Audiophilepure

The unmistakable gravelly drawl of Louis Armstrong has a weight and grain to its character which over many years one becomes intimately familiar with. Ella and Louis Again (2×45 Analogue Productions, MG V-4017) remastered in 2012 by George Marino at Sterling Sound is one of the finest examples of a reissue I’ve heard. The amount of resolution pulled off the original tapes of this 1957 recording session is staggering. Every subtle nuance and detail to the recording studio – spatial cues, vocalizations from Fitzgerald and Armstrong, breathing, chairs moving, and the peccadilloes of play from each musician is laid utterly bare. Visceral, punchy, with astonishing speed to attack on notes and delicious decay to cymbal, high hat, guttural weight to percussion and adroit bass Pizzacato, it swings and romps with abandon with Fitzgerald’s airy, lilting counterpoint to Armstrong balancing the tenor of the entire experience. The emotion, the camaraderie to the relationship between the two leads… all devoid of artifice on any technical or cerebral level I could ascertain through the system feeding the Cheviot. Any change to cabling, cartridge, source or even the inclusion of spiked maple stands under the amps or turntable and CD player did not go unnoticed through the Tannoy.

https://www.hifinews.com/content/rogers-ab3a-subwoofer

Rather, you need to approach the AB3a expecting to free up the sound, if in ways that do not immediately spring to mind. Call them unintended consequences or, better still, unanticipated benefits. And what first made me realise this was the Nimbus Supercut of Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue [CBS 62066]. The difference between with AB3a and without revealed itself throughout the entire LP, in various ways. The first was a sense of greater openness, the second was enhanced stage depth, while a third benefit was the exposure of fine details with improved clarity.

As this LP is a trumpeter’s creation, you’ll be pleased to learn that the punch, extension, clarity and, yes, the sound of Miles’ saliva, were a touch more vivid. Please bear in mind that the subwoofers were tuned to their least intrusive settings, such that I was wondering if they were even switched on. I couldn’t see or feel any woofer movement when I removed the grilles from the AB3as to check.