There seems to be little or no limit to the demands you can place on the scale and headroom available from this set-up. Monster sound-tracks hold no fear for these speakers: you will give up before they do. The sheer scale and subterranean bass that forms the foundation of Hans Zimmer’s music for Thin Red Line (RCA/BMG 09026 63382 2, pre-Gladiator and surely Zimmer’s finest work) hasn’t sounded this enveloping and physical since I last heard it in the cinema. Yet for all that power and substance, it still shimmers with atmosphere and tension. ‘Shenzou’ from the Gravity OST (Silver Screen SILCD1441) is the audio equivalent of a toboggan ride on even a modest system: here, it’s the Cresta Run! Both soundtracks were reproduced with solid, slab-like low-frequencies that arrived on time and on pitch, with clarity and a complete absence of overhang – testimony to the room’s deft low-frequency voicing – but the sub-sonic output set the air in the room wobbling like a blancmange sitting on a spin-drier: Not strictly relevant to musical capabilities, save as a demonstration of genuinely prodigious bottom-end output capability and control. The word “awesome” has become almost meaningless in current parlance, too often used to describe the merely good or acceptable. Check the dictionary: this was properly awesome!
Don’t go getting the idea that this is a system for classical music and a bit of jazz. I might have reached into that side of my collection for the examples cited so far, but I listened to plenty of rock and pop too. ‘Soul Love’ and the title track from Ziggy (EMI SACD 07243 521900 2 7) effortlessly conjured the magic of Bowie and the era of UK rock recording on 2” analogue tape. The spit, sawdust and attitude of Americana was raw and ready, the sculpted soundscapes of Aimee Mann’s Lost In Space (MoFi UDSACD 2021) dripped texture, detail and ambience, filling the space behind her bruised, sardonic vocals. Songs with a downbeat tempo (like ‘Real Bad News’) never dragged or lagged, the driving rhythms and hitch-kick pick up of ‘The Moth’ were properly propulsive and motive, passing the Linn toe-tap test without even recognising the issue.
Home comforts…
But it was with familiar voices that the preternatural qualities of this system were most apparent. Whether it was Steve Dawson (and Diane Christansen) on Sweet Is The Anchor (UndertowCD-UMC-028), or Eleanor McEvoy on Yola (Mosco EMSACD1) the familiar character, accent, diction and delivery were immediately apparent, their identity in no doubt at all. However, there’s no escaping the fact that those examples are essentially simple, sparse recordings that offer a clarity and intimacy that’s rare on mainstream discs. How about something more testing? It’s crying out for Prog… Roll together the system’s ability to support and separate complex layers and congested mixes, over-dubs and drop-ins, to cut to the heart of the music, almost despite the recording and what better challenge than Foxtrot (Genesis – SACD from the 1970-1975 box-set)? If you had any lingering doubts as to both the linearity of this speaker system, or the system’s ability to overlay strands of musical information without congestion or muddling, this album will banish them. This is a production in the full kitchen sink tradition of Prog Rock excess, with swirling keyboards, multiple guitar overdubs, incidental snatches of sound and ‘character’ voices. But listening here, the soundscape opened out, Collin’s powerful drum patterns emerge, as does the seldom audible but beautifully paced and shaped bass guitar line. And then there’s THE voice: this is Gabriel at his finest, expressive intimate and unmistakable. I grew up with this album. I’ve heard it hundreds and hundreds of times – like you do at school. I’ve recently rediscovered it and enjoyed it on the sort of systems I run at home. But I have NEVER heard it sound like this!
