celebrate them. This thread is a great read.
 

853guy

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Hi, effectively we didn't listen extensively to any vocals while you were here, as you didn't bring any really and from the people in the room, I am probably most inclined to listen to vocal and choral, all classical. And as you said, I like to give others what they come for: the hot spot and their music!

But no worry, I can fully back the claims made. Actually, the difference for the better becomes even more apparent with voices. Whether it are complex choirs, where every voice gets its place and texture or a Christophe Prégardien in Winterreise or Jose James, it all is rendered with the most disarming fidelity! It is not embellished neither, but as you wrote so well, it gives you the impression you might well as be at the live venue.

But many times this is claimed as a virtue of such or such equipment, in good faith.

What is also used and so stereotype is that 'now you have to relisten to your whole music collection to rediscover'. Well, I always kind of laughed at such expression, until now... damn Stavros for having envigoured my musical appetite to such insatiable degree :)

Best,
Michel

Hi again,

I did actually have some vocal tracks on my flash drive (Emmylou Harris, Massive Attack and James Blake), but had heard those at the High End show, so wanted to explore some other genres that tend not to mesh well with the sensibilities of those who attend shows this time ‘round.

Hopefully MOC will afford more of a chance to explore vocal, choral, opera and a Capella works in greater depth.

Fully agree with your last statement too. I believe the common parlance is “I’ve heard X by Y a million times, but never like this…!” Ha. It’s ironic that in principle we reject cliché and hyperbole because it’s fundamentally untrustworthy and potentially misleading, only to find ourselves using the exact terminology when struggling for words to accept a new experience that re-writes the narrative we had previously accepted.

853guy
 

853guy

Active Member
Aug 14, 2013
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Congratulations. I've always been intrigued by horns but have had little opportunity to hear them. The photos, descriptions and sonic impressions of this system are very well done. I admire 853's writing ability and this thread has some excellent examples of it. Here is a more pithy example, which I wrote down and now quote: "I love talk. It’s cheap - and it’s fun. But in the real world - in a non-linear and asymmetrical environment - all that matters is the result."

It seems from reading his "talk" that he has found the "result" that he has been searching for. This forum is a good place to share one's findings and to celebrate them. This thread is a great read.

Hi Peter!

To mis-quote Mark Twain, I didn’t have time to write a short summary, so I wrote a long one.

And yes, I totally agree about the freedom here to share our findings and celebrate them. I know it sounds weird to write such things on a forum like this, but truly, I feel grateful I got to experience what I did on Sunday. It was much, much more than just hi-fi, and though I fully appreciate these things are subjective, for all the ethical, ideological, technical and objective reasons why I’m convinced this will be my last system, overwhelming it was the result that mattered most. I’m just glad it didn’t come at the expense of any of the former, but because of them.

Be well, Peter.

853guy
 

morricab

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Hi Morricab,

To be honest, it’s kinda reassuring you say that (and amazing you actually made it to the end).

Reading back over what I wrote I’m like, ‘Is this even saying how I felt?’ It just seems like a bunch of incoherent rambling for someone who is clinically insane (possible that’s true). It’s difficult to describe. It’s like Calvin and Hobbes attempting to describe the third dimension when they themselves are two-dimensional - it’s like you need a whole new vocabulary, or even a whole new language to describe what you hear. And then you think, ‘Maybe I’m just making this all up in my head… Perhaps beta-testing those drugs in college for that big pharma company that got shut down by the FDA was a mistake…’ It’s weird.

So I take your post to mean two things, either: A) I’m not crazy, we’re hearing the same things and Stavros is indeed just incredibly talented and makes components that have bettered systems in which the price/performance ratio is clearly skewed disproportionately toward price; or B) We’re both crazy and perhaps should seek professional advice.

And your question in terms of percentages is a really good one. I guess it’s a version of: ‘Can I get the AC magic just with the amps (and/or the speakers)?’

I heard a lot of really good things at the Brussels High End show from the AC stuff - certainly enough to eliminate most other brands I had been considering - but it was clear the speaker used was a limiting factor. I think if you were stretched for space/disposable income, assembling an AC system without the Symphonia’s could still be incredibly rewarding, and possibly better than many other candidates for similar money (or more). At the end of the day we all have to work within limitations, and I would still encourage anyone to go hear an AC component even if not planning to go the whole hog.

But I guess it’s that oft-told cliché of if you want to really hear the system at its best, you need the Symphonia. It’s like it doesn’t bring its own set of values - it’s the electro-acoustic manifestation of the all the values already inherent in the DAC, pre and amp. To then use another lesser speaker would be like inviting Cecilia Bartoli to dinner and asking her to lip sync to her songs. You’re getting a very life-like facsimile of her, but you’re not getting what makes her amazing. To me, it’s best articulated as an asymmetrical relationship in which the holistic nature of the delivery of each note is rendered so much more explicitly via the Symphonia in a way that leaves you in no doubt that it was already present and fully-formed further up the chain, but has now been given a voice that manifests as a physical presence. Like as if someone tells an amazing story around a campfire and then your favourite director makes it into a feature film, fully realising what was already there.

I guess what I’m trying to say is what I meant in the creation of Adam analogy. Adam was formed into a man by God’s hand but it wasn’t until God breathed into this nostrils that he started to live. When connected to the Symphonia, the entire AC system lived. And breathed. And sighed. And…. you get the picture I guess.

One of the things I forgot to mention in my post above when listening to the Symphonia that I didn’t hear at the High End show was something I discussed with Stavros about paradoxes. With the the DAC, pre and amps music is given (or perhaps more correctly, “restored”) a sense of tension in which the interplay of the musicians gives flight to a note which is created, curated and then curtailed in preparation for another. Rather than being boring, the sense of waiting creates an anticipation that feels active instead of passive. I actually alluded to this in my High End write up, in which the silences take on meaning as an essential part of the music. Rather than silence being the absence of music, it instead becomes one of the things that defines it.

But via the Symphonia, that same tension is still present, but is now presented so effortlessly. So many other speakers tend to do the opposite - create a sense of boredom despite the speaker itself being filled with tension. Does that make sense? It’s like the speaker is so effortful in its delivery that it renders the music as being insipid and lifeless, whereas the Symphonia renders the music as continuous, intricately woven and “tensioned” but delivers it to the listener so effortlessly.

It would be very hard for me to live without that quality now that I’ve heard it elucidated so clearly. And while one of the attributes I find in good horns (or as you say, “a horn done right”) is the effortless delivery, I’ve still never heard one that’s as linear, time and phase coherent, and makes even music taste like mine redolent with intention and purpose. This is the first speaker I feel makes no apologies for anything, and yes, I realise that’s borderline crazy to type.

Be well, Morricab.

853guy


A) You are not crazy...the others simply don't hear well...hate to put it so bluntly but they don't. B) I think with another good horn I think you can get pretty close with an all AC rig. There are other good horns out there but I agree that Stavros's speakers are better than most, if not all of the other contenders and considerably more affordable than the others than are perhaps competitive.

I know exactly what you mean by "breath of life" and how many systems simply lack this and that sense of realism. My Odeons deliver a reasonable level of this and it keeps me relatively satisfied but I can really hear how different electronics can rob this life or enhance this sensation. Some gear I have put on the Odeons really bring it down in level to mere "hifi" and others elevate it to living breathing life where I can see from the looks on others faces that it is doing it right. The Symphonia takes that to a higher level again but I suspect that without AC electronics this will collapse to some degree or other. There are other really good electronics that COULD deliver that same effect but probably they are significantly more expensive than AC.

For a long time I loved my electrostats because of the clarity, tone and detail. They also excelled at micro dynamics, which gave that breath of life at low to moderate listening levels. They could not scale to realistic levels but were so good at NOT collapsing at lower levels that they satisfied for a long time. FInally, they were, with really good amps, palpable and 3d in both image and soundstage and could breathe in and out with the dynamics...however, they again did not scale linearly to the higher outputs.

I tried to go back to higher sensitivity "normal" speakers (Genesis VI, Reference 3a) to accommodate living space (my stats were huge) but ultimately found that lacking and unlivable long term (although sounding quite nice there was no "breath of life"). After hearing a bit of horn revolution in the last 10 years it whet my appetite for a horn. I had heard Odeon No. 32 many years ago with Einstein OTLs and been blown away and when I found the chance to have the La Boheme I jumped on it. They are rare and fully horn loaded (no bass reflex woofer), similar to the AC speaker but two-way instead of three-way. Simliar sensitivity (98db vs. 100db for Symphonia) and frequency response (mine are going down to 40Hz well but die off quickly below that...I think AC gets down to 30s). Maybe one day I too will get a Symphonia but for now...no space...for now...


One of the few other systems I have heard this "breath of life" was the Living Voice/Kondo but this is nearly a million buck system! Certainly I have never heard it with any of the large conventional speakers out there...despite their other positive attributes.

I am also looking at a small German company called DynamiKKs!, which makes a coaxial backloaded horn two-way system and some interesting monitors of high sensitivity. They used to be called Dynavox and they made some pretty nice back loaded horn speakers about a decade ago (Dynavox 3.0, 3.1 and 3.2). I heard one (smallest one) with Tenor OTLs and the sound was gobsmacking good (made my friend sell his Wilson X1s for them...they simply out dynamiced those large sensitive speakers). They have a very intersting one called Ultima! that uses conventional bass but everything else is horn...a large horn that seems to be for all drivers (like a Danley professional speaker...look them up).

I have heard this breath of life also with some of the old WE movie speaker demos (not last year but the year before left my wife in tears from Russian opera singing), but originals are nearly unobtanium so you would have to be satisfied with a copy. A big Altec VOTT system might be able to deliver here as well.

None of these are likely as good as the Symphonia...perhaps only the big Vox Olympian (but the PRICE!). I haven't heard it yet from Cessaro although I can't imagine they are not capable...just something missing with the setup or the electronics that is blocking. I haven't head it with Avantegarde either (fairly close though with Sound Galleries, lampizator and the Brazillian amps (can't think of the name just now). So the speaker, IS very important in this equation but the electronics can really kill it though. Many AG demos were with AG SS amps and that, frankly sucks. I also agree that the Tune Audio Anima with SS gear was not great and aggressive to listen to...last year was better with Trafomatic. The horns Universum from Poland showed quite a bit of potential but not at the AC level, IMO.
 
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flyer

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I also agree that the Tune Audio Anima with SS gear was not great and aggressive to listen to...last year was better with Trafomatic. The horns Universum from Poland showed quite a bit of potential but not at the AC level, IMO.

A bit OT but there are a few reports on this forum that the Diana with the Anima is a fantastic combination.
 

bonzo75

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A bit OT but there are a few reports on this forum that the Diana with the Anima is a fantastic combination.

The reports were from me, after listening to it in Paris and comparing to modded Jolida with the Anima. In those days Anima was my favorite horn.
 

microstrip

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The reports were from me, after listening to it in Paris and comparing to modded Jolida with the Anima. In those days Anima was my favorite horn.

Did you ever listen to a complete Aries Cerat system, including the speakers?
 

bonzo75

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Did you ever listen to a complete Aries Cerat system, including the speakers?

Nope, never heard the speakers. The pre and dac together, and the Diana separately.
 

schlager

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Congrats with the new Aries Cerat speakers, looking forward to listen to them in room P13 :)

Regards
 

Believe High Fidelity

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Congratulations Flyer. Still waiting for Stavros to overcome his jetlag to fill me in on all the juicy details...
 

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