Audiophilepure

https://www.hifinews.com/content/bat-rex-500-power-amplifier

Joining this is the sheer atmosphere the REX 500 brings to tracks, big or small. ‘My Home Is In The Delta’ by Muddy Waters [Folk Singer; Geffen 96kHz/24-bit] was immensely evocative. Tiny details of his slide guitar playing were picked out, and the intimacy and ambience of this sparse recording shone through. At the other end of the scale, ‘America’, from Deutsch Grammophon’s live capture of Bernstein’s West Side Story featuring Jose Carreras and Kiri Te Kanawa [96kHz/24-bit], saw vocalists placed along a wide, deep stage. Dynamic brass moments arrived with force – a counterpoint to softer percussion and shimmering latino guitar parts. This chaotic track is as much of a melting pot as its subject matter, yet the REX 500 gave equal footing to every tone and texture.

BAT’s amp performs just as admirably with music of a more modern bent. Daft Punk’s ‘Giorgio By Moroder’ [Random Access Memories; Sony Music 88883716862] began with a sonorous rendering of Moroder’s monologue and an almost surround sound delivery of the background ambience. Then we’re into wah-wah guitar and a club vibe, hammered home by a pounding kick drum and deep bass. The Perlisten S7t LE speakers were kept on a tight leash here, and the imaging between them was seamless.

https://www.hifinews.com/content/rotel-michi-x3-series-2-integrated-amplifier

And in the next moment, Rotel’s amplifier can deliver a beautifully atmospheric yet focused view of Schubert’s ‘Winterreise’, in the 2019 Thomas Oliemans release accompanied by Paolo Giacometti [Channel Classics CCS 42119]. Here, the wonderful texture of the baritone voice was revealed, the piano beautifully measured, while the sense of chill ran right through the whole enterprise. There’s no shortage of information here, yet again the Michi X3 Series 2 seems to downplay its contribution to the sound: this may be something of a big bruiser of an amp, but it’s also light on its feet and deliciously crisp.

I thought to maintain the atmosphere with the Hoff Ensemble’s classic Quiet Winter Night set [2L 2L-087], which is both another one of those remarkable Morten Lindberg recordings set in a generous church acoustic, and a perfect jazz album for long, cold evenings. Again, the X3 Series 2 showed just how much information it could deliver, from Jan Gunnar Hoff’s beautifully restrained piano to the soaring vocals and brass, plus serious punch in the ensemble’s drums and bass. It sent a tingle down the spine, and not just due to the wintry themes.

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Turning to digital, the mainly unplugged remakes of his back catalogue on Bob Dylan’s Shadow Kingdom [Columbia/Legacy 19658767492 CD] are tricky ones to employ, because decades (literally) of familiarity with songs such as ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’ and ‘I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight’ are thrown out with the bathwater. The performances bear no resemblance to the well-known originals, so it’s harder to focus just on the sound.

That said, I had played the disc enough times to feel confident about using it, and there was a reward in the way the MxV Integrated handled vocals. Those who have followed Dylan over the past 60 years have heard the changes in his voice – the same applies to all singers, from Cher to Springsteen to McCartney – and this soundtrack CD most assuredly is Dylan circa-the-2020s. Dan D’Agostino’s designs have always viewed music through a micro lens, and the tiniest traces of rasp and richness underscored the more common nasality.

Overlapping with the Aegir review was our take on recent Atlantic and Rhino records 15th anniversary reissue of Jason Mraz’s We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. The album offers up a diverse array of measuring sticks for auditory consumption, from slow acoustic rollers like the stripped down Lucky and I’m Yours to the full band funkiness of Butterfly. The latter particularly impressed me with its dynamic range and capabilities for start/stop sonic motion. The leading edge through the Aegirs was better than I had heard from any Schiit product to date, and coupled with a deep texture supplying ample heaps of measured sweetness, the setup matched my expectations for high end sonic retrieval at this price point and above.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/brilliant-corners-12-balanced-audio-technology-vk-80i-integrated-amplifier-ortofon-cadenza

What didn’t I love about the VK-80i? Though its sound is difficult to criticize, compared to some favorite tube amps, like the Manley Mahi or the Ampsandsound Red October, it can come across as a bit mechanical and studious, lacking the very last measures of presence, drama, and fun. Then again, those amps lack the BAT’s admirable neutrality and ability to drive speakers of average sensitivity, so pick your poison.

Finally, in operation the VK-80i produces some positively Hadean heat—its power consumption dwarfs that of the ungodly-hot Line Magnetic—so if you live in the tropics or spend your summers in New York City, you may want to keep this in mind.

https://www.hifinews.com/content/dagostino-mxv-integrated-integrated-amplifier

How could I not know that this amplifier’s lower registers would have reach and mass tailor-made for head-banging? Whitesnake shows greater finesse, or rather employs a lighter touch than, say, Motörhead, so it wasn’t all screaming and buried meter needles. What iced this (bottom octaves) cake was the layering which gave the drums and bass their own sonic strata.

If that sounds like the flat images of Viewmaster 3D or the antithesis of soundstage or imaging cohesion, forgive my failure to communicate precisely how these layers of sound complement each other. You just know by the way it all comes together that the art of creating a flawless wall of sound isn’t solely a skill belonging to Phil Spector. This amplifier rocks.