Audiophilepure

Our cottage is on the smaller side. Cozy, but not the best place to visually showcase an amplifier of the Rotel’s caliber. My setup would have to be tucked away into a corner and brought out for listening sessions. Listening at high volumes for long periods wasn’t going to happen either as our cottage doesn’t really have the space. I gave it the old college try mind you but all I succeeded in doing was damaging my hearing and knocking things off shelves.

The benefit of our cottage is that it’s quiet. I mean, I knew that it was quiet, but I didn’t realize how quiet it was until I started reviewing the Rotel A14 MkII. Compared to our former home in the city, there was a lack of noise pollution. Construction, cars, people talking (or yelling in our old neighborhood). Making listening much more insightful and subtleties more apparent. It got me thinking of a future renovation of our cottage to make room for a proper listening area.

Equally important, the Enyo’s sonic consistency and lack of coloration in its high-level input, phono, and digital modes are all notable. The phono and digital modules have very little sound character of their own, and the same is true of the passive preamp and tube power amp. The Enyo modules provide a clean, neutral sound; the power amp is also neutral, rather than a classic or “warm” tube amplifier. You don’t hear “new” aspects of the music in the upper midrange  and the highs. You hear what is on the recording. The lower midrange has equally accurate timbre, and there is no added emphasis on low-level detail, or tendency to provide more exciting dynamics than you find on the recording or source material. If you are looking for a unit that  changes or accentuates some aspect of your recordings, has a euphonic emphasis that suits your musical taste, or complements some favored coloration in your speaker or cartridge, this simply isn’t the unit for you. 

https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/schiit-audio-yggdrasil-less-is-more-review-r1049/

Another instrument where you hear the improvement with the LIM is a Hammond B3, which just has more of that warm organic tube sound of the real thing. As for bass, listen to the track Starbuck Blues from The Ray Brown Trio, live at Starbucks (link). I was fortunate to see Ray Brown perform once in a club and through the LIM, this is what I remember his bass sounding like, even more so than through the OG. Meaty, rough and gruff. Ditto for the track C.C. Rider from Overseas Special featuring Monty Alexander on piano, Herb Elłis on guitar and Ray Brown on bass. Through the LIM, you hear even more of the club ambiance in this live recording. Please check this one out if you haven’t already.