MikeJazz

It's a beautiful album and performance. It touches the soul. On my stereo system, I am not being immersed but, there is plenty of space cues and the there is some weight to the organ. Yes, this really makes me wish to add a subwoofer and see where it takes.

This was a great review. It brought my attention to philharmonic audio that might play a role in a secondary system. I am enjoying my new speakers (Audiovector R3) and they also have a dome tweeter that I found informative but sweet sounding. They have a monitor (R1) that probably would feel at home in that comparison. Monitor loudspeakers have a charm of their own because we can more easily play with their location and made them sonicaly disappear. It reminds me that I should have took the opportunity to buy a used Evolution Acoustics micro one, as that was the best that I found at doing that disappearing act while being extraordinary on voices and acoustics with a great integration of tweeter and ceramic drivers. https://www.evolutionacoustics.com/loudspeakers/micro-series/microone/?doing_wp_cron=1663845790.1658730506896972656250 I will keep an eye on the market for used Micro Ones and Philarmonic Audio monitors...

Squared rooms are tricky to say the least. I would choose speakers that excel in the midrange and do not excite the bass too much. Q Acoustics Concept 300 recently surprised me and might work well as the midrange is very informative with some good warmth so one does not need to crank them too much, although they are not efficient. It will depend much on the room acoustics and what you can do to avoid the issues of the squared room. Diffusors and absorvers can help and also using a near-field setup also helps. The smaller QUAD ESL (something like 2805's) could work very well it images wonderfully in a near-field setup and you are used to that kind of sound... Finding that kind of microdynamics and articulation in box speakers is not easy...but recently I found the monitor audio gold 100 very fast and balanced (and I am not a fan of this brand)...Actually is in my list of possible future speakers; the ribbon tweeter is well implemented and the speaker is fun to listen to.

Another great review. The right balance between objective evaluation and subjective yet useful interpretation of musical performance.

As a takeaway from this...could we say that the Grimm team is better at doing "only" the end-point/processing bit comparing to the storage part? Then maybe they should think about a simpler streamer that reads from somewhere in the network...with or without a DAC. Like what the folks at Linn do...

What a trip. By the way, how did those Aperturas's sounded? I am very curious about the brand, based on what I read...

About Mytek, did I read correctly that a tube was employed just for esthetic reasons?

Hi! have you compared the Kii's agains Dutch and Dutch 8C's? In my (limited) experience with the Kii's I didn't like the voice tonality (not natural, not meat in the bones, too dry sounding). Is it true that the D&D are better in that regard?

that's a very interesting and complete review...thank you.

Hi Elberoth, could you please share with us the rest of the system?

I commend meitner audio for the trickle down strategy. The pricing is indeed more approachable but the import tax will ruin it for us europeans. I would love NAGRA to do the same on their splendid dacs...

This is a great review Chris. Linn continues to support my old sneaky DS streamer with updates. This is a great company to work with, with great service and passion for making good products. It's still unclear to me how do they support Roon. Roon sees the player as a normal "end point"? Does the player stores the Roon playlist itself? Thanks a lot. I hope someday I can get some of this magic (I loved an old Akurate when I tested it). Hope all this trickles down do more affordable linn series.

I found interesting that he mentioned "phase complexity". I also think of this ability of picking it up can be trained. Over the ears the more I attended live music the better I could understand systems and appreciate them. I place in high priority the systems that can "present" the complexity of an orchestra and it's dynamics... It's also refreshing that he's humble to recognize that there is an hypotheses or his system not being resolving enough: "or the differences that existed were too miniscule to be sonically noticeable on my current system". I think about this more and more: we might suffer from systems that are "excessively resolving". They might exacerbate differences that are not that apparent on the concert hall. We are dominated by "producers" in music nowadays and the consequence is that we listen too "close" to the details (which is fun, but it doesn't make it necessarily the best way). Maybe we are making the equivalent of regarding a Monet painting from centimeters, instead of stepping out a few meters... On my next system changes I will look more for engagement, dynamics and "phase accuracy / intelligibility", tone accuracy, and less for "precision", "detail" and the like....

This is very interesting. But Wolf Von Langa is lacking a distribution network around here.

Any details about how this very interesting loudspeaker performs musically would be wonderful. A video with well recorded material would be so cool.