Visits Western Electric 91E Sarone Hartley Neat Iota

Click pics to enlarge. Above, Sorane.

Letter from Hong Kong (22-13): ELO Auditions

During the period that I was chewing on what preamp I should get, I visited several setups worth writing about.

HiFi shop in Tim Chee Building [Footnote 1]
Superb Bluetooth Streamer, named Sarone, designed by an experienced HK designer [Footnote 2] using vintage W.E. parts and transformers, which is no slouch at all!

Newly designed W.E. 91E Amplifier [Footnote 3]! DJ and I agree that the front looks a bit tacky and overwhelmed. Sound wise, there's nothing to complain about.

In front of me, two huge wardrobes (Hartley 24" white cone bass woofers used) made me feel like I'm peeking/hearing music behind them; yet it did not lessen my enjoyment of the beautiful sound coming out of the system.

They were playing songs with limited dynamics. As good as the W.E. 300B is, it can only play through its strength, not with songs that require a high dynamic headroom. So, obviously, vocals with few instruments exceled in this setup and My Favorite Things by Youn Sun Nah sounded so real, nuanced and emotionally stimulating; notes of the single gong-like instrument (no clue what it is) was a real treat and I could have just sunken deep into the couch and listen non-stop!

Home Visit to CW with his Great Setup

The system is anchored upon the Soulution 330 Integrated Amp, partnered with Luxman D10X SACD/CD Player

This gorgeous looking Magico Mini speakers did not sound mini in any way!

The Nordost Odin Two power cord was re-purposed into 2 pairs of XLR cables and a pair of spk jumpers. The price may become more "affordable" yet it is still out of my reach; but it does play an extremely important part as veins of the system.

While we had to go through a few iterations and fine tuning, the final outcome was rewarding and fantastic! Spain by Chic Corea Trio was really scintillating. The overall system is quite coherent, with high quality bass with a lot of QQ bounciness and tenacity. However, sound is kept within 2 speakers and height of soundstage is still capped at about 4ft, which i think can be improved by further speaker placement. We tried my DIY earthbox on his Lux SACD player and, all of a sudden, the sound improvement was indeed significant. Music became more involving, cohesive and it seemed like the musicians were feeding from each other's energy - they formed a unity and I almost wanted to give a standing ovation after the performance!

Audition of Lab12 Pre (one of my previous targets) at local distributor

What caught my eyes/attention was the cute NEAT IOTA Xplorer speakers which though small in size managed to throw out a huge soundstage and deep bass with its down-firing bass woofer (one more hidden in isobarik form). Played through vinyl setup and Lab12 Pre/power combo, the sound was natural, musical, analog (of coz). Overall, very good result indeed!

P.S. I noticed there was a second hand selling at a very attractive price, and I highly recommended it to a friend. Suffice to say, he was mightily happy with the performance as it totally trounced two DIY efforts and his SS preamp (no surprise). I also managed to change some misconceptions of him - that "Old is always better than new ". More to follow/

All three systems performed really well and can serve as very good reference points to gauge the sound of my own system! As for the Elekit TU-875 that I ended up with, please wait for the next installment!

Editor's Footnotes: [1] Hong Kong has several buildings mostly devoted to HiFi stores selling new or used gear, and it's paradise (or trap) for the unintiated. Tim Chee is in Mong Kok, in an old district known for its population of audio stores and immortalized by HK filmmakers; [2] The designer is Ah Yip, famous for his Western Electric expertise. Indeed, I have met him several times and am impressed by his passion and, something not so commonly encountered, candor. Yes, calling garbage by its name, which is, you guess right, garbage (including ultra-expensive stuff). According to our priceless HK consultant, icefox, the Sarone debuted with the dealer of the super-expensive WE91E in the HK Audio Show not so long ago and, despite show conditions, sold quite a few! If you are not a BT follower, you might not believe: the theory is to just use the BT chip (short signal path) and do the rest in proprietary ultra-luxurious fashion, including use of WE sourced iron for transformers. Not cheap but according to my friends, sensational in results. I call this Extreme Bluetooth, and icefox has informed me of another formidable contender, Kinney, with MONSTROUS antennas! I hope to feature these in another article; [3] I'm not sure what to say about this, from my conservative viewpoint. It's not something I'd tackle but I'd like to hear it. Yes, I hate its looks. Below are what icefox sent me, review pages from Taiwan's Audio Art. Sorry, pdf only in Chinese (the pages were loaded in reverse, so start from the bottom; click to enlarge). Enjoy if you can.