Veefy
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Recently I spent around a week on holiday in Singapore. One of the plans for the trip including dropping into The Adelphi building - high end hi-fi central.
Adelphi looks like this from the street.
As I have been interested and read a lot about high efficiency speakers (in particular horns) on various sites, the shop I had organised an appointment to listen at was Audionote Singapore who are the dealers for Avantgarde Acoustic in Singapore
Audio Note Singapore - stereo singapore - singapore audio shop - audiophile singapore - 2nd hand audio
I spent about an 1hr and a half in the store and the store's owner Cecil was very hospitable (especially considering I wasn't actually buying anything).
In the store they have three seperate areas for systems, 1 to demonstrate DeVore and Totem Acoustic, 1 for the smaller (this is a relative term ) Avantgarde Acoustic range of speakers and their main setup where they have the Avantgarde Acoustic Duo Mezzo's. I think their main room would have been too small for the trios and given the price of realty in Singapore I suspect the Duo Mezzos are a more realistc sell.
I spent most of my time listening to the Avantgarde Uno Picco setup as below:
Sources were AudioNote Cd player, Brinkmann Lagrange Turntable, phono amplification was Sutherland phd phono stage, Airtight preamp
and Audiopax 78 Power amp. All the gear was on expensive stands and cable elevators were used.
Audiopax have a historic reputation as being great matches for Avantgarde speakers though an association with Jim Smith who used to be the USA distrubutor and was partly responsible for getting the Audiopax name out there in the high end market.
The Audiopax power amps offer a feature called Timbre Lock which is an different approach to controlling the overall match of an amp to a speaker The technical aspects are kinda beyond me but you can read about it on their website. The 78 is a stereo amp so works slightly differently to their flagship 98 model. It uses KT88 tubes.
Seating position was about 4m away and there was another 3 m behind the seating positon. Room treatment was fairly minimal.
The first cd I put on was a SACD but since the setup was cd, it was the cd layer I was listening to. Now while Jazz at the Pawnshop is kind of a cliche in audiophile circles it is so deservedly used as an example of simple but professional recording clean live recording. It certainly doesn’t sound like its 30 years old (it evens sound good on fairly modest systems). I’ve read the analogy that the quality of a setup determines how good a table you get in the jazzclub. There are also plenty of spatial stuff going on from clinking of glasses to the cash register in the background which adds to the performance somewhat rather than distracting.
I’m very much a recent convert to jazz and at this stage more conventional jazz. I don't really grok things like Sketches of Spain for instance atm. The first impression of these speakers is that of exceptional clean and neutral sound which sounds natural and there is an effortless feeling to the sound which is results in a relaxed and totally non fatiguing impression. Once the first track of the cd was finished I adjusted the volume up from the farly reasonable level to a more realistic sound level. I'm fairly familiar with the album and the illusion of the performers being actually in the room was definitely there, particularly so for the horn player.
I spent about 40 minutes listeing to a variety of music, mostly well recorded female vocalists, some light rock.
I didn't lug any of my vinyl all the way to singapore so I asked Cecil to put on some vinyl. He chose Jennifer Warnes “The Well” which I wasn't familiar with. First track was “The Hunter” which has some nice acoustic guitar in it. Clearly this was a very good turntable rig as the guitar sounded just right. Cd doesn't seem to get the sound of the guitar right all that often. There was hardly any surface noise detectable.
The second much shorter session was spent listening to the main setup. This setup pretty much showcases the best gear that the dealer can offer. Front end was all Reyimo Harmonic DAP and transport (I think the DAP was the 999 – new model that replaced the regarded 777 DAP).
Now in the flesh these horn-speakers are very impressive. The finish is extremely high grade. The short basshorns are kinda of an attempt to take the basshorn concept of the to a much more acceptable footprint. I haven't heard the full basshorns but I have read that some people think that holistically these short basshorns are better.
I decided to go all out and immediately put on something epic so the first track I played was “The Imperial March” off the Empire Strikes Soundtrack cd that has a special re-release around the time Episode I was out. I am very familiar with this track from watching ESB way too many times. Anyway the bass impact on this track was the best I have heard on any setup. Exceptionally clean, the other thing that struck me was the tone of the brass section and also particuatly an awareness of where the parts of the orchestra were sitting. Even though it sounded amazing it was not overwhelming. Imaging was great without being unnaturally sharp as to draw attention to itself. Again there was minimal amount of room treatment but it didn't appear to be an issue. I then listened to a few more subdued tracks from that cd and the some of the standout tracks I had particularly female vocals. These speakers are really about transparency, there were certainly shades of listening to exceptionally fine electrostatic speakers but the dynamics were on a different level.
So all in all this was a very impressive experience. I think the Uno Piccos may have disappeared into the room a tad better than the main setup or maybe it just felt a bit more intitmate because in the main setup I was probably at least 5m away. There is certainly an awe factor of seeing this gear in person which probably means my impressions aren't all that critical.
Iincidentally if you want to see some amazing high end systems their user gallery has some very pretty toys to look at
Audio Note Singapore Pte Ltd
Anyway I'd be interested to hear about other people's impressions of these speakers and other high efficiency horns.
Adelphi looks like this from the street.
As I have been interested and read a lot about high efficiency speakers (in particular horns) on various sites, the shop I had organised an appointment to listen at was Audionote Singapore who are the dealers for Avantgarde Acoustic in Singapore
Audio Note Singapore - stereo singapore - singapore audio shop - audiophile singapore - 2nd hand audio
I spent about an 1hr and a half in the store and the store's owner Cecil was very hospitable (especially considering I wasn't actually buying anything).
In the store they have three seperate areas for systems, 1 to demonstrate DeVore and Totem Acoustic, 1 for the smaller (this is a relative term ) Avantgarde Acoustic range of speakers and their main setup where they have the Avantgarde Acoustic Duo Mezzo's. I think their main room would have been too small for the trios and given the price of realty in Singapore I suspect the Duo Mezzos are a more realistc sell.
I spent most of my time listening to the Avantgarde Uno Picco setup as below:
Sources were AudioNote Cd player, Brinkmann Lagrange Turntable, phono amplification was Sutherland phd phono stage, Airtight preamp
and Audiopax 78 Power amp. All the gear was on expensive stands and cable elevators were used.
Audiopax have a historic reputation as being great matches for Avantgarde speakers though an association with Jim Smith who used to be the USA distrubutor and was partly responsible for getting the Audiopax name out there in the high end market.
The Audiopax power amps offer a feature called Timbre Lock which is an different approach to controlling the overall match of an amp to a speaker The technical aspects are kinda beyond me but you can read about it on their website. The 78 is a stereo amp so works slightly differently to their flagship 98 model. It uses KT88 tubes.
Seating position was about 4m away and there was another 3 m behind the seating positon. Room treatment was fairly minimal.
The first cd I put on was a SACD but since the setup was cd, it was the cd layer I was listening to. Now while Jazz at the Pawnshop is kind of a cliche in audiophile circles it is so deservedly used as an example of simple but professional recording clean live recording. It certainly doesn’t sound like its 30 years old (it evens sound good on fairly modest systems). I’ve read the analogy that the quality of a setup determines how good a table you get in the jazzclub. There are also plenty of spatial stuff going on from clinking of glasses to the cash register in the background which adds to the performance somewhat rather than distracting.
I’m very much a recent convert to jazz and at this stage more conventional jazz. I don't really grok things like Sketches of Spain for instance atm. The first impression of these speakers is that of exceptional clean and neutral sound which sounds natural and there is an effortless feeling to the sound which is results in a relaxed and totally non fatiguing impression. Once the first track of the cd was finished I adjusted the volume up from the farly reasonable level to a more realistic sound level. I'm fairly familiar with the album and the illusion of the performers being actually in the room was definitely there, particularly so for the horn player.
I spent about 40 minutes listeing to a variety of music, mostly well recorded female vocalists, some light rock.
I didn't lug any of my vinyl all the way to singapore so I asked Cecil to put on some vinyl. He chose Jennifer Warnes “The Well” which I wasn't familiar with. First track was “The Hunter” which has some nice acoustic guitar in it. Clearly this was a very good turntable rig as the guitar sounded just right. Cd doesn't seem to get the sound of the guitar right all that often. There was hardly any surface noise detectable.
The second much shorter session was spent listening to the main setup. This setup pretty much showcases the best gear that the dealer can offer. Front end was all Reyimo Harmonic DAP and transport (I think the DAP was the 999 – new model that replaced the regarded 777 DAP).
Now in the flesh these horn-speakers are very impressive. The finish is extremely high grade. The short basshorns are kinda of an attempt to take the basshorn concept of the to a much more acceptable footprint. I haven't heard the full basshorns but I have read that some people think that holistically these short basshorns are better.
I decided to go all out and immediately put on something epic so the first track I played was “The Imperial March” off the Empire Strikes Soundtrack cd that has a special re-release around the time Episode I was out. I am very familiar with this track from watching ESB way too many times. Anyway the bass impact on this track was the best I have heard on any setup. Exceptionally clean, the other thing that struck me was the tone of the brass section and also particuatly an awareness of where the parts of the orchestra were sitting. Even though it sounded amazing it was not overwhelming. Imaging was great without being unnaturally sharp as to draw attention to itself. Again there was minimal amount of room treatment but it didn't appear to be an issue. I then listened to a few more subdued tracks from that cd and the some of the standout tracks I had particularly female vocals. These speakers are really about transparency, there were certainly shades of listening to exceptionally fine electrostatic speakers but the dynamics were on a different level.
So all in all this was a very impressive experience. I think the Uno Piccos may have disappeared into the room a tad better than the main setup or maybe it just felt a bit more intitmate because in the main setup I was probably at least 5m away. There is certainly an awe factor of seeing this gear in person which probably means my impressions aren't all that critical.
Iincidentally if you want to see some amazing high end systems their user gallery has some very pretty toys to look at
Audio Note Singapore Pte Ltd
Anyway I'd be interested to hear about other people's impressions of these speakers and other high efficiency horns.
