Visit to Alma Music and Audio

[Ron Resnick]

Alma Music and Audio, in San Diego, California, owned by Alex Siufy and by Fabio Storelli, opened its doors in March of 2015.

Moving recently from La Jolla Alma’s new location is twice the size of the old location, and includes a custom designed, acoustically-treated 30 foot long listening room. Alex and Fabio really did a beautiful job with this room!

 

[Ron Resnick]

Yesterday I accompanied KeithR to Alma. Keith wanted to hear one more time the MSB Premier DAC before making a purchase decision. My task was to evaluate the Premier and to assess the magnitude of the sonic superiority of the Reference DAC ($39,500) over the Premier DAC ($19,500). Is the Reference twice as good as the Premier for twice the money?

I know almost nothing about digital playback, but for this task I did not need to know anything about digital; I simply had to evaluate the sound from two different devices with one demo track (Neil Young’s "After the Goldrush") I know very well and which I have heard many times in many systems, including in Steve’s system two days earlier and in JeffT’s system one day earlier. This I could do, even though both devices are DACs.













Alex was demonstrating a system consisting of the YG Sonja 2 loudspeakers, the Audio Research Reference 10 line stage and Audio Research Reference 160M monoblock amplifiers. The analog front-end consists of the Bergmann Audio Galder turntable with the Odin linear-tracking, air-bearing tonearm. Bergmann Audio is located in Denmark. An Air Tight Opus 1 cartridge was riding the Odin.


















The Bergmann looked beautiful to me, as I like simple, minimalist Scandinavian design. There are a lot of air tubes coming in and out of the back of the system, but Alex reports that the system is relatively simple to set up and is extremely reliable and no fuss/no muss once installed. The sound was amazing and another data point in favor of the Opus 1 cartridge.

 

[Ron Resnick]

First Alex played the Premier. It sounded very good, natural and non-fatiguing. But how could that be? It’s digital! Where was the brightness, the harshness, the digititis, the sensation of ragged dry ice particles dripping on you in the shower? Those traditional digital characteristics were totally missing, and were replaced by an analog-like sense of smoothness and relaxedness and ease. The horrifying thought that today’s experience with digital, completely unexpectedly, could upend my entire audio world view suddenly flashed across my mind -- and we started the session by listening to the less expensive MSB model!

Alex switched to the Reference DAC. The Reference was a little bit more transparent and provided a little bit more information than did the Premier. There was less “gauze” and more clean air, clarity, quietness and “blackness” between and among the instruments.

I leaned over to Keith and I asked him if he could very roughly quantify the incremental improvement in sound. I thought the improvement was 10% to 20%. Keith agreed, and later confirmed he felt that the Reference was noticeably better than the Premier, but not more than 20% better than the Premier for twice the price.

I was relieved because I was now more comfortable that the LP sound I heard from this track at Steve’s and Jeff’s was noticeably more transparent and more present and more believably “in the room” than what I was hearing now. But these MSB DACs change entirely the substance of the analog versus digital conversation. The conversation is no longer “can I stand to listen to digital”; the conversation now is “what are we still hearing in analog that remains a little bit better than digital? Buy what increment is analog sounding superior to digital?”

The MSB DACs sounded inexplicably good, but they did not have quite the in-the-room-real sensation that I heard at both Steve’s house and at Jeff’s house. I leaned over to Keith and I said “I wonder what will you think of this same track on LP,” now feeling confident that analog was holding the winning hand in the Alma Audio sonic card game yesterday.

When Alex put on the LP (admittedly a $100,000 analog front-end versus $20,000 and $40,000 DACs) I was relieved to hear the incredible transparency and presence of Neil Young’s voice which I heard at Steve’s and Jeff’s but which I did not hear, in its full realism, from MSB. (But, again, the fact that MSB instantly changed the conversation for me from “can I stand to stay and listen to this longer?” to “am I sure am analog is still better than digital”? is a dramatic and revolutionary change of mentality and orientation. Nonetheless digital playback, through MSB DACs anyway, is without doubt a legitimate high-end medium of music reproduction. It was by far the most enjoyable and analog-like reproduction of music I have ever heard from digital.

Alex, Keith and I all agreed that the LP was at least slightly more transparent in the voice (I thought it was significantly more transparent in the voice) and significantly more realistic in reproducing the sound of piano. Alex then played a high-resolution remastering of “After the Goldrush” and the LP’s margin of superiority narrowed considerably.

Nonetheless I was greatly relieved to hear and to have confirmed (to me, anyway) that analog is not in any serious danger of truly being bested buy digital any time soon. (Yes, I am aware that MikeL is reporting that the fully-optioned out MSB Select further narrows the gap between digital and analog.)

 

[Ron Resnick]

In addition to a huge main listening room Alma also has two smaller listening areas in the main store section.

Alma also has a great collection of records for sale!















Alex and Fabio are incredibly warm, friendly, knowledgeable and helpful. They truly love high-end audio and its patrons!

If you live in or plan to visit Southern California without a doubt you should meet Alex and Fabio and check out Alma!

Alma Music and Audio
7847 Convoy Ct. #101
San Diego, CA 92111
858-598-5116

 

[spiritofmusic]

Hey Ron, you're going to have to drop the caricature of digital you've been describing ever since I've known you. It doesn't exist anymore.

I've been listening to Barry's Aqua Formula XHD dac off SGM 2015 server, and it fully ticks 9 out of 10 boxes that analog ticks, and is startlingly the closest digital has come to analog for me, and in many ways is as good or better.

Alex know this combo v well since he sells it, and he fully concurs w me.

And remember the cdp you so admired at my place? A ten year old design.

 

[Blue58]

Nice read Ron and glad you're warming to digital slowly

I didn't see the SGM2015 in the pic and wondered if the narrowing of digital and analogue could be further improved if the SGM had been in place. I also think you'd get a more 'in the room' analogue feel with some nice horns , but hey!, Im biased.

Wish you well and these visits are my favourite posts on WBF.

Blue58

ps. Neil Young always sounds like someones squeezing his balls, LOL

 

[Ron Resnick]

Hey Ron, you're going to have to drop the caricature of digital you've been describing ever since I've known you. It doesn't exist anymore.

I've been listening to Barry's Aqua Formula XHD dac off SGM 2015 server, and it fully ticks 9 out of 10 boxes that analog ticks, and is startlingly the closest digital has come to analog for me, and in many ways is as good or better.

Alex know this combo v well since he sells it, and he fully concurs w me.

And remember the cdp you so admired at my place? A ten year old design.

1) No I don’t. I am not making any broad pronouncement on digital components generally. How could I? Yesterday we heard only two DACs and both were from MSB. Prior to this experience no other digital playback system, including very expensive dcs stuff, vanquished my traditional, long-standing sonic objections to digital.

2) Geez Marc, isn’t that what I just did? (Dropping my long-standing caricature of digital (at least with respect to MSB components)?)

3) Saying that caricature of digital “doesn’t exist anymore” I’m certain is a huge overstatement. I hear digital I don’t like many times per audio show.

 

[Ron Resnick]

. . . these visits are my favourite posts on WBF.

. . .

Thank you, blue58! This made my day!

 

[Alpinist]

Hi Ron,

Thanks for your report! Did you by any chance listen to the Select II DAC for a point of reference to the Premier and Reference DACs?

Best,
Ken

 

[MadFloyd]

Very enjoyable read, Ron, thank you for sharing.

Congrats to Alex and Fabio for the huge new digs. It looks fabulous.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Hi Ron,

Thanks for your report! Did you by any chance listen to the Select II DAC for a point of reference to the Premier and Reference DACs?

Best,
Ken

No, we did not listen to the Select. I’m not sure Alex had one there.

 

[Steve williams]

Alex and Fabio are the real deal. These guys not only know music but their "set up abilities" with speakers and to integrate a system from scratch is their forte

I was there in Feb and in that same room heard a set up of the Wilson Alexia Version 1 that defied everything that the Wilson set up procedure called for where the listening position was inside the recommended ratio of 1.0 to 1.25 (theirs was 0.88) and it was truly one of the best Wilson demos that I have ever heard.

Their new digs is so much bigger than their last

Kudos to Alex and Fabio

 

[Alpinist]

No, we did not listen to the Select. I’m not sure Alex had one there.

Ron,

If you have the opportunity, I would highly recommend at least giving the Select II DAC an audition to hear how far digital has come. In my opinion, it is right there with the top vinyl systems I have ever listened to. To my ears, it is also significantly more lifelike sounding than the Reference DAC.

Best,
Ken

 

[Barry2013]

Thanks for the report Ron.
A really interesting and enjoyable read.
Keep up the good work.

 

[KeithR]

Thanks for the great summary of our day, Ron!

A Select 2 wasn't available, but probably would have equalled the vinyl rig in my estimation. That said, I absolutely loved that Bergmann table - anyone considering a high end TT should put it on their demo list. There definitely was more space and a more realistic depiction of piano on the analog rig (that was several times the cost as Ron mentioned)

I will also mention that we took home the Premier Dac and, once installed, sounds utterly spectacular in my system - there is an analog quality to the new MSB dacs that I have never heard before.

 

[KeithR]

I've been listening to Barry's Aqua Formula XHD dac off SGM 2015 server, and it fully ticks 9 out of 10 boxes that analog ticks, and is startlingly the closest digital has come to analog for me, and in many ways is as good or better.

Marc- fwiw, I've had the non-XHD Formula in my room. While quite good, it sounded digital to me - not so with the MSBs (Premier, Reference, Select). The MSB Premier Dac really made my former Analog Dac sound like digital last night (yes, irony). There is a flow, continuousness, and "thereness" to these dacs that I personally have not encountered before. I know they may be tougher to hear in Europe, but highly recommend it.

 

[rockitman]

Did you listen to what appears to be the Dagastino Phono ? That and CH Precision's are the two SS phono's I may consider for my third in service unit.

 

[KeithR]

Did you listen to what appears to be the Dagastino Phono ? That and CH Precision's are the two SS phono's I may consider for my third in service unit.

Yup - the phono cost more than the dac

 

[rockitman]

Yup - the phono cost more than the dac

how does it sound ?

 

[marty]

It's nice to see Alma getting the credit it deserves. Doing retail well in high end audio is so uncommon, but Alex and Fabio do it right. They really get it. Look carefully at the carpet and you can see tape markings. When I was there last fall, Alex was busy marking off exact distances with a tape measure to make sure the speakers he wanted to demo were set up for best performance. More importantly, they do one speaker set-ups at a time (hence the tape on the floor for positioning when changing speakers). This effort is part of what makes them worth a visit.

Let me suggest that if you do visit them (or any store of this caliber), I consider it polite to buy some LPs from their good collection. They do, after all, have to keep the doors open and it's a gesture of thanks for their time that I would like to think is appreciated. (Buying a big ticket item is obviously better, but you get the point). I would also add that Alex was pretty adamant that I need not have purchased anything, but I ignored him anyway!

Finally, my favorite line in this thread has got to go to Blues 58 when he said:
"Neil Young always sounds like someones squeezing his balls, LOL"