Introduction:
I was really looking forward to this one, as I had heard a system
comprising equipment from Acoustic Zen Technologies, Rogue Audio, and North
Star Design a while ago, and rated it most highly.
This system was a step above in terms of the specific models.
Equipment:
Speakers: Acoustic Zen Technologies – 3 way – horn loaded ribbon
tweeter, 2 x midrange with underhung voicecall in MTM (D’Appolito)
configuration; 2 x base drivers in transmission line.
Amplification: Rogue Audio (tube) M180 Monoblocks featuring KT90 output
tubes in ultralinear or triode mode; Athena reference preamp.
Unusually, you can switch modes “on the fly” – no need to power down.
Source: North Star Design USB-DAC32 “32 bit” DAC, sourced from laptop
and M192 CD transport with I2S interconnect (rather than SPDIF).
Cables: Acoustic Zen Technologies and HDiamond
DAC to preamp - silver; remaining copper; power cables – regular economy
IEC
Playlist and Impressions:
( I was seated front row centre.)
Ultralinear mode; CD transport
1) Carol Kidd – Dreamsville
The double bass and Carol’s voice
were very detailed and natural – realistic and convincing; there was a touch of
midrange “glare” when other instruments came in. As usual “blame it on the
room”.
2) Orchestral – brass intro.
Clean, fast bass extension; brass
had the right amount of “bite” without becoming harsh
3) Alan Taylor – Old Friends, New
Roads
Good clarity; guitar perhaps more
convincing than the voice
4) Antiphone Blues – Arne,
Domnerus
Sax and pipe organ – lots of
reverb in the recording, difficult to judge
5) Jennifer Warnes – Bird on a
Wire
Good example of the speaker’s
“speed”. I don’t really like that term, but transients were very clean and this
track highlighted the low distortion of underhung voice coils and transmission
line bass loading
6) Scheherezade – London
Philharmonic Orchestra – Jose Serebrier
Here we switched between
ultralinear and triode modes.
The solo violin was very clear.
Triode mode sounded warmer, and by comparison, ultralinear now sounded a bit
lean and clinical (but by no means “bad”).
Ultralinear seemed to give
greater clarity to the strings of stringed instruments; triode gave a greater
sense of the actual body of the instrument i.e. more depth, weight.
From here on, the vote was to
stay with triode mode.
7) Allen Smith Quartet – Estate –
Live jazz recording featuring trumpet and piano
Piano was realistic, with great
presence and the right sense of size.
Trumpet was also realistic and
“there”.
8) Naim demo disc – Thea Gilmore
– rock
Awful recording, sounding very
“cluttered”. Difficult to separate vocals, instruments.
9) Pink Panther Theme
Great detail, resolution,
dynamics. Lovely percussive attack on Hammond organ.
One of the best tracks so far.
10) African – male voices
Good ability to distinguish and
separate the voices.
After the break, we changed source to high resolution internet downloads
on PC.
11) Jazz trio – featuring piano.
Natural, drums very dynamic and
detailed, perhaps a touch of ringing on the piano at times, soundstage a bit
“dual mono” at times.
12) Female vocal, baritone sax,
drums
Very realistic, one of the best
tracks.
13) Ray Charles and Norah Jones –
“One More Time” - 24 bit, 88.2 KHz
Despite having a few of her
albums, the fact that she is usually well recorded, and listening to her
frequently, I did not initially recognize her voice. Sound was all body, no
tops.
14) Christy Baron – “Happy
Together” – FLAC 24 bit 96 KHz
Nothing to criticize.
15) Diana Krall – piano trio, no
vocal
Piano at time sounded
“congested”, top notes edgy and hard; percussion very detailed; bottom end
extended and powerful
16) Eva Cassidy
Again, top piano notes a bit
“hard”, “brittle”. Again, may be the
room.
Conclusion:
In re-reading my notes, it occurs
to me that I may be being overly critical. The reason is simply that is a great
system, and equipment that I have heard before and therefore I had VERY high
expectations.
The issues with ringing and
harshness are likely to be due to the room acoustics. For example, when I heard
the club’s KEF Q900 speakers here (and Haberfield was even worse!) they sounded
way too bright, and seemed to ring to the extent that there could have been a
tweeter fault. However, when I got them home, none of this was evident – they
could barely be described as “a touch bright”.
I may be a “solid state guy”, but
I am certainly impressed with Rogue (tube) amplification.
In fact, all the equipment was of
a very high standard, and certainly not overpriced.
A beautiful system!
Many thanks to Matej from Audio
Solutions for presenting this great equipment to us.
