Best In Show – and the Duck For Cover Award
The Clarisys Audio Atrium, with VAC amps, Kronos turntable and Pink Faun/Lampizator
In our show preview, we highlighted Clarisys Audio’s ambitious (for which read “high risk”) plan to bring its largest speaker system to Munich. The reality exceeded even the expectations. The company transported six-and-a-half tonnes of equipment to the show, including a pair of every speaker they make to populate the passive display area in the vast room they’d taken. Pride of place went to the one speaker running active – and active is the word. The massive, six-panel Atrium speaker system (mid/treble panels, bass panels and panel subs) was driven actively by six VAC mono-blocs (a pair of Statement 455iQ and four Master 300 iQ Musicblocs), fed from an Accuphase crossover. Front-ends were a Pink Faun/Lampizator server and DAC and a Kronos turntable, with VAC Statement Phono and Line-Stage. To that you can add grounding modules for just about everything, more cables than you can probably count, racks to hold the whole lot up and power cords to feed it all! This was a huge system that was hugely complex: just getting it to the show was something of a triumph. Getting it working so well that it really was the only big system on the premises that delivered consistently excellent results, was little short of miraculous.
We visited the Clarisys room multiple times throughout the four days of the show (and the two days preceding it) and we were never disappointed. Serious listening was saved for Sunday morning – essential due to the packed room during the opening hours – and accompanied by the immortal words, “I know you’re not too fond of streaming, so bring your records…” Except that these days we’re not in the habit of trucking records around shows. The only two we had on hand were a copy of (the excellent) Woodland Studios and The Who Live At Leeds, being repatriated after entertaining the masses at Axpona. Never mind, we thought, be careful what you wish for!
As it happens, we needn’t have worried. Despite the vast frontage (all six panels must have added up to at least a ten-metre width), the system did a great job with the delicate intimacy, close harmonies and tight rhythms and playing on the Gillian Welch and David Rawlings album. Tonality was spot on. Seldom have the voices here been so natural or so easily separated, while guitars had real body and unforced attack, bringing out the weighting of notes and articulation in the playing. This was a wonderfully musical presentation, as impressive sonically as it was emotionally expressive.
The Atrium system wasn’t perfect. You’d need a lot more time and fine tuning to get it really dialled in. Imaging was a bit high, wide and handsome, but the overall coherence of the recorded acoustic and the dimensionality of the images was genuinely remarkable. Hearing that old audiophile and show classic ‘Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes’ was like hearing it for the very first time, such was the sheer space, easy separation and inherent musicality delivered by the huge panels. To achieve this level of integration in a system this complex in this short a time is seriously impressive. The Who Live At Leeds? Never, ever have I heard it sound so big, bold, visceral and real. If you want to hear what a real rock band, in its pomp, sounds like live – this monster system will do it for you. At 9:30 on a Sunday morning? Anytime you choose…
