If any two
companies could be called "The Usual
Suspects" it must be Behold and Ascendo.
Both Ralf Ballmann and Jürgen Scheuring are
fixtures on the Audio firmament as far as we
are concerned. I suppose we are all running
the risk of repeating ourselves but once
more they produced some of the very best
music at the show. It does not come as a
surprise if you have followed them for some
years. They are certainly knowledgeable and
conscious of what counts when it comes to
reproducing music in a convincing and
impressive manner.
So it was
indeed no surprise that the large system
running the Behold CD drive and once in a
while the Clearaudio turntable with the
Behold Cartridge mounted A/D converter into
an APU768 preamp, which by the way implement
the x-over digitally with some room
correction applied in order to really wrap
up the sound, and finally transmitting
digitally at 768kHz into the 3 BPA 768 power
amps which were driving the Ascendo System M
speakers, sounded absolutely wonderful.
Behold and Ascendo who work closely together
have been polishing up the total performance
of this system over the last few years and
it really shows or should I say can be heard
(in spades). In my opinion (humble or
not) it represents some of the best sound
money can buy. Now it must be said that 130K
€ and more is not peanuts (at least not in
my book), nonetheless compared to many other
systems where single components come in
little under this, the system offers a level
of quality what concerns both the sound and
the actual build that makes it somewhat of a
good deal.
If you lust
for the sound of the Behold/Ascendo system
but can not in any way come up with the
required finances, then the other and
smaller system might just be up your street.
It consisted of the now production ready
Behold Gentle192 and the Ascendo C8
Renaissance. This last speaker contains a
coaxial unit (from Seas), a rear firing
planar tweeter and the usual (for Ascendo
that is) internal bass unit which only play
through the port opening on the front of the
speaker. We heard it playing in its standard
version in Ascendo's own room and it sounded
great. Together with the Behold Gentle192,
an it sounded several levels better to these
ears.
The reason
for this is probably to be found in the
correction made possible by the Gentle192 in
terms adjustments of frequency and phase
performance and some (gentle) room
correction or adaptation if you want.
Obviously it is too simplistic to call
Gentle192 an amplifier since it really is a
replay system containing amplifiers, general
computer and a DSP engine which allow the
aforementioned x-over and speaker/room
correction as well as replay from hard disk
and many other goodies.
And what do
you know! It works and not just a little
bit. I (and I think quite a few others)
thought it sounded wonderful. You might be
of the opinion that it lacks the utmost in
deep bass and refinement compared to the big
system. Be that as it might, it is also
available for less than 15% of the big
system which actually makes somewhat of a
bargain in comparison. So while it might not
quite be beer budget it definitely is
Champagne taste.
Another of
the "Usual Suspects" is Anssi Hyvönen of
Finnish Amphion. He has been around
on High End for close to 10 years and over
the years made a fine impression with his
speakers. Since last year he has bolstered
his forces with another well known face
namely Ole Lund Christensen whom most people
know for his GamuT amplifiers which company
he sold a few years back. I reviewed one of
the amps a good while back and have kept
some contact with him since then. So now he
is working with Amphion and is in the
process of revamping the entire line of
speakers and much for the better is my
impression.
Amphion was
showing together with two electronics
companies representing quite different and
still very attractive views on amplification
and sources. The first was Holfi, a Danish
company run by Peter Holstein and Göran
Bergh (I suppose that this actually makes
Danish/Swedish) and the other is a
French/Swiss company Mimetism which I
haven't come across before but certainly was
happy to have.
Holfi has
always very much been implementing Peter
Holstein's ideas (photo above) on how to do
audio equipment. He started out quite a few
years modifying equipment but quickly got
into producing his own designs. He
introduced grounding of speakers back even
before Tannoy I think and one thing that has
been a continued theme with his designs has
been battery power for electronics, even his
power amps.
As has been
reported elsewhere the big Krypton speakers
acquitted themselves very impressively in
the room using the Holfi electronics. It was
chosen to not treat the at all to emphasize
the beneficial radiation pattern of the
Krypton. In practice this meant that even
with an untreated room the reproduction was
much better that one would expect and this
could possible, next to the very clean
design look of the Amphion speakers, make
for a better WAF than normally possible. And
a happy audiophile as well of course.
It was
actually during one of Peter's
demonstrations, which included 4 Amphion
speakers, 2 of the big Krypton and 2 Prio as
rear speakers, that something really grabbed
my attention and resonated with what I have
felt for quite a while. It was Peter
Holstein's remark that in his opinion the
most important aspect of SACD was the
multi-channel option. I sat up and agreed.
In spite of
what all the 2 channel fans claim I believe
that a decent multi-channel system will
emulate the actual experience in a space
where is being played much more convincingly
than a 2 channel system, no matter it's
other qualities. We listened to a wonderful
Philips demo SACD of Ole's (which
unfortunately is not commercially available)
and to a fantastic recording of Mahler's 2nd
on Channel Classics. Switching off the rear
channels simply makes the whole thing
collapse to the front. To me personally most
discussions of soundstage becomes nonsense
in the face of such observations. There is
NO doubt in my mind that decently recorded
multichannel recordings are preferable to 2
channel.
As a side
issue I really don't know why I keep on
reading that SACD is dead and that nothing
is published. Has anybody tried having a
brows on Amazon lately? Searching on
amazon.co.uk gives me 3857 hits for SACD
under Music and 2408 under Classical Music.
I have not investigated how many doubles
hide here but to state that no interesting
music is available seems contrary to
reality. I have personally just purchased
all of Beethoven's Symphonies with Haitink
and London Symphony Orchestra in
multichannel and certainly look forward to
listening. More on this at another time.
Before
leaving off the Amphion room I must make
mention of another brand of electronics that
sounded great and looked really great. This
was the French/Swiss brand of Mimetism.
Mimetism
was represented by William Andrea (photo
above0 and if you don't know of him
personally you will be certain to know of
some the illustrious French products he has
designed over the years including Supravox,
YBA and Vecteur.
We had
quite a conversation regarding the 20.1 CD
player and the 15.2 integrated amplifier. A
listen to the newly introduced smaller
models the 27.2 CD and 17.2 amplifier was
equally convincing. These are really
sophisticated products in the best French
tradition and as the company advertises with
Swiss precision it must be said that they
they look absolutely stunning. I truly hope
to have a chance to listen closer.
