A Hi-Fi Trip to Ipoh - Part 3 - KUZMA / AUDIO RESEARCH / VITUS / MAGICO

Mr. Lam's system was the third and last stop on our Ipoh trip. The system was tucked into a cosy room in the house that also doubled as an AV room. 

The room was tastefully decorated, with the fittings also doubled up subtly as room treatment, as can be seen in the photos below. The uneven bricks making up the front wall, and the timber strips on the ceiling would also act as sound diffuser, while the randomly placed foam pieces on the ceiling and the carpet on the floor would help to dampen the room. 

To treat the side walls, acoustic panels from Vicoustic were placed on the reflection points: 

Lam's system was as follows:

BMC Audio CD player, which Lam did not play during our visit

We listened exclusively to Lam's all Kuzma analogue rig shown above. The turntable was the Kuzma Stabi R turntable...

with the Kuzma 4point arm...

...and the Kuzma CAR-50 cartridge,

...feeding the Audio Research Reference Phono 10 phono stage, which came with a separate power supply

The line preamplifier was also from Audio Research - the Reference 10 line stage also with a separate power supply chassis

A peep into the Reference 10's separate, tube-based power supply

The power amp was a 85kg behemoth, the Vitus SS-103. It came with 50w on tap in class A mode and 150w in class AB mode. Lam thought the class A mode sounded better, that was also how we listened to the amp during our visit

 

The loudspeakers were the Magico S5 

...fitted with very substantial-looking upgrade spikes from Magico

Power conditioning was taken care of by a Powertrans power conditioner fitted with 9kVA isolation transformer

I like this idea. The Powertrans was placed outside the listening room, and the power cables were routed through drilled-through holes on the wall to get into the room. 

The sound from Lam's HiFi system was big. It was room-filling and then some, given the pedigree of the equipment here, that was no surprise. 

The 50w Class A power from the Vitus amp controlled the big Magico S5 very well, I couldn't hear any compression let alone any distortion at any time, not even during orchestral crescendos. The sound also had an overall roundness to it, it was dynamic but never aggressive, very similar to my past experience of Magico loudspeakers. In addition, there was a layer of what I think many audiophiles would call 'analogue-ness' to the presentation, wherein one wouldn't term the sound as 'analytical' but still there was a high degree of details in it. Here, that was further coupled with a buttery, smooth flow of the music. Well, it must have been the combined effect of the LP frontend and the top-of-line tube preamps, perhaps?  

The highs from the Magico's Be tweeters were very smooth. The mid was vivid, it came with a good saturation of tonal colours, definitely not the thin nor washed out kind that lesser speakers could exhibit. The lows, with two 10in woofers per side operating in a midsize room, dug deep and was very strong, just as expected. The bass notes sounded big, but, and this was critical, they never spilt into the muddy, boomy territory. Overall, I thought the bass region stole the show a little bit, though that also added excitement in the listening session. We were invariably swept up in the unbridled energy exhibited by the music and went on a thrilling ride, what a sensation that only a sizeable and capable system like this could deliver!

A well put together system coupled with a conducive room equals sensational music replay. Lam sure has reaped great rewards from his effort!

Thus concludes our Ipoh trip. There are many more HiFi systems in Ipoh, hope I'll get to savour more of them in the near future.