van den Hul Colibri Signature Stradivarius (the second coming!)
Late in 2017, Randy Forman…he of Finest Fidelity distribution fame, and a jolly good gent…got me a van den Hul Colibri Signature Stradivarius (CSS). It got its break-in and fun run-out in the later days of the class vintage professional turntable, the direct-drive EMT 948's visit here in 2017. Paired with Joel Durand's exceptional Kairos 10.5" tonearm, the van den Hul made fantastic music, and did so all the time on all kinds of music. Thus it won a 2017 Brutus Award from me, as you'll see HERE.
But the CSS wasn't done yet! In 2018 the EMT 948 left, the Xact Audio The Beat LT, another direct-drive turntable system, arrived to take its place (covered in Part the First of my Brutus Awards). Steve Dobbins harnessed up A. J. van den Hul's CSS to the Schröder Linear Tracking (LT) tonearm. I've already written about this exemplary turntable system in Part the First, where it took a Brutus Award for this year, which you can read HERE. AJ is legendary for the quality of his CSS MC's, which don't quite look like anything else that I've worked with. That would be because the four moving coils are not inside the housing, but actually outside, just behind the cantilever itself.
Very innovative, but also a bit of a challenge when it comes to mounting and adjusting the CSS, depending on one's tonearm, due to the lower pair of coils floating pretty close to the top of the LP.
When you get it right, however, the results are superlative! On The Beat LT, the van den Hul CSS is dynamic, deep, and detailed, with rich, woody texture, and excellent imaging and soundstaging. After spending hundreds of hours listening to the CSS, I can say categorically that A. J. has really hit a home run with this cartridge…certainly with both of the direct-drive turntables that I tried it with.
Though this would be a very unusual second Brutus Award in a row, the ongoing use of an MC cartridge on different turntable systems in succeeding years with such brilliant results merits this unusual recognition.
The van den Hul Colibri Signature Stradivarius is definitely in Brutus Award territory once again, and the prize is duly given.
van den Hul Extenders
Speaking of van den Hul: I wrote up my evaluation of the eerie van den Hul Extenders earlier in the year. What I had to say about them you'll way back find in Issue 95 HERE.
Tesla. Torsion Fields. Quantum effects on human perception of music.
You know: the usual boundary-type stuff that we explore at the cutting edge of high-end audio. If the very thought of such things puts you into a rage, then go out to the kitchen, pour yourself a stiff adult libation, take a deep breath, and then go read something else, Daddy-o.
Let's just say that I found that I couldn't go without these bloody mysterious boxes, even though I tried to do so. Whenever I accidentally left them off, I would start a recording, and then say to myself, "What's wrong?!"
Followed by, "Oh! Forgot to turn on the Extenders!"
So, they aren't leaving here.
A sure sign of a Brutus Award. Done!
Ayon Audio HA-3 Headphone Amplifier and the Focal Utopia Reference Headphones
The Ayon Audio HA-3 SET Headphone Amplifier
Focal's Utopia Reference Headphones
This was the best year ever for reference-level headphone listening here at PF River-City-and-up-the-hill. I made a very deliberate effort to evaluate a handful of top-flight headphones, and several reference headphone amps, to see what had improved since my last go at them.
Good thing, too. I got to hear some outstanding products. And I found some combinations of headphones and headphone amps that were really choice. Your mileage may vary, but these are combos that really got me smiling.
The first pairing is the Ayon Audio HA-3 two-chassis SET headphone amplifier and the Focal Utopia headphones, reviewed elsewhere in Issue 100, over HERE. Read that for my more detailed observations.
What a pair! The HA-3 and the Utopias sound like they were made for one another. Intensely musical…transparent, detailed, and with that light kiss of warmth that lets you listen to your recordings for hours on end. Which is exactly what I did. Synergy in spades here, for sure.
This combination has Brutus Award fingerprints all over it.
So…here it is!
MrSpeakers VOCE Electrostatic Headphones and the Headamp Blue Hawaii Headphone Amplifier
The MrSpeakers VOCE Electrostatic Headphones
Headamp's Blue Hawaii two-box tubed reference electrostatic headphone amplifier
The second pairing of great elements was this combination: MrSpeakers VOCE Electrostatic Headphones and Headamp's EL-34-based two-chassis Blue Hawaii Headphone Amplifier. Electrostats and tubes: smashing good!
My full evaluation is in the works, but won't be published until after my rollout of my Brutus Awards. In advance of that, I can say that the VOCE + Blue Hawaii is pure delight…one of the very finest things that I've heard in reference-grade ‘phones. You'll have to wait for the details until that is out.
But since the end of the year beat me to it on my full review, I'll issue a richly-deserved Brutus Award right now, and you can read the "why" in the near future.
Done!
A P.S. on tube rolling: RAM Labs/Music Reference NOS Siemens EL-34 Tubes for the Blue Hawaii Headphone Amplifier
RAM Labs NOS Siemens EL-34 (image courtesy of RAM Labs)
As a postscript to the awards for the Blue Hawaii and VOCE combo above, I'll note that I was so enamored of the sound of the HeadAmp Blue Hawaii that I took the advice of Dan Clark of MrSpeakers and contacted Roger Modjeski of RAM Labs/Music Reference about getting a matched set of four NOS Siemens EL-34's to kick out the jam on the Blue Hawaii. Roger was most helpful, and kindly sent along a gorgeous foursome for me to try.
The result was an immediate gain in harmonic richness, detail, organic bloom, and frequency extension at both ends. Don't get me wrong: The stock EL-34's from Headamp are quite good, but the NOS Siemens from RAM Labs are unquestionably better. The full potential of the Blue Hawaii was realized with these replacements.
Yes, these are expensive tubes. Yes, it was so good that I bought the set anyway. You can too. Very strongly recommended for current owners of the Blue Hawaii.
There's definitely a Brutus Award for RAM Labs and Roger Modjeski here.
Make it so, Number One!
STAX SRM-T8000 Hybrid Headphone Amplifier and SR-009 Electrostatic Headphones
The STAX SR-009 Electrostatic Headphones
More reference-grade headphones!
I've worked with the good folks at STAX in the fairly recent past, and gave them a Brutus Award for the combination of the SR-009 Electrostatic Headphones and the SRM-007tII tubed headphone amp back in Issue 89, as you can see HERE.
At that time, I said "The STAX gear excelled in a providing me with an extraordinary sense of air, of expansive space, and remarkable extension. The holographic zone filled heart and soul with a longing for the delicate detail and atmospherics that this tube-plus-electrostatic tandem can provide. It was especially glorious with Single, Double, and Quad DSD sources: Then, it was as if the inner sky opened into heavenly realms. There is real glory in a finely tuned combination like this one from STAX. I'm sold."
The STAX SRM-T8000 Hybrid Electrostatic Headphone Amplifier
This time around, STAX sent their new hybrid headphone amplifier, the SRM-T8000, with tubed input and solid-state output, together with my old, respected friend, the SR-009 headphones. Would the results be like the above?
As it turned out, yes, but with some added dynamics, courtesy of the hybrid design of the SRM-T8000, which is an altogether larger and weightier device entirely. Bass seems more potent, and detail is improved. To my ears, this is an improvement over what I heard in 2015 and 2016 with the SRM-007tII, much as I treasured that design.
I'll be publishing my full evaluation of this STAX set early next year…stay tuned.
I'll also be covering the new STAX SR-009S reference headphones, which STAX got to me late in the year. At that time I may well be making a late addition to the Brutus Awards for 2018, to include the 009S…everything that I've heard about them has been favorable.
Meanwhile, a Brutus Award for STAX for the SRM-T8000 and SR-009!
E.A.R. HP4 Reference Headphone Amplifier (with NOS tubes)
Yes, this was a big year for headphone amps and headphones this year. Among the headphone amps that I spent some significant time with early in the year was the E.A.R. HP4 Reference Headphone Amplifier. It is no surprise that E.A.R. should do well with me; I have enormous respect for Tim de Paravicini's designs over a couple of decades now, and have never heard an E.A.R. product that made bad sound.
I had heard the HP4 over at Bob Levi's place back in December of 2017, with its complement of New Old Stock (NOS) tubes to bring out the best that the HP4 had to offer. I was so impressed that I asked Dan Meinwald of E.A.R. USA if it would be possible to get an HP4 with the same NOS tubes up here in PF River-City-and-up-the-hill. Big ask, I know.
It turned out that Dan had an identically tubed HP4 that I could try for a while, that he was storing for a mutual friend.
I published the retrospective details of this evaluation in early November, elsewhere in Issue 100; you'll find it HERE. I'd recommend that you read it.
But the pleasures of the E.A.R. HP4 remain indelible in my mind, and so I must give the NOS version of that remarkable reference-level headphone amp a Brutus Award here in 2018.
Townshend Audio Allegri+ Passive Preamp
Townshend Audio's Allegri+ Passive Preamp in its shipping case
In the same retrospective essay covering the E.A.R. HP4 cited immediately above (HERE), I also mentioned how impressed that I was with the Townshend Audio Allegri+ Passive Preamp. Again, I had heard this unit over at Bob Levi's place in December of 2017, and had to admit that his review of the Allegri+ back in Issue 95, December of 2017 was not overstated at all. On the contrary!
For the first time, and in my reference office system in near-field, I heard a passive pre that actually pulled me in and really fed my soul, instead of making me feel like I was on a particularly strict and painful diet. The Allegri+ and its touted "fractal cable" really delivered the goods, and forced me to concede that a passive preamp could deliver the audio goods.
Talk about a personal paradigm shift. Color me convinced. Highly.
And a 2018 Brutus Award to Townshend Audio!
VPI Titan Reference Turntable System
The VPI Titan in action, without its Outer Record Weight
Cowabunga! My good audiobud Mat Weisfeld and his gang over at VPI were good enough to surprise me (really!) with their VPI Titan turntable in the fall of 2018. Mat and I had talked casually about me evaluating a reference statement from them in November of 2017, but that idea had gotten buried in the flow of life and work for nearly a year.
Then, bang! One day in mid-September, an email from VPI that the Titan was on the way.
Not that I'm complaining, of course! Far from it.
Unfortunately for commencing this project, I was just getting ready to leave for Maui for most of the month of October. So we stored the three-package Titan shipment, and had to wait until our return to deploy it.
This was done at the beginning of November, with the assistance of my true-blue local audiobud experts, Jonathan Tinn of Blue Light Audio, and Din Johnson of Ristretto Roasters (a very serious audiophile himself, that one!). A note: the Titan is pretty massive. Not fork-lift massive, like, say, the Walker Audio Proscenium Black Diamond Level V, or I was able to pair the Titan with its 12" tonearm with the just-arrived, brand-new Air Tight PC-1 coda (see below), for immediate action. I should note that the rest of the signal chain downstream was via KLAudio Silver Reference Phono Cables to the darTZeel NHB-18NS Model Two's MC phono section (brilliant!), and thence to the darTZeel NHB-108 Model Two Stereo amp via Evolution Acoustics LINK-Reference 50 ohm BNC Cable (unique in the industry, and truly amazing) and on to the Evolution Acoustics MM2 Loudspeakers with EXACT External Crossovers. The darTZeel preamp and amp already took Brutus Awards in Part 1 of my presentations, right HERE.
Action! Since then, I have put several hundred hours' worth of intense, daily listening on the VPI Titan/Air Tight PC-1 coda combination, right up to the present day. (My comments on the PC-1 coda follow.) This is the first rim-drive reference turntable that I've had here…direct-drive or belt-drive have been much more common here. Once we got the setup done and tweaked into place, and I got the hang of handling the VPI Outer Rim Record Clamp, to go with the much more familiar spindle-based LP Record Weight system, then all was Aces and Spades!
The VPI Titan with the Outer Record Weight in place...it looks different, but it works!
My full review will await the completion of an extended listening and evaluation, and the time to write up my notes, but it's already clear that the Titan, my first personal experience with using and listening to VPI here in the home stomping grounds, is of Brutus Award quality and merits an award here at the end of 2018.
Done!
Air Tight PC-1 coda MC Cartridge
As mentioned immediately above, my time with the VPI Titan and the downstream system thereof thus far was with the brand-new Air Tight PC-1 coda MC cartridge as the stylus-of-record. Yutaka-san and company in Japan got me this wonderful new cartridge right after it had begun production…so new, in fact, that it arrived in a secure, but temporary shipping box. The fully finished presentation box wasn't even finished when it went out to me.
The PC-1 coda is the latest design in the highly-regarded Air Tight line. I have been well acquainted with Air Tight over the years, having heard the PC-1 on the very fine Continuum Criterion turntable with its unique Copperhead Tonearm all the back in Issue 45, fall of 2009, which you can read HERE. The PC-1 Supreme came along in 2016, with my evaluation being published in early 2017, when I wrote up my comments in Issue 90. You can read what I had to say HERE. And I am quite familiar with the superb performance of Air Tight's flagship model, the Opus 1, having listened to it for a few months in 2017 on a vintage professional EMT 948 direct-drive turntable with Durand Tonearms Kairos 10.5" tonearm. That top-o'-the-heap performance earned the Opus 1 a Brutus Award at the end of 2017, detailed in Part the Second of those listings, as you can read HERE.
We mounted it on the 12" tonearm that came with the Titan, and I started running LPs more or less nonstop. While I can say that the coda really begins to hit its stride at 150-200 hours, right out of the box it sounded quite good. So good that I could tell that it would be a real winner once it had gotten the time to bloom.
And did it bloom! Since its arrival, a fair number of new LPs have also touched down here, of all sorts of categories. Lots of new alternative rock, electronic, classical/soundtrack, classic rock (that delicious new mix of The Beatles White Album!), even box sets of The Rolling Stones, Bob Marley, Howard Shore's The Fellowship of the Ring, The Grateful Dead, Rosanne Cash, and Sufjan Stevens. The coda has handled everything that I've tossed at it with aplomb. The sound is spacious, detailed, and incredibly dynamic, with an ability to communicate the soul of a performance and recording without coloration. Harmonically, the coda is well balanced, with no bump in the midrange over the upper or lower frequencies. Transparency, that highly favored audio virtue of mine, is superb. The result is an exceptionally music presentation with all kinds of music. I haven't found anything that wasn't wonderful to hear with the coda and its VPI Titan foundation.
Is it the Opus 1? No, it isn't. The Opus 1 still has the ultimate levels of atmosphere and spaciousness, presence, detail, the last few points of an organic harmonic structure, and dynamic slam; if you want Air Tight's very best to this point in time, then you'll go for the Opus 1. You'll need a big budget, though. And at half the price of the Opus 1, the Air Tight coda represents a remarkably large percentage of its older and bigger sibling. And I will say that the coda definitely outscores the PC-1 and PC-1 Supreme in my estimation. The PC-1 was good; the PC-1 Supreme was better; but the PC-1 coda passes both of its older brothers pretty decisively.
Again, being a product that arrived relatively late in the year, I haven't had time to write a full evaluation of the Air Tight PC-1 coda yet…that will follow soon.
But it's very clear to me that the Air Tight coda deserves a 2018 Brutus Award…and so that's what it gets.
All photographs and image processing by David W. Robinson, unless otherwise noted. Classic Alice in Wonderland drawings by Sir John Tenniel, in the public domain.
