Today I had the opportunity to listen to Peter's system. Peter was a very kind host with whom it is a pleasure to talk about audio and other things. Our tastes in audio reproduction appear to be rather similar as well. Listening to the system was a very impressive experience, and this digital-only guy could hear what good analog really can do. There was a great amount of timbral detail, and timbres could be breathtakingly natural. The voices of Louis Armstrong (on two different recordings) and Muddy Waters were very convincing, as if they were singing in the room. While I find that Redbook CD can reproduce most timbres quite well, so far it has always failed me on the reproduction of the raspiness and breathiness of tenor sax (as a caveat though I have to say that I have never compared the same recordings on CD and vinyl). Like in the analog system of a friend in Connecticut, tenor sax really came through convincingly on Peter's system. The sound of the flugelhorn on Hugh Masekela's Hope was also very natural and detailed. On a recording for guitar and bass there was a track that impressively portrayed the resonant wooden body of bowed bass. Yet as it should be I never heard any box coloration from the speakers during the entire session, and the sound was always very clean with great instrument separation on the best recordings. -- Imaging was great, as you would expect from mini-monitors.
Yet what stood out for me the most were the dynamics. On Hugh Masekela's Hope the mid-bass energy and dynamics were stunning, as were the dynamics of the voice. The dynamics of Muddy Water's close-miked voice were downright explosive -- here as on other occasions the system showed that it shines not just in the portrayal of macro-dynamics, but also in the energetic rendering of micro-dynamics, something that most systems have real trouble with, but not Peter's. And the Sheffield drum track featured explosive dynamics as well. Others have already commented on how great that track sounds on Peter's system.
On the downside I noticed that several of the recordings of classical small-scale music we tried, as well as a Led Zeppelin LP (standard edition), sounded rather mediocre, while imaging was in general excellent also on these recordings. These LPs were from mainstream labels where not just the recording quality is not the greatest, but the pressing quality of the vinyl apparently suffers, too. I had noticed the problem of poor vinyl pressings on the analog system in Connecticut as well. Thus, it seems to be a more general vinyl problem, not specifically tied to Peter's system. Granted, CD pressings can also vary in quality, but I don't think as much as vinyl pressings (the varying quality of CD recordings is a different matter).
On these more mediocre sounding LPs a closing-in of the highs became also much more apparent than on the great recordings/pressings mentioned above, while to some minor extent it was present there too. It may be a function of the acoustics of Peter's rather small room or the load setting of the phono stage, but on the best recordings it is hardly a distraction from the stunning overall quality of sound, which is among the best I have heard. Congratulations on a great system, Peter!