It's been quite a long time since I last had a prolonged listening session in Hongkong. This time I had a little moment to spare and I visited The Sound Chamber which I had frequented since the 80s. The owner Ken Chan was gracious enough to let me listen to two systems. In the big room, there was the Von Schweikert VR 9's in a high tech silver metalic finish, driven by Balabo electronics from Japan. The amp, someone whispered to me, is tagged at $75,000. Isa lang naman ang kailangan, buti na lang. Source was an ARC CD 7. Room was huge, like 22-25' wide and around 30' long. The VR9s were away from the side walls and easily 6ft. from the back wall. Toe in was a sharp 45 degrees. I requested for a classical piece and Ken gladly obliged. In truth, I listened only to this piece for about 20 minutes and the music was immediately impressive. The general sound is wide, deep, and open. With ample height stretching slightly above the speakers' top. The highs are super smooth and refined, without a trace of courseness or harshness. Dynamics, needless to say, is more than you will ask for, with those kilowatt built-in D amps per side driving the back-firing woofer. The Balabo easily handled the rest of the drivers with 500 watts of power. The obvious trait in this system is that it does not sound like anything is coming out of the speakers. The stage is throw-back deep, leaving me feeling the sense of space in all parts of the soundstage. There is simply nothing to nickpick. I was just immersed with the performance of orchestra. I would have loved to listen the 'great uncle' of them all - the VR-11s but unfortunately (or even fortunately for me bec I have not hit the lotto) the unit just got sold recently. Request ko sana dyan, the newly released LP version of PARAMITA!
My listening pleasure in this big room was cut short when Ken invited me to the smaller room beside the big one. In there are the Magico Minis loudspeaker, 'modestly' priced at $20,000 but with a workmanship that would top the likes of the Sonus Homage Series. What a thing of visual beauty, including the stands. Their mid line speakers are in the $65,000 range and of course, they have the hit-the-lotto model at past $100,000.
An ARC Ref 110 amp was driving the Minis. Line and phono stages were from FM Acoustics and source was a 47Labs Miyabi, Triplanar 7, and a DPS table. The first cut was a male vocal piece from Stockfisch Records, David Roth singing Vincent with guitar accompaniment. I was not prepared, nor expected what I heard. Perhaps describing the sound as lush, smooth, sweet, etc is just too ordinary anymore from what I heard. This is a cut above anything I have ever heard for male vocals and acoustic intruments. It's simply magic and musically delectable. I was told that the ARC amp and the Magicos match well. This is like the Sonus sound and 'more', imo. The Minis are capable of filling up a medium sized room and I was very amazed to hear the kind of bass reproduction coming from a 2-way sealed loudspeaker. It definitely sounded like 3 way to me. Very impressive. Another cut of LA 4 Just Friends and I sat back and listened to the musical event. I just run out of words.
Went on to track down some black plastic goodies down Central and Causeway and I shall be posting some in the R&R section.