Ascendo MS-Sew ASR Emitter II Exclusive Metrum Pavane

Click pics to enlarge. System View + accompanying popcorn (Note the ASI resonators in the center above the amplifier and the small barely visible Stein dot above the mid woofer).

The Sistine Chapel by audiopro

(no, this isn’t a John Wick movie)

I recently reviewed a system that I have seen grow over the last 4-5 years in India. It started when Mr. Michael acquired the big Ascendo speakers and has grown ever since. It was built using the one component that most of us lack i.e. patience. Slowly but surely the owner acquired each component and has now achieved what I call synergy.

It is always difficult to review a system as a whole because one doesn’t know what each component can do. When I review a system, I have always felt that a system (not a component as much) may be categorised into two broad categories:

– A photograph or a painting....mostly a system lies somewhere in between but then it is neither here or there...

A system that I classify as a photograph is neutral, transparent, clean, well centered tonally; attack and decay are well balanced, PRAT, dynamic; may lack hues and shades but it connects with your primal side and heads bob and feet tap. Think of a photograph taken using a really nice lens in perfect lighting.

A system that I classify as a painting is about the brushstrokes and the colour choices. How they blend in with each other, the emotion portrayed on the painting, etc. You can get lost in this bath, flavours swirling around your senses. It can draw you in, caress you and so on...

Both are easy to enter but very difficult to get right. Setup one (photograph) can easily become bright and analytical, robbing the music of its soul, like the Topping D50 DAC. It is well reviewed based on its measurements, yet when I bought it, it sounded sterile - it was like a punishment that I received in primary school: having to kneel down on the cold floor for talking; I vehemently defended my innocence. (Yes we were punished like this in those days – talk about a whack to the head or a remark in your diary that your folks had to sign. I’d pick the kneel and/or whack combo any day than the  puppy eyed guilt trip the remark set you on).

System two can easily become dull, warm, uninvolving, slow or too harmonically dense, killing attack and PRAT.

Michael’s system consists of some flagship components like the Ascendo MS-Sew speaker, the Metrum Pavane DAC, Audience cabling or the ASR Emitter II Exclusive amplifier. It also consists of some room treatment tweaks like the Steinmusic Harmonizers, ASI resonators and Stein Blue Suns.

ASR EMITTER II - EXCLUSIVE
(not shown are the dual power supplies and individual battery pack, this is a 4 box amplifier)

Metrum Pavane NOS R2R DAC

There is something to learn from this system setup. I very so often get asked, “I have a bright speaker so if I use a smooth cable or dac will it balance it out?” The answer is yes, it will tame the brightness but I can almost guarantee you that the system will not sound fun. This is because there are components pulling opposite ways.

Michael’s system has components that are similar in tonality, yet are so well flavoured or balanced that they do not tip over into the boring territory. All of his components are warm, harmonically rich, dark sounding but they come together as a whole and the end result is something as beautiful as the Sistine Chapel.

We played music using Roon and Tidal. Michael has an Intel NUC with a SOTM PSU hosting the Roon software. Music is streamed to a Metrum Roon endpoint which ends at the Pavane DAC. All component to component network cabling was SOTM’s CAT 7.

I usually listen for the following:

• Timing
• Micro dynamics
• Tonality
• Image size
• Bass
• Harmonics
• Listen for the singer to see if you can catch how he’s moving his voice i.e. head voice, throat, mouth etc.

First lets get what this system doesn’t do. It isn’t neutral tonally, it's coloured. Harmonics don’t jump out at you like a tube amp or some accuphase amps. It isn't a high sensitivity low powered setup which sometimes has that JUMP factor. It isn't a Ferrari or Tesla. This is a Bentley flying wing or a Rolls Royce. More than enough power when called for and you travel first class.

Being coloured it may not suit every genre, say rock, but I don’t think the owner listens to rock or heavy metal. Primal raw gritty it is not. Warm, textured, fleshed out, musical, golden, sexy, a work of art it is.

Well this system struck 5/7 of these parameters. Four to me were near perfect, whereas one parameter (tonality) was superb but in an artistic type of way. Harmonics, though extremely well done, were a little dark on the top and I will write about the bass below. Image size was executed perfectly, probably the best I’ve heard in a long time.

1. Timing was Spot On. It's a big speaker but it could start and stop on a dime. It was nimble.

2. Micro dynamics was beautiful too. It was faaaaasst without sounding thin or bright. The sound remained fleshed out but was yet fast. Think of it as a brush stroke where the initial stroke looks darker and the later ones lighten up. Think of seeing paint that appears textured not overtly smooth. Think of a movie in which the Samurai sword swishes fast and you are left seeing the blades trail.

It was beautiful. It was as if the system was painting the song rather than mechanically producing it. It sacrificed the jump factor you get from a low powered amp high sensitivity speaker combo but I really didn't care this time around. The siren was enthralling me with her song.

3. Tonality - Warm, richly fleshed out golden mid range. This "fleshing out" of the midrange is what adds texture and prevents a warm sound from becoming too smooth or dull and boring. I kept coming back to this textured mid range and mid bass every time a song is played. The texture was the transient. I have experienced something similar with Audio Note products where the sound depends heavily on the texture to deliver the transient bite, like moving your palm over a textured surface instead of on a needle tip.

It's almost like taking the best of a really nice Amperex (harmonics and golden glow) + RCA 12AU7 (darkness and chocolate) tubes, sprinkling in a little of Telefunken magic (sparkle) and adding some of the good solid state properties like speed and fast decay. If I had to fault it I would say that the highs were dark sounding (something almost every ASR review has talked about) but dark it maybe, lacking in information it was not (now I sound like Yoda).

4. Image Size – This was perfect. Perfect, perfecto, perfect. The image size was like a small musk melon, yet it could expand and contract instantly as and when the singer raised his voice. Think of it like a light bulb with a dimmer. The size of the bulb stays the same, yet when you increase the brightness the glow grows and can contract immediately if you reduce the same.

I was listening to Seal's both sides now and the young James Morrison and the way they energized that space was perfect. Never did the voice grow too loud and overshoot or smear. It just expanded and contracted like the glow of a bulb in milliseconds, offering probably the best contrast of vocal micro dynamics that I have heard.

This micro dynamic aspect of the vocals and the warm golden texture made the voice so involving, it just kept drawing me in to the music. The micro dynamics and texture served as the attack or brush stroke whereas the warm golden hue served as the paint. Even when instruments came in they were sized perfectly and expanded and contracted without smearing each other in any way. I would attribute these characteristics to the ASR amplifier and the room treatments. I have heard this speaker in the same room with other components but it was only when the ASR came in did it develop this personality.

5. Bass – The Ascendo uses a bandpass design. I am not too fond of bandpass designs as I feel they are one notish and always leave a hole where they integrate with the mids. In the past I always felt this systems Achilles' heel was the bass but this time around it was fast, textured and didn’t drag as much (drier than before). I did feel it to be slightly lacking at the crossover to the mid region but then I guess a bandbass will always do that. The Ascendo uses a large 8ish inch mid driver so I guess it is better suited to handling this transition that other bandpass coupled speakers. The kick drum was superb. You could hear the texture of the drum skin decay vis a vis a simple dry thuck. But there was some darkness between the mid bass and lower mid region. It was well concealed but something appeared dark or amiss there.

6. Harmonics – I have already spoken about the tonality. I would just add that harmonically it was not suited for rock. I tried some rock music but I don’t think rockstars would like a dark, warm, golden hue, cuddly, chocolate, complex whiskey malt system. They are better suited to a raw gritty, Russian vodka mixed with absinthe kind (if you mix vodka and absinthe, you never read this here – editor please make note, actually please never try this ever, leave it to the short lived rockstars). [Ed: I think the stigma surrounding absinthe is a myth. I am actually a big fan of anisette flavored drinks, from pernod to ouzo to raki. Drank plenty on my trips to Greece and Syria. I am sure India has its own]

As mentioned before this was - Amperex + RCA 12AU7 tubes, sprinkling in a little of Telefunken magic which I again strongly feel is the ASR voicing followed by the Pavane and Audience cabling.

7. Listen for the singer – again superb, more so on male vocals. You could hear the singer moving the voice around, the voice changing weight and tone depending on if it was a head or chest voice (for those who don't get this look up vocal coach Beth Roars videos on Youtube in my last post), then changing micro dynamics as the singer increased or decreased air pressure. The system did not pressurize the room as I have seen some systems do. Instead the singer was left by himself on the soundstage just singing his heart out. I did not get the same feeling using female tracks. It was there but not as well done as the male ones.

All in all I thank Michael for hosting me over and kudos to him for pulling off a superb sounding system. It isn't meant to have that jump and presence factor that you get with high sensitivity speakers and small simple amplification circuits. It may not suit aggressive genres that sound good on raw systems but, what it did well, was beautiful, just beautiful, which made me think of the Sistine Chapel. Well done, Michael, you pulled off a Michaelangelo!

 Vintage Marantz RC programmed and controlling the system

"we can send a man to Mars and maybe even grow a tree on it but we cannot remake a classic remote like this. Why? Oh why!!!! Just look at the print and buttons..."

- audiopro

System components in the above setup:

Lector Digidrive cd Transport

Metrum Pavane
Linn LP12/ IttokLVii/ Lyra Delos
Jeff Rowland Cadence Phono stage with BPS1 supply
Intel NUC / SOtM SPS500, Metrum
Ambre , Melco N1A
ASR Emitter II Exclusive
Ascendo MS- SEW
Audience Au24SX Speaker Cables , Front Row Digital, Line Level XLR , Audience and Furutech Power Cables, SOtM Purist Audio Cat7 cables.
Audience power conditioning, Steinmusic Harmonizers, Blue Suns, Supernatural feet, ASI Resonators.
Kemp Electroniks QA and Schumann Resonator plugs
Vintage Marantz RC

Editor: My friend Sang in HK used to have an ASR Emitter I (2 box) which I have heard a lot (here). Indeed all these battery driven equipment would not be the last word in macrodynamics, but that's not what they are for. Part of the polite character may be due to the Metrum too. Eric L's lower level Metrum was deemed too polite by him. Just a guess. As for this flagship Ascendo, I have heard it twice: the first time was terrible (driven by Audionet); the second time pretty good at a show (here). A great write-up. Indeed it's not easy to hear a thoroughly musical system on home visits.

Review: Verity Audio Rienzi meets Softone ICL

Click pic to enlarge.

Review: Verity Audio Rienzi III
1, 2, 3, Go! Softone ICL

OK, I admit it, part of the reason for the revisit was for the fantastic and wholesome breakfast: eggs, sausage, fresh carrots and cabbage, and home-made bread! Thanks and thanks again! How am I going to do without today! :-(

Before and during breakfast, we had round 1, which used the resident ASR Emitter I Exclusive. Since the sound was not much different from before, I shall not dwell on this part and refer you to my previous reports (here).

Mostly Softone ICL (official website)
This came about because our host Sang just acquired the ICL Model 3 CD player. Yes, contrary to what you read in the commercial press, many people still buy CD players! He wanted to play with my ICL Model 2 DAC and I wanted breakfast, so the visit was arranged. Since I have read that the Verity Audio Rienzi is friendly to flea-powered SET amps (based on a review in Ultra Audio), I decided to take along some extra stuff, and the challenger system was as follows:

Transport/CD Player: Softone Model 2
DAC: Softone Model 3
Preamp: Bryston 0.4B
Amp: Softone Model 1 (300B amp; discontinued; on the floor in the pic)
Speaker: Verity Audio Rienzi
Cable-Analogue: Canare (cheap 75 ohm) and Belden teflon silver-plated (looks like Cello String, but white)
Cable-Digital: Belden (yellow)
Cable-Speaker: Belden 9497
Cable-Power; generic

ONE OF THE MOST JOYFUL MOMENTS IN MY HIFI JOURNEY. Yes, in terms of fun and delight, not absolute performance. And vindication for Verity Audio also. Previously, I had not been too enamoured of Verity, indeed for all speakers of this kind, with one small speaker on top of a "subwoofer" module.

But, on this historic day, with the full system as described, the system cast a huge soundstage, with instruments reaching into the far corners (whereas the ASR only had the center, not even particularly full at that). Instruments gained presence and size, with beautiful and correct timber. Amazingly, the sound had excellent live presence. The voice of Buena Vista Social Club's Omara was smoky and the band swinging. In the duet of Ray Charles and Nora Jones, not only were the voices beautifully differentiated, they tightly inter-weaved to covey a feeling of duo partnership. Grappelli's violin was sinewy, and the system coveyed effortlessly the rhythmic finesse, as it also did with Take Five.

Even with the classical and bigger stuff, the system did well. Yang Tianwa's violin on this most delightful Naxos series was bewitching; with a good system, you should be feeling the bow's return as well as the finger's action, and I did. The orchestra accompaniment had good weight. Musica Antiqua Koln was swinging in this wonderful account of the Brandenburg's. Even more impressively, the second movement of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony showcased the gutsy playing of the lower strings and very good dynamics. The only track that exposed the limited power on hand was a closely miked piano track.

Now a few words on particular components in the system. I shall not be exhaustive as I am sure I will write a Softone/ICL overview one day:

Softone Model 3 This is a wonderful CD player as well as a transport. Using the same Philips CDM Pro2 laser mechanism, I wonder why people buy over-priced transports like Orpheus and Weiss. As a CD player, the sound is refined and very clean.

Softone Model 2 This is a best-buy DAC that handles up to 24/96. Being tube buffered, the sound is warmer and weightier than the Model 3, and hence likely more suited to the high resolution Rienzi.

Bryston 0.4B This is a surprisingly musical preamp of older (and better imho) vintage. It has absolutely nothing "transistory" about it. To this dedicated tube preamp user, this is the highest praise.

Softone/ICL Model 1 This is a surprisingly sophisticated design (as most ICL products) 300B amp (there is also a 2A3 version) of fixed bias design, with 330V at the plate and the 300B run at 65 mA. Surprisingly, using only small output transformers, it can be driven very hard and outperforms many a costlier SET amp. Since I had not used it in a long time, I randomly took a pair of Chinese 300B and tested it in the morning. I measured it to make sure it was not over-biased. Boy, it was only running at 33 mA, lower than you'd run a 2A3. You know what? I did not re-bias since it sounded just fine with my Tannoy. So, this amp now is running at much less than full power; I'd estimate only outputting 3 watts or so.

Verity Audio Rienzi This experience completely changed my view of VA. Previously I had heard several pairs at shows and in homes. At best I'd say they were hifi-ish, not particularly attractive (I'd say the same about the over-rated Wilson Watt/Puppy). I had even heard a higher model driven by a full Monty DIY EL34 amp and the sound was sleep-inducing. So imagine my surprise this time. The Rienzi is lightning fast and superbly transparent. It may be a trifle too bright for my taste but I think that can be easily rectified. More importantly, unlike most Wilson Watt/Puppy, the two boxes appear to be coherently integrated (although not so when the ASR was used). Most surprisingly, it has excellent rhythm and pace as well as a live presence, very rare qualities in loudspeakers.

The Rienzi is obviously a tube and SET friendly loudspeaker. Given the already mightily impressive performance with the lowly Softone/ICl amp, I would say it is a marriage made in heaven. My great happiness is not only for the host, but also because I am happy there is another good loudspeaker for SET amp users. There is no way I personally would use this speaker with anything else but tubes, and preferably SET amp at that.

Of course, the Rienzi is still not a large, nor fullrange, speaker, but given its modest footprint it is a worthwhile effort.

Epiphany!

Home Visit: VERITY Rienzi/ASR Emitter I

Home Visit: VERITY Rienzi/ASR Emitter I Exclusive (Blue Light)(2 batteries)

During the holidays I managed to have some interesting visits. This was the first.

Sang is an avid music lover, and quite versed in classical music. He's the type of person who is really low keyed yet focused, and precisely the type of client that the hi-end should target.

Why? Because his previous system was quite a humble one, yet he spent 1-2 years shopping for his new system! Previously I believe he had MF X-Ray and Audiolab gears, now this not inexpensive system, a QUANTUM jump!!!! Should one jump this confidently? Not if you lack even a little confidence!

Verity Audio is quite a known entity to me, having heard Parisfal and the likes. My experience ranges from pretty good to disastrous (with inadequate tube amp). I have also heard ASR to deliver musical performances. So I was not disappointed by the performance of this system.

Apparently, the dealer had come to the house and spent a good amount of time setting up the Rienzi. The left speaker, flanking a dining room and at the mouth of a corridor, is placed more forward. Visually this is unsettling but I applaud the "by ears and not by eyes" approach. The sound was quite refined and tidy, with generally good tonal balance and very good macro- and microdynamics.

Now, it's quite common knowledge that I am quite allergic to the clinical and white-washed sound of much modern German hifi, indeed much hifi in general. With that in mind, I found the sound quite a cut above the many horrible experiences I have had with German gears (don't you EVER mention Burmester to me). Of course Verity is not German for sure, and, price notwithstanding, ASR at least belongs to the good guy camp.

If I have any reservation about the system, it may be about the CD player. German Accustics Arts CD player is quite expensive. It's a 24/192 upsampling Crystal Delta-Sigma player, which I have heard a lot. In my experience and for my taste, "details" aside, it's not easy to make a musical player out of this technology, though it CAN be done. While this player sounded effortless, dynamic, and clean most of the time, particularly impressive in big orchestral pieces, it had a relatively hard time portraying the true timbre of solo intsruments like violin and piano, or conveying the give-and-take of chamber performances. This is a frequent paradox, players that can do big things falter at small things, and vice versa.

That said, this sytem is quite new and needs more break-in. And more cabling experiments is likely needed. Battery AQ cables may not be the thing for German stuff. I'd love to visit again, not least as a pretext for the marvelous pasta my gracious hosts served me!