Johnny Cash's Def Jam recordings are phenomenal on the Atrium...heck pretty much any ZMFI’ve been listening to a lot of alt folk/country lately. Stuff like Son Volt, James McMurtry, Lucinda Williams, Neko Case, drive-by truckers, The Be Good Tanyas. So Spotify thought it would really be great for me to listen to their alt-country playlist. Since I concurred, I started listening via this chain:
Volumio ==> mScaler ==> TT2 (SE out) ==> BHC ==> Atrium
I was really enjoying every track, and I came to Uncle Tupelo ‘Sandusky’ about the same time I was reading a HEK post about amp pairings. Since I thought that track might play very well on my HEKse, I decided to do a little comparo. The mScaler can act as a digital preamp and the TT2 drives both its SE and balanced outputs, so I was able to compare the mTT2/BHC/Atrium chain to:
Volumio ==> mTT2 (bal out) ==> Audio-gd Master 11 (amp only) ==> HEKse
Volumio ==> mScaler==> Audio-gd Master 11 (DAC/amp) ==> HEKse
Volumio ==> mTT2 (bal out) ==> DSHA-3F ==> HEKse
There are tracks which come across as different but equally enjoyable presentations. But there are many tracks where the BHC/Atrium presentation is much better. Frequently due to superior imaging, but also timbre, especially on vocals. Plus, from any source chain, instruments like banjos and mandolins sometimes sounded too bright/clangy from the HEKse.
But the key point is that every track likes Atrium. And just to show that it’s not just a ZMF/tubes preference:
Volumio ==> mTT2 (bal out) ==> DSHA-3F ==> Atrium
wins just as consistently and convincingly. Of course, the joker in all this is that HEK doesn’t play w/ my BHC and I don’t have a suitably tube-y amp to level the playing field.
Caldera demo coming in two weeks … my wallet is deathly afraid.
Also give Blackberry Smoke a listen. Going to my first BBS show next month, totally amped for that!