Visit to Zerostargeneral’s Pnoe/Thomas Mayer/VYGER System

Ron Resnick

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Jan 24, 2015
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“The closest to live music I have ever heard” is my considered conclusion about jazz, solo instruments and ensembles and, in some ways, classical symphony orchestra, reproduced on the unique vinyl/horn/single-ended triode system of zerostargeneral.

En route to rendezvous in London with Tinka to celebrate her best friend’s 30th birthday, I had the opportunity to have a very fun dinner with Audiophile Bill, and to spend an entire glorious day at the home of zerostargeneral. Based on what a couple of our members have reported about the system of zerostargeneral I was expecting to enjoy it, but I was not expecting to hear an entirely higher level of realism than I have experienced before from reproduced music.

Comprised of AER Pnoe single-driver, back-loaded horn loudspeakers with AER BD5 drivers, the V.Y.G.E.R. Indian turntable with integrated linear-tracking tonearm on which rides a Top Wing Red Sparrow cartridge, and powered by a full suite of Thomas Mayer electronics, this is truly a one-of-a-kind system.

The speakers are 118dB sensitive, and each of the Thomas Mayer 46 mono amplifiers outputs 2.75 watts. The massive stainless steel turntable on its massive stainless-steel integrated legs looks beautiful and beautifully-machined. I have a soft spot for turntables with integrated stands which reach all the way to the floor.

The tubes in the Thomas Mayer phono stage, the line stage and the amplifiers are vintage tubes from the 1930s which have been meticulously selected for sound quality and low noise. Putting my ear to the BD5 driver I heard almost nothing — certainly less than I hear from most conventional audio systems.

The Pnoe horns, made in Greece, are three and one-third feet wide and slightly over seven feet tall. Zerostargeneral’s beautiful and completely dedicated rectangular room is approximately eleven meters long, seven meters wide and five meters tall.

Zerostargeneral and his very experienced assistant, Lucas, source, select and evaluate from all over the world the finest and rarest original vinyl test pressings to use as source material.

The minimization of electronic adulteration of the .2mV signal transmitted by the cartridge surfing the vinyl grooves is the philosophy guiding the assembly of this system. Zerostargeneral informed me that there are no capacitors or resistors anywhere in the Thomas Mayer signal path. The tubes somehow are all direct-coupled. This is the first high-end audio system I have ever heard with no capacitors or resistors anywhere in the signal path. (I honestly did not even know that that design parameter was technically feasible.)

Zerostargeneral was a wonderful mentoring disc jockey, playing for me a wide variety of genres and tracks. We also played three of my standard audition tracks:

"Send in the Clowns" by Bill Henderson, Live at the Times (Jazz Planet Records/Classic Records) you

“Pictures at an Exhibition” on The Power of the Orchestra, Rene Leibowitz, RPO, Chesky RC30

”I've Got the Music in Me" by Thelma Houston, I've Got the Music in Me (Sheffield Lab 2)

Ever since the beginning of my tour of horn loudspeaker systems at Munich High-End in 2017, I have held the view that there is something about horn speakers which prevents them from reproducing vocals with the same transparency and the same in-the-room presence exhibited by electrostatic speakers and ribbon drivers. With audioquatter’s Cessaro Zetas I heard from horns the greatest transparency on vocals I had heard during my visits and auditions — until I heard this system.

On zerostargeneral’s system for the first time I heard zero diminution of transparency and of in-the-room presence on vocals compared to electrostatic and ribbon loudspeakers. Bill Henderson sounded as transparent and as in-the-room real as I have ever heard him on any electrostatic or ribbon system.

This system allows instruments to sound detailed and fast in the ways real musical instruments sound when you hear them played live. The apparent speed is astounding, and the dynamics reflect the seemingly instantaneous rise time of extremely sensitive horn loudspeakers. This is the best “jump factor” I have ever experienced.

This natural speed I heard was not the speed that I described previously of certain dynamic driver systems as being “hyper-fast,” which I found to be an unnatural artifact of some kind. Here the speed simply replicates the actual, natural speed of live instruments.

The speed and dynamics and jump-factor of this system sadly cause me to view all conventional lower sensitivity/higher power loudspeaker/amplifier combinations in a dimmer light. No such conventional system I have ever heard — whether dynamic driver, electrostatic or ribbon — can match the lightness on its feet and utterly explosive sound-recreating effect of this system. This speed got me a full level closer to “live” from the reproduction of the sound of recorded musical instruments.

Zerostargeneral’s system manifests natural-sounding high frequencies, and detail which is delicate in an electrostatic-like way, but which was not once harsh or fatiguing or bright or artificial-sounding.

The texture of instruments came through more vividly than I recall ever having heard before on any system. I could close my eyes and suspend disbelief to find a jazz club transported to me.

I did not hear an absence of low frequencies, nor did I hear any shaving off of high frequencies — two failings for which I was on the look-out. I found this system to sound completely full-range. Whether it is or not I do not know, but to my ears the system is not wanting for frequency extension at either extreme.

Without any cones pushing air this system produced weightier drum wacks on “I’ve Got the Music in Me” than I have heard from large, multi-way dynamic driver systems. I don’t really understand how this is possible, but this is what I heard.

I believe the purity of the signal path allow details and textural information to be heard, while more complicated systems — multi-way speakers with energy-absorbing cross-overs, high-power amplifiers, lots of discrete components in the signal path — literally obscure this delicate and elusive atomic sonic information. The uncorrupted signal, the lack of adulteration inflicted by the electronic components, allowed me to experience reproduced jazz music, solo instruments and ensembles more realistically and believably than I have ever before heard in a stereo system.

The “Great Gates of Kiev” sounded, when I closed my eyes, more like the natural sound of real instruments in a concert hall than I have ever heard before. The soundstage was not as wide, and I did not hear as much power overall across the entire soundstage, as I have heard before, but I think the individual instruments within the soundstage conjured up by this system sounded as life-like as I have ever heard them.

I really think the system must be considered as a unique holistic whole, meaning that if one wants to achieve the exact purity offered by this system I would recommend shamelessly copying zerostargeneral’s exact component list, without changing a thing. This system creates a kind of magic, and my best guess is that this magic is created collectively by the system overall, and that it is not significantly attributable to any single component.

I think this system is a major achievement in the realistic and natural reproduction of music in the home. Congratulations zerostargeneral (and AER and Thomas Mayer)!

Thanks very much to zerostargeneral and his wonderful family and his assistant, Lucas, for an amazing day!
 

Tango

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Stay away from horn base system done right!
 

zerostargeneral

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Apr 14, 2018
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Dear Ron,

Thank you very much from us all here in blighty.

Kona coffee is now in my top three and the Chateau Rouge tea only bested by white tip.

Your a very refined and tasteful individual,it was truly a pleasure to meet in person.

We are enriched to know you.

Kindest regards,G and family.
 

cjfrbw

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Apr 20, 2010
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Nice report, Ron. I had a parallel impression at California Audio Show 2018 with the Destination Audio exhibit with flea powered amp (45 triode vs. Thomas Mayers favored 46 dual grid tetrode) driving large efficient horns (around 105 db)
"Because of the high efficiency (105dB), the speaker can be played with low power amplifiers as low as 1 watt. We designed a dedicated mono amplifier based on the 45 tube."

The sound was seamless and boundless, I really liked it. Stacks of tubes, transformers and flea power in the Asian style (although I think the Mfr. is Polish).

I have been having my own picnic with the new midrange ribbons, which are much more efficient than I thought they would be, discovering the pleasures of 45 and 2A3 tubes in the range of 300Hz to 7Khz active crossover band. I thought this could never happen in the main speakers of my home system with ribbons. I have always used the flea power amps either as tweeter amps, surround amps (300b) or as Stax headphone amps. They are perfect in this frequency range, and they pass my volume related torture tests, too, which I would have considered impossible a few months ago without actually hearing them with the more efficient midrange ribbons.

The transparency, transients, imaging, and upper midrange of the little 45 tube are nonpareil. I think they can ruin you for the upper midrange from any other amp type.

https://www.dagogo.com/destination-audio-system-review/

Image borrowed from Bazelio's great photography.
Screen Shot 2019-10-10 at 1.10.04 AM.png
 
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bonzo75

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Bill - check
Ron - check
Rudolf -
Microstrip -
Rockitman -
 

Folsom

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Thomas Mayer uses transformers on the inputs and outputs of everything. All the equipment is obviously very low gain given that you only get a handful of watts. It's not a surprise it runs extremely quiet, exactly as you need with high sensitivity drivers. And while his designs don't have anything else but tubes and transformers in the signal path, I would remind everyone that all the albums ever recorded at least passed through resistors. Just because you have a design that doesn't have something, doesn't mean that's the only trick or it's the entire reason why something sounds as it does. If you think that's all it takes, well then everyone would have gear that sounds like Thomas Mayer - but they don't.

I have to ask, Ron, is this going to change your stereo in any way?
 
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microstrip

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Enlightening narrative, Ron. Considering your preferences and music selection I have often asked myself why you did not go towards horns and SETs - they seemed a natural choice to you.

I second Folsom question - is this going to change your stereo in any way?
 

tima

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Mar 3, 2014
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I really think the system must be considered as a unique holistic whole, meaning that if one wants to achieve the exact purity offered by this system I would recommend shamelessly copying zerostargeneral’s exact component list, without changing a thing. This system creates a kind of magic, and my best guess is that this magic is created collectively by the system overall, and that it is not significantly attributable to any single component.

Thank you Ron for your delightful and thoughtful report on experiencing the general's system. Your writing clearly expresses your enthusiasm and wonder during a magical day of realisation of reproduction portential fulfilled. Knowing such is possible is encouragement to us all.

I like that you don't mince around in saying 'if you want this, copy it.' Perhaps you and mr. zerostar could comment on the room and what factors it plays in the results. To me it is substantially large. How much of the system's context needs to be copied?
 

Rhapsody

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Thanks very much to zerostargeneral and his wonderful family and his assistant, Lucas, for an amazing day![/QUOTE]
I think this system is a major achievement in the realistic and natural reproduction of music in the home.
Congratulations zerostargeneral (and AER and Thomas Mayer)!

Super report Ron, would love to hear this system! The AER/Thomas Mayer combo must be great. I think maybe the VYGER/TWRS had a bit to do with what you heard as well:)
 

spiritofmusic

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Jun 13, 2013
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I've been to hear this system as well. Even though the music played was unfamiliar to me, you can't mistake the unimpeded flow and texture of top vinyl replay thru 1.46 uber pure Watts out of transducers w effectively no drag factor.

I know we all go insane pinning down adjectives for what we hear, but my choice on this system would be "liquid".
 

Tango

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Thank you Ron for your delightful and thoughtful report on experiencing the general's system. Your writing clearly expresses your enthusiasm and wonder during a magical day of realisation of reproduction portential fulfilled. Knowing such is possible is encouragement to us all.

I like that you don't mince around in saying 'if you want this, copy it.' Perhaps you and mr. zerostar could comment on the room and what factors it plays in the results. To me it is substantially large. How much of the system's context needs to be copied?
7 meters wide 11 meters long 5 meters high. One meter away from both side walls. Two from front wall. This is a dream for me. I dont know about pnoe but Cessaro benefits greatly from larger room. I have heard three smaller Cessaro systems in rooms bigger than mine. They all breath so freely and have better staging than mine especially on depth.
 
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spiritofmusic

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That's some kinda room resonator, rrp $9999.99 If you're buying in a street market in Asia, move the decimal point four places to the left.
 
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108CY

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May 4, 2013
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Great report,systems like this can only be applauded, the sacrifice and dedication not to mention the trial and error can be exceedingly challenging and painful for many, ones other priorities get brushed aside. All I can say is well done G in relentlessly pursuing ones goals, in finding musical satisfaction.
 
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PeterA

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Super report Ron, would love to hear this system! The AER/Thomas Mayer combo must be great. I think maybe the VYGER/TWRS had a bit to do with what you heard as well:)

I wonder how much of the overall experience has to do with this statement:

"Zerostargeneral and his very experienced assistant, Lucas, source, select and evaluate from all over the world the finest and rarest original vinyl test pressings to use as source material. "

I believe Ron has bought some exceptional LPs from the General for his own collection and future use.

Superb reporting, Ron. Experiences like this one will stay with you for a long time and perhaps forever alter your thoughts about what is possible in reproduced music. Like a couple of other posters, I too am curious to learn whether or not this will change your approach to your system. I suspect not because of your suggestion that to get this level you recommend that one copy this exact same system. I see that as unlikely in your case as you are firmly committed to the Pendragons and AS2000. We all look forward to the day that you report to us how that system sounds.
 

Ron Resnick

Site Co-Owner, Administrator
Jan 24, 2015
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. . . I would remind everyone that all the albums ever recorded at least passed through resistors.

. . .

This proves too much, because this is an argument against almost the entire hobby of high-end audio. If we are not going to bother in the playback chain with components better than the ones used to make the recordings we might as well give up the pursuit of high-end playback.
 
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Audiophile Bill

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Mar 23, 2015
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Hi Ron,

It was a great pleasure to finally meet up with you in person.

I remember having the same epiphany when I first heard the system. It changed my audiophile and musical journey 180 degrees overnight.

Really enjoyed the report and could feel your excitement.

Best wishes.
 

ack

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Excellent report Ron, thanks! And congrats to the general
 
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microstrip

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(...) And while his designs don't have anything else but tubes and transformers in the signal path (...)

Yes, this claim is sonorous, but technically meaningless unless properly analyzed . All transformers have significant intrinsic resistance due to the wire resistance and it shows in series with the signal, so we have resistance in the path. IMHO we should appreciate such great system as an whole and should not try to associate magic properties to just an individual part of it.
 

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