Many years ago, working for a distributor, I delivered a product to a reviewer, now the self-styled Most Important Man In The Audio Industry. I was astonished to see that he had around 10 records in his listening room – of which two were test records! At what point does actual musical performance become subjugated to sonic considerations? In fact, if sound is what matters, does music matter at all?
“Back to life, back to reality…”
Planning the upcoming installation of not just the Göbel Divin Monarque speakers, but an ambitious set of electronics to go with them (the complete CH Precision 10 Series digital front-end plus amplification and the Wadax Reference DAC and Transport) with Stirling Trayle, who will be responsible for overall system set-up and tuning, I pointed out that the sheer quantity of electronics involved, the shelf-space they demand, to carry out not just the speaker review but also the comparison between the different levels within the 10 Series digital set-up as well as comparing them to the Wadax units, meant that we wouldn’t be able to install an analogue front-end as well – at least not initially: So, not for the speaker set-up. His response? “That worriers me a lot less as long as we’ve got the Ref Transport…”
It’s a telling reply with a number of different ramifications. While it might be taken to suggest that qualitatively, the Wadax Transport matches the performance of a top-flight vinyl front-end, things ain’t quite that simple. Not only does it indicate his familiarity with the unit (unlike the D10/C10, at least at that point) but it needs to be understood in the context of what these different options bring to the system. Just as the CH digital front-end is very different to the Wadax, so the Wadax is very different to vinyl replay. The very nature of those differences impacts what aspects of the musical performance emerge most prominently and convincingly: or, in other words, which recordings sound better on which front-end; which recordings show which front-end in the musically most favourable light.
In one sense, that’s nothing new. The art of reviewing is as much about selecting musical examples as it is in describing how they are presented. But here the distinctions are more far reaching and, in many ways, help to clarify just how far even our best efforts fall short of reality. However, away from such rarefied considerations there’s a more prosaic influence at work. Few of us have what could be described as equally capable, cross format front-ends or even-handed amplification or speakers. The choices we make, be those to invest in analogue or digital, reflect our listening bias and our investment in (and the availability of) software. Many is the time that I have sat in front of a system, listening to music and thinking, if only I could get this recording on vinyl.
As I sit in front of that rack (literally) stacked with digital replay hardware, from multi-box DACs and a separate clock, to two of the finest CD/SACD transports I’ve ever heard, the option to play vinyl isn’t available. But Stirling’s comment makes perfect sense. Are these optical disc players as good as vinyl? It’s a purely academic question. They’re close enough in overall performance for the differences not to matter. As I mentioned earlier, the CH Precision D10/C10 sounds very different to the Wadax Reference Transport and DAC. They both sound very different to the Grand Prix Audio Monaco. But in musical terms, in terms of their ability to communicate and engage, involve and express, as different as they are, they are close enough that differences between recordings of the same work, or between different releases of the same recording can easily be more significant than differences between the machinery when it comes to the quality of the performance and experience as a whole.
