This goes way beyond the electronics stepping back and getting out of the way. Time and again, disc after disc, the system wasn’t just un-intrusive, it simply wasn’t there. Whether it was the poised intensity and gracefully controlled, almost delicate intent of Alina Ibragimova playing Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto (with Jurowski on Hyperion – a performance that’s as unexpected as it is remarkable), or Batiashvili’s contrasting dynamic authority and power when playing the same piece, the focus was firmly on the player, the playing and the performance as a whole. The system clearly delineated the differences between these two stellar performances, but rather than detracting from or diminishing one, the other or both, it succeeded in adding to their fascination. The raw energy and spikey attitudes of early Elvis Costello or Joe Jackson are all present and sneeringly correct, giving that music just the right cutting edge, while the unmistakable drive and momentum of Carlos Kleiber brings power and drama to the most familiar of Beethoven symphonies – without diminishing the sheer joie de vivre and sly humour exhibited by Jordi Savall and Le Concert Des Nations playing the same material on period instruments in a tiny space.
This is the captivating quality of live performance, the emotional and dramatic range of the live event brought home. Not, you’ll note, a perfect facsimile, but the sense and purpose in the music and the performance, freed of the constraints of reproduction. If we’ve been living with and have grown to accept, a glass ceiling on performance, or more accurately a glass wall between us and the original event, then these products and this system shatters it.
None of these products is small and none of them is even remotely affordable. To the total price of the electronics and speakers you can add the considerable cost of cables and supports of suitable quality. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that few of us can afford or accommodate such a system. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t seek it out, appreciate and enjoy it. In this Covid-blighted environment, audio shows might be cancelled but increasingly manufacturers, distributors and dealers are turning to local events with limited or programmed attendance, which actually promise a far superior experience. Nor does it limit the far more direct benefits of trickle down technology embodied in other products from these companies, or new advances they stimulate (or provoke) in the competition.
Either way, one product that sets an entirely new standard of performance is to be welcomed: A whole system’s worth of products that do things differently and better than the accepted norm represent a step change or generational shift in expectations. Make no mistake, that’s what these products and this system achieve – and by no small margin. They haven’t just shifted the goalposts, they’ve totally changed the game. I for one haven’t heard anything that comes close to the Wadax or CH electronics, that matches or even gets close to their levels of natural musical communication and connection. The Göbel speakers might appear less distinctive – at least on technological grounds – but don’t be fooled. They too are doing familiar things very differently and in doing so, they’re providing the essential window onto all that electronic brilliance.
