![]() ![]() The shimmering cymbals, the growling trombone in “ A Sonnet for Hank Cinq” (track 3, so easy to see from far due to the big blue lettering on the CD Zero), the piano and brushwork on Lady Mac (with its ominous ending – not a good woman eh?), the violin and clarinet in “ Up and Down, Up and Down” (what tone, what timbre – so easy to separate the instruments) and finally, Gonsalves and Hodges playing Juliet (alto) and Romeo (tenor) on “ Star Crossed Lovers” (anyone a fan of Murakami? And his “South of the Border, West of the Sun”). I started with Duke Ellington’s Shakespeare inspired Such Sweet Thunder (Columbia). In fact, it reminded me much of my beloved (and now sold) Harbeth Compact 7ES3 – not the most transparent, but eminently musical. Sure, I have heard more hifi details earlier, like the breathing of the cellist, but I was immersed in the music. 5 stücke im volkston, op.102) – Decca, was back in texture town whereas earlier it sounded like the bow had too much rosin on. Suddenly, Argerich-Maisky’s Schubert Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano (which also has Schumann, Fantasiestücke, op.73. ![]() So out came the RATOC RAL DM24192 (what a name) DAC based on the 1704 chip, which I connected with the CD transport via my Blue Jeans SPDIF cable, and back to the Zero with my nice expensive gift to myself – the Symphonic Line HD interconnect. That clicked – I had owned one of those (yeah, well) post my extreme hifi to a back to the basics phase, which I eventually sold as it did not cut mustard with classical. I remembered that the CD was based on a filterless 1543 DAC. I googled for reviews and found positive ones. At night, it still sounded a bit shut in, and I panicked. So I left it to cook and went out for dinner. I went against the AN grain and hooked up my Graham LS 5/9 briefly, and it sounded sweeter and open (it costs a hell of a lot more, and perhaps as much as the whole AN system, and to my happiness, I noted that this 8W amp drove the less efficient speakers well in my large living room), but still, it didn’t happen! At higher volumes, there was too much projection of vocals into the room, making it a tad shouty. So whatever I played, I felt that the sound was very midrange centric and not very open.And this complaint from a midrange centric guy! Los Lobos’ Kiko, an album that I heard magically with Apogee loudspeakers eons ago, sounded very shut in and unexciting, as did the assortment of classical and jazz I played. However, there was a thickness to the sound that was not my glass of rum. The huge positive was the voices which sounded really good. Aernoud had warned me that it will take 20 minutes to warm up, 2 hours to reach optimal performance, but if newly set up, it settles down over a day. The other was that the speakers were flush against the wall, which won support from she who wants to hide my audio away who is used to speakers being pulled out for “listening”. One positive was that the integrated amp was stacked on top of the CD player. But then, AN philosophy is all about synergy, with handpicked components.Īernoud took over an hour to set it up and dial it in. Of course, it came with its own stands, which were priced at INR 42,250 (yeah I know what you are thinking – the stands cost more than half the price of the speaker, can do something less expensive locally). A two way (6” paper cone bass driver, 3/4” silk dome tweeter) rear ported design, this had the hallmarks of an easy to drive speaker. Last out was the relatively unassuming and small AX-Two Bookshelves with a stated sensitivity of 90 db/W/m and an impressive frequency response of 55Hz-20kHz (+/-6 db). The power supply is equipped with two mains transformers. As with AN, everything was AN with the AN Lexus Stereo Interconnect and 2.0M B-S AN-Lexus LX speaker cable, and AN power cables as well. Featuring an in-house modified Philips front loading mechanism, It has a digital out with the conversion out of a filterless Philips TDA1543 DAC in non-oversampling mode and a 6111WA valve based analogue output stage. Out came the CD Zero in matching black with a tray that closes so fast like it means business. For those who think “only 8W” and switch off reading below (and I myself do that often), please read on. The build quality of the finish far surpassed the recommended price. The Integrated Zero, which puts out 8W per channel (class A/B) with 4 ECL 82 triodes, came out first, in black acrylic with well weighted bling golden knobs. Aernoud, the Mumbai distributor/dealer of Audio Note considerately helped me unpack the well packed system that arrived at my place. ![]()
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