Some rooms at audio shows catch your attention before you even go into them – which isn’t easy due to the fact that you’ve got music pouring forth from just about every door you pass by – because they are playing something out of the norm. As in, not audiophile. Not Diana Krall, Hugh Masekela or these days Daft Punk.
Swiss hifi manufacturer CH Precision is a brand I’m familiar with thanks to DVL Audio, and Element Acoustics up here in Canada, but what I wasn’t familiar with was a 12″ extended version of Thomas Dolby’s I Scare Myself that Raphael Pasche of CH Precision was spinning when I came in to interview him.
The sound had deep, textured bass that seemed to be emanating from a marble slab it was so solid, and the CH Precision-amplified system of the M1 Power Amplifier (Approx. $51,000 USD – $67,600 CAN), C1 Preamplifier (Approx. $32,000 USD – $42,400 CAN depending on modular boards added), and P1 Phono Preamplifier ($31,000 USD – $41,100 CAN) was throwing a large, encompassing soundstage at it pressurized the room through the Focal Sopra No.3 loudspeakers ($19,995 USD – $26,700 CAN).
The Lyra Etna ($8,995 USD – $12,000 CAN) that was tracking Dolby’s grooves is a cart whose transparent, but meaty signature I’ve got a high-school crush on, and it was being allowed to completely do its thing thanks the Kronos Pro turntable ($38,000 USD – $50,700 CAN) and tonearm ($8,000 USD – $10,700 CAN) it was hanging off.
This was another example of a curated sound system, which with the help of Audio by Mark Jones had been put together to create an incredibly lyrical, dynamic and musical flavour of high fidelity. One that seemed bent on emotionally entangling the listener. The outcome was a room that proved difficult to photograph for most of the show because it was constantly packed: A testament that those involved in putting these components together had done their job… and then some.
–Rafe Arnott
Love that Synchronicity was in the mix as well.