Re-Introduction To My HiFi Circa January 2019

My simplified 2 rack HiFi system, circa January 2019, to start my journey again after a 3 year plus hiatus

Let me tell you about my reintroduction in to HiFi again, circa January 2019. With a remodeled home many things have changed, except my man cave, whic remains untouched at the same 12ft x 10ft x 9ft(L x W x H). Small room, and the urge to make it 14ft x 10ft x 9ft(L x W x H) was there, but I had resisted as I loved the way the speakers loaded my room, sound wise. So all it got was a fresh new coat of paint & some LED strip lighting. I started with the room because over the years, my HiFi philosophy have come to embrace the room as the starting point, followed by speakers, amplifiers & lastly sources in the order of hierarchy in the degree of sound influence. Allow me to further explain why it all starts with the room. The room as we choose to house our HiFi system in to, will determine how big a speaker pair allowed, which will in turn tell you how big a power amplifier should be, then comes preamp to be the source switch and volume control plus maybe, just maybe add sonic flavours to your source, which ever you choose. Make no mistake, the job of the source is to extract as much musical information from the media medium as possible. My hifi set up reflects just that philosophy as above and a little more as we go along. 

This set up consisted of items that were mothballed from the past, such as my PMC IB2i speakers, ATI Reference 6004 power amp, Kuzma Stabi S turn table and lastly Torus Power conditioner. Add in some new elements such as the Aesthetix Janus preamp/phono stage & Sony CDP X7-ESD CD player. 

PMC IB2i speakers

The PMC IB2i have been in my past system before. They came in to the picture as replacement to the pair of PMC Fact 8. I fell in love with this pair of speakers at the time of it's review in these pages. At the time, budgetary issues prevented them from being mine. However as PMC introduced a newer model in the form of IB2 SE, this pair made it's way from the showroom to my place with some discount. My HiFi philosophy also dictates that speakers should always be British, especially variations or students of the past BBC Technical Dept designs. Those guys really did much research in to all that make great speakers.

In theory, the pair of IB2i speakers are somewhat over sized for my room dimensions, but with careful placements of not only the speakers, but also my throne in avoiding room modes, made it a possibility in practice. These are speakers with a big sound and real beefy bass. Being a 3 way design with a dedicated silk dome mid range, the magical vocal is always there, ever present when playing music. The highs are not extended like newer speaker designs, but that's OK, as with the right source material, it can still relay the amount 'air' required for 'live' recording that is so dependent on the illusion of being there. The Achilles heel of having such a big speaker is the requirement for an equally big, beefy amp, which is the subject coming next!
     

ATI Reference 6004 power amp

ATI is not a new HiFi manufacturer as they have been doing that for other big American high end brands since 30 years or so ago. ATI amplifiers are designed by Morris Kessler, even if not as famous as Nelson Pass, Mark Levinson, Dan D' Agostino or John Curl, he is definitely in the same technical prowess when it comes to amplifier designs. All good designers but different design philosophies & technical implementation. Coming back to my HiFi philosophy for amps, my choice would always be American muscle.

The ATI Reference 600X series is designed as a multi channel high end AV amp. It can be configured for 1-7 channels in a single chassis at time of purchase. I wanted a four channel 350W amp, so I got an ATI Reference 6004, the last numerical denotes the number of channels in a single chassis. Why 4 channels you ask? Bi-amping, ever since I did that with a pair of stereo Magnet amps, I can never go back to normal stereo. So each one of the PMC IB2i speaker is powered by one channel for the bass driver & one channel for the mid range & tweeter.

I found the ATI Reference to be extremely transparent & powerful for an AV multi channel design. Which is all one needs for HiFi, gain on a wire. Some may accuse it of not being the last word in refinement and I agree, but it has a certain mid range texture that's invariably missing on those over refined amp designs too. So in HiFi, you always win some, lose some. It's just what parameter is more important to win or lose only, your choice determines the brand and design.

Asthetix Janus pre-amp, comes with built in phono stage. It is basically a simplified Calypso & Rhea rolled in one box for those who needs to de-clutter their HiFi!

The Aesthetix Janus represents another American amp choice for me even if it's a tube based design. We reviewed the Aesthetix Calypso in these pages before and liked it quite a bit. I felt it's performance came closest my pre-amp reference of sorts, the Audio Research Reference 3. Many argue that this is a decades old design, but to me this tube based pre-amp struck a balance between  being transparent & the way it adds a tinge of golden rose hue to the tonal color of music is nothing short of magical. Newer ARC Reference designs have since improved on linearity, lowered noise floor & higher resolution capability, but lost it's musical soul in the process.

Sorry if I digressed, but the Aesthetix Janus represented just that, as in the very slight tinge of rose gold hue added in to the tonal color does wonders to lift music, give it soul, make it just a little bit more humanized. Partner those sonic qualities with a full function remote and high quality phono stage, then is it any wonder why it deserves to be here?

I know Jim White as an excellent phono stage designer. If one can excel at making 1000X amplification,  preamp design would seemed like childs play, wouldn't it?   

Sony CDP X7-ESD CD player, the best of Sony circa 1988!

The 1988 Sony CDP X7-ESD is a special breed indeed, if you didn't know that? I have not come across another CD player that comes with transformer coupled XLR output! The X7-ESD is the first ES series CD player to include XLR output, and Sony went all out to make it special. While the BB PCM 53 DAC chip is one generation before the best, PCM 63, the sound from this Sony unit is truly something else. I used to have the Marantz CD 7, which was a truly magnificent CD player, if not for it's sound quality, then at least for it's collector's value.

The Sony is from a decade before the Marantz, yet will not lose out anything in terms of sound quality, shows that Sony as the CD format's co-developer was truly ahead of the curve at the period of what could be called the Golden Age of CD players, which is from the late 80's till late 90's. I would almost always favor high end Japanese CD players(the other exception being Philips CD players) as they made the transports, and built them to last a life time. I know mine did, it's more than 30 years now and still plays music like as if it was new!

Kuzma Stabi S, or baby Kuzma as many would come to call it!

This Kuzma Stabi S replaced my Linn LP12 turn table sometime after this pages probably in 2014. In terms of design the Kuzma is totally a different breed altogether. I liked the bare bones design of a solid high mass turn table equipped with a 12 inch unit pivot Stoggi arm, fitted with my trusty, long service Benz Micro LP cartridge.

For a small turn table, the sound is big boned & bold. The design is also very quiet in terms of bearing noise and that double thick cast iron platter gives equally big, ballsy bass. Never mind if it's the cheapest turn table among Franc Kuzma designs. The Kuzma family sound is just as evident here as in his bigger, badder ass designs. it's also a very musical turn table, otherwise it will be difficult to persuade me to move away from the Linn Sondek LP12.

Torus Power RM 8A, yes 8 Amperes is all you need. It's showing 1.6A current draw at idle, when my system hits it's Rock & Roll stride at 104dbs, it would be drawing a little over 4.2A! 

The Torus Power Conditioner needs no introduction as you can catch or revisit my adventures with it here within these pages. That's what buying the best equipment do, it stays with you for a long..... time, and possibly maybe for a lifetime. No further thinking about what ifs or regrets later, years down the road.

So that's all about the equipment, as all cables and accessories are carried over from the past and can be viewed from these pages. All I can say is that after 3 years living without HiFi, I am just glad to be back and have sound, good or bad. My journey starts all over again from here on.