Firstly, as I hope I’ve made clear, the genuinely remarkable musical performance that the Monster can extract from an existing system depends on a number of factors that are far from clearly defined. What you plug where and how much of the system can be connected are critical to achieving the results I’ve described and enjoyed. None of which is helped by the lack of documentation or instructions delivered with the product or available from the manufacturer’s website.
Secondly, this visit from the Monster actually raises as many questions as it answers. Take the example of the Music Room system: that rig occupied all twelve sockets on a single source system. No record player or phono-stage, no streamer, router, switch or server. In this particular case, no active crossover or stereo power amp driving the subs… What happens in the real world when systems get bigger and a whole lot more complex? Do you just add multiple components to a single terminal on the Monster? If so, what should you mix or match with what? Or do you add another Telos unit – and if you do, do you destroy the musical unity that makes the Monster so special in the first place? And where does the GNR V5.1 Plus fit into all this? Is the Monster simply delivering greater capacity, or is it delivering superior performance? Is it better or just more?
Finally, at €44,000, how many people are going to be reaching for their wallets? In one sense, the answer to that is, “Not as many as should be!” because done right, the Telos Monster brings something truly important to your audio system it is almost impossible to get anywhere else – at least in my experience. Rightly or wrongly, faced with this sort of price-tag, many a listener will be looking elsewhere in their system for upgrades. But say for the sake of argument that you are one of the lucky few who already owns a Wadax Reference front-end, or multiple boxes of CH Precision amplification, then your next ‘conventional’ steps are likely bigger than the cost of the Monster already, which casts its purchase in a very different light indeed.
All of which brings me back to my original request to review the GNR V5.1 Plus. If the smaller unit shares the qualities of the Monster then not only is it a price/performance bargain, it is a bargain that far more people can consider and actually afford. So suddenly, the burning question isn’t “How good is the Monster?” It’s “How much of the Monster is squeezed into the more affordable products?”
Or to put it another way, just how big a system can the V5.1 handle, how much performance does it deliver and how best to realize that performance, given that the Monster is demonstrably reluctant to share?
Clearly, I’ve been seriously impressed by the Telos Monster. I’d be even more impressed if those green LEDs came with a dimmer, a defeat switch or just the option of a solid lid! But hey – that’s just me and I can see others loving the ostentatious display. This is a product and an approach that’s definitely worth investigating, at whatever price level is appropriate to your wallet and your system. B ut – and that’s a huge, towering, looming BUT – you’d be well advised to approach it via the auspices of a dealer or distributor who has serious experience with the products. You are going to need serious hands-on, in situ help to realize its considerable performance potential. Given the price of even the GNR V5.1, the sort of systems the Telos units are going to find themselves in will, more often than not, involve multiple , often widely dispersed components. I dealt with the challenge by concentrating the test systems. That ain’t always possible or desirable. This is a case where experience is going to count for a lot. I’d love to investigate the V5.1. I’d love to try working with more than one unit and I’d love to have access to the necessary grounding wires to experiment in dispersed system situations, scenarios that raise their own distinct questions for a product like the Monster. That would allow a more considered and generalized conclusion as to the Telos technology’s worth.
