The Story

Confused and enticed, those were some of the things written about this room in my show notes. I entered this crowded room during a rather impassioned demonstration by Jesus Trillo, CEO of J. Trillo and Francois Saint-Gerand of Ana Mighty Sound. By the size of the two men, taking my own size into account, I think I’d better take a seat and retract my aura as much as I can. No interrupting these fellas.

What happens next is almost erie. J. Trillo is the maker of AES (Audio Enhancer System) which by their description is an “energizer of waves emanating from your speakers, resonating with the natural properties of your system, both speaker and room to create a holographic sensation” and to my witness and many others, they do exactly that. They resonate and do enhance the sound. You had to be there there man, it was wild. It was so dramatic, that showgoers burst into laughter and conversation, asking each other “Did you hear that too?”

Using the Troy Audio Helena loudspeakers ($100,000 USD) the J. Trillo AES resonators were installed on the concentric tweeter horns mid-song, removed for a few bars, then reinstalled, all without stopping the music. The differences were ample. Also to be noted, that AES resonators were also suspended around the room boundaries at ceiling height. They were never eliminated from the system at any point during the demo, so I can’t speak as directly to their effect.

As for the Helena loudspeakers, noteworthy features: they are huge, 16” ( cm) midranges with coaxial horn super tweeters, 16” woofers, dual chamber cabinets (one for highs, one for lows), high gloss finish that is nearly Steinway perfect. For monster sized speakers they had no issue sounding delicate for such a small room. When the time was dynamics was called for, they responded without issue.

Power for the system was an unbelievably stout 20 watts per channel, thanks to a Triode supplied TRX-P3M power amp, all controlled by their partnering TRX-3 preamp.

Sourcing the system was a modified Garrard 301 turntable outfitted with Ana Mighty Sound’s TNT15 Evolve moving coil cartridge ($2,870 USD), La 103 .trois a reimagining of Denon’s legendary DL-103 ($830 USD), and Le Phono phono stage ($3,670 USD).