Audiophilepure

https://www.hifinews.com/content/emm-labs-premtrs

When there’s less of a need for the MTRS to dig deep, this system still lives up to its premium positioning thanks to that sense of transparency and balance across the frequency band. Given cellist Redi Hasa’s ‘Little Street Football Made Of Socks’ [The Stolen Cello; Decca 44.1kHz/24-bit], EMM Labs’ pairing sounded biting and sweet at the same time, highlighting the physicality of his playing alongside well-resolved treble. And as the piece builds, layer upon layer, it was hard not to be swept up by its lush detail and lilting rhythm.

With Johan Johansson’s brooding electro-orchestral ‘The Beast’, recorded for 2015 film Sicario [Cutting Edge 302 067 369 8], the PRE and MTRS sounded as confident as they did with Elton John’s more conventional ‘Rocket Man’ [Honky Chateau; Mercury 528 162-2] with its rich piano and crystalline percussion. As for the dance single ‘Ratchets’, from quality-conscious Danish producer Hedegaard [Spinnin Records, 44.1kHz/16-bit], this absolutely banged, as the younger generation might say. Impossibly heavy synth and bass, playing in unison, loaded the room, and ramping up the level rewarded me with simply more weight, more scale and more drama.

The Serene KTE is a neutral sounding pre-amplifier that produces a rich, organic and full sound. It has superb low-end body and texture, a neutral but natural midrange and a delicate and extended top. It delivers heaps of resolution and an open vocal presence that fills the room. The Serene doesn’t color the music much but offers an enormously clear view of it without the added harshness.

The bass of the Serene KTE is well pronounced and offers high end levels of texture and resolution. It is precise and dynamic, with an excellent body and weight. Bass feels natural and organic throughout. The Serene KTE reaches deep with good authority and thunder. It has a life-like body and presentation, where low-ends come out with nice impact and heft.

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They find this beast, only to also find the dragons are also terrified of it. It is the size of 1,000 dragons and as it emerges from its cave, the bass is of the floor-shaking type. The Diptyque speakers are known for their bass, especially for planar speakers. Even knowing this, the performance delivered through The Gryphon amp was nothing short of astonishing. Without letting out any more spoilers, this final battle scene is a test for even the largest of multi-subwoofer theater systems. While this two-channel combination did not deliver the infrasonic bass notes, the bass from 30 Hz and up was powerful, impactful, and tight.

This performance was so well done that a list of speakers I would love to hear with this incredibly powerful amp began to form. Gryphon’s own Trident II, Bowers and Wilkins 801 D4 signature, Legacy Audio Focus SE, Perlisten Audio S7T, DALI core, and various models from PBN loudspeakers come to mind. Put simply, I cannot imagine a loudspeaker that the Gryphon Diablo 333 could not drive. The small list here (and there are many examples I missed) are all speakers with a response to below 20 Hz. A two- channel system with any of these speakers, anchored with the Diablo 333, will deliver bass to well below 20 Hz without a hint of dynamic limits. Combining this level of power with the accuracy, sound stage, and delicacy that the big amp demonstrated throughout this test proves that the Diablo 333 is not just a tremendous product, it is a real value in today’s ultra-high-end systems.

In a world where over-priced complexity all-too-often seems to be the norm, McIntosh’s MC830 monoblock amplifiers offer a warm and welcome vacation from a seemingly incessant over-complication of our lives. Feed these amps power through decent A/C cords, attach good speaker cables, turn them on, and—voila—you’ll hear soul moving sound!

If you’re looking for a pair of solid-state monoblock amplifiers priced beneath the $10K retail mark, I would strongly recommend auditioning a pair of McIntosh’s MC830 amplifiers.

The Armageddon is a more neutrally tuned amplifier when referring to warmth and lushness, but it does have a full bodied presentation from top to bottom. You get a weighty sound over the whole frequency range, no matter what headphone you connect to it. It however is perfectly controlled weight, and there never is too much (or too little). For me, SAEQ got it just right body wise on the Armageddon, but for some it might come over as too full sounding.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/musical-fidelity-a1-integrated-amplifier

In this month’s Gramophone Dream (p.21), I describe my experiences with First Watt’s new SIT-4, which uses new, industrial-grade “SIT” output transistors. I couldn’t stop myself from checking out the flavor achieved by pairing Tim de Paravicini’s line and phono stage to Nelson Pass’s latest no-feedback, low-power (10W into 8 ohms) amplifier.

The SIT-4 costs $5000, and I was relishing its effect on my LS3/5as fed by HoloAudio’s $3098 Serene KTE preamplifier. I was curious whether the A1’s Pre Out would be as uncolored and transparent as the Serene’s, which I regard as state-of-the-art invisible. And by golly it almost was. It was at least 90% as transparent as the Serene.

This arrangement also let me compare the A1’s power-amp section to the SIT-4. Powered by the A1-pre/SIT-4 combo, the Falcons presented bolder, cleaner, more liquid, tactile, and exciting than they did powered by the A1 integrated—its preamp stage and output stage. This suggests that the A1’s signature boldness and tactility are spawned largely in the preamp section, which appears to be a world-class component in its own right.