Pilium Audio in action-

Rhapsody said:

Installed the Pilium Olympus pre and Zeus stereo amp last night. Let it set for 12 hours and turned on this morning for the first time. It has all of five minutes of playing time on the Pilium set.

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A wonderful, lively combination. Love the digital front end and the S3 never disappoints.

We are planning to check out Pilium Achilles and WestmisnterLab Rei monoblocks with upcoming Clarisys Studio Plus in Czech rep. as we are going to try to find the best amplification to acompany these amazing ribbon speakers to sound the best. Sometimes in march, I will make a report

A wooden crate never looked so good!

Rhapsody said:

Pilium in action as a harp guitar stand View attachment 125550

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Looks like an altar

Happy Friday everyone and I'm having a late night tonight with wonderful music. Luckily I won't have to work tomorrow so can indulge myself a treat with my favourite albums and tracks.

Alongside Besame Mucho which is extremely popular for not only listening to but also for testing systems, my most favourite song in the same album of Laura Fygi is Historia De Un Amour.

This is simply an incredibly beautiful song in every way from the tunes, instrumental arrangements, Laura's voice and finally the great recording quality.

I hope you'll have a great weekend and just enjoy the music !

I had the pleasure of listening to Son's incredible system last week, and was certainly a fun experience!

The system has incredible power and grip over the music, never becoming strained, muddied, or losing instrument separation no matter the volume or complexity of the music. In particular, I have never heard a drum kit or percussion so well reproduced before - it was a visceral experience. Needless to say, thunderous bass is also included! Other frequencies are also well handled, and the soundstage has both great depth and width.
Only two downsides for me. Firstly the design of the speakers to give such incredible bass dynamics means a wide speaker and so they don't fully disappear into the soundstage.
The second is that I didn't fully relax into the listening. This wasn't helped by playing the first few tracks at a high volume to enjoy the amazing dynamics, but even at lower levels this still existed. I'm not a fan of dCS so this may be part of it. It may also be that this is a relatively new system and while Son has done a great job so far, there are still areas such as grounding and isolation which may relax the sound more. This could well turn an already amazing system incredible one.

Thanks Son for your hospitality and letting me experience your system.

heihei said:

I had the pleasure of listening to Son's incredible system last week, and was certainly a fun experience!

The system has incredible power and grip over the music, never becoming strained, muddied, or losing instrument separation no matter the volume or complexity of the music. In particular, I have never heard a drum kit or percussion so well reproduced before - it was a visceral experience. Needless to say, thunderous bass is also included! Other frequencies are also well handled, and the soundstage has both great depth and width.
Only two downsides for me. Firstly the design of the speakers to give such incredible bass dynamics means a wide speaker and so they don't fully disappear into the soundstage.
The second is that I didn't fully relax into the listening. This wasn't helped by playing the first few tracks at a high volume to enjoy the amazing dynamics, but even at lower levels this still existed. I'm not a fan of dCS so this may be part of it. It may also be that this is a relatively new system and while Son has done a great job so far, there are still areas such as grounding and isolation which may relax the sound more. This could well turn an already amazing system incredible one.

Thanks Son for your hospitality and letting me experience your system.

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Those speakers are best heard on powerful SETs like Kondo (or others would work)

Thanks Adam for coming over, it’s my absolute pleasure to have you here and hopefully one day I’ll be able to give you a visit .

I appreciate all your comments and suggestions to improve my system even further although we’re different in this very subjective hobby. However, I did contact John from Hifistay indeed and now waiting for his flagship footers and caps to arrive!

I’m still on the way to complete my 4 boxes digital and the cables to match, so next time when you come back here, things might be very different. Especially I’m looking for different ways of tweaking my system.

I know it’s quite obvious that as I’m still relatively young and listening to very dynamic music, particularly with powerful bass like rock and electronic, hence high volume is my natural choice and I like the music being reproduced as close to live events as possible. You might find it too much energy and less relaxing but I’m perfectly fine with that.

Having said that, I’m fully open minded and appreciate your advice to improve my system in a better way, will let you know how things go on this journey. You know I listen to various types of music, not just only rock and electronic, hence I’m keen on optimising my system to get the best out of it when playing my favourite tracks from other genres.

I’m no longer interested in tubes so Kedar’s preference is void here! I believe I’ll be able to achieve “tube-like” sound later on without tubes in my system.

I forgot to mention that this song is incredible to listen to and to test any system. Happy Friday listening everyone !

Last weekend I joined HeiHei and took up an invitation from Sonrock to hear his new system. A gracious, enthusiastic and most welcoming host!
The systems main elements are as detailed elsewhere, dCS Vivaldi Apex dac & transport, Pilium Alexander/Atlas amps and Sigma Acoustic Maat speakers. The visual impact of the setup is impressive in pictures, it doesn't do justice to the impact of being there. The amps are huge and made to look almost 'normal' by the speakers. At 6ft and 750 lbs each, the speakers are astonishing and exquisitely finished. Chapeau to those involved in installation!
The visual appearance is matched by the listening experience. I've heard a good deal of high end systems over the years but nothing has come close to the explosive power and dynamics this system can deliver. The shear power and transparency serves the music by revealing lines that in other systems are lost in the mix. It doesn't spot light but rather reveals the intent of the artists. Whether it's a classical piece where the slow build of bowed bass and kettle drums delivered a sense of menace that was quiet staggering, clearly the intent of the composer or the power and drive of a kick drum under pinning the clear sense of space and room acoustic around Caleb's vocal on a Kings of Leon track that is usually at best mirky and on the likes of a car radio hard to follow. The intent of the artists is clear.
Munich this year, the Audio Note UK room at Hifi Deluxe was the first time I've sat 5ft from a solo cellist and heard the full range of what this instrument can deliver. This system gets closer to that experience than anything I've heard before.
Inbal Segev (LPO Avie AV2419 CD) playing Elgar's cello had previously struck me as a similar interpretation to Du Pre's. Through this system the difference is stark and beautiful.
Listening was for the most part was at high volume - shake the foundation - great fun. There wasn't perhaps quiet the ease that previous experience in front of Sigma speakers has delivered until the volume was turned down at the end. By this stage we didn't have time to explore the system at lower volumes.
All systems cater to the taste of their owners. This system is no different despite in some ways being a re-education in what's possible. I've never been a great fan of what dCS sources bring. I don't have much experience but there seems to be a tendency toward transparency without quiet nailing the sweetness and beauty some sources deliver in the highs. For me there was an element of this. It was clear the rest of the system highlights changes in source to a surprising degree. The difference between filter settings on the dac were significant, more so than I'd have expected. Interestingly while the character of the system changed with source changes even swapping out to low rez Spotify Premium provided a satisfying listening experience. The weight and tonal density this system achieves gave a solidity to the foundations of this lower bit rate medium than other systems which often reveal a leanness.
I better understand what dCS fans see in their sources now and respect it's another flavour. It'll be interesting to see what the clock brings when in time it's added. I've no doubt this amp/speaker combination can deliver whatever flavour the owner prefers.
Big thanks to Son for sharing his system and time

Thanks Dan for coming over and it’s fantastic to have you here again after years since your last visit to check how koda amp and tripoint grounding box sound with my previous karan/magico/esoteric system.

Like with Adam, hopefully I’ll be able to visit you one day when my family situation allows me .

I’ll toy with the isolation first before trying the grounding stuff that you recommended to see how things change in my current system.

I think the full 4 boxes vivaldi apex digital with some darker sounding cables will do the trick. You’ll definitely come back here when that happens Dan, I’m very much looking forward to that day.

bonzo75 said:

Those speakers are best heard on powerful SETs like Kondo (or others would work)

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What amplifiers did you hear them on ..?

sonrock said:

Thanks Adam for coming over, it’s my absolute pleasure to have you here and hopefully one day I’ll be able to give you a visit .

I appreciate all your comments and suggestions to improve my system even further although we’re different in this very subjective hobby. However, I did contact John from Hifistay indeed and now waiting for his flagship footers and caps to arrive!

I’m still on the way to complete my 4 boxes digital and the cables to match, so next time when you come back here, things might be very different. Especially I’m looking for different ways of tweaking my system.

I know it’s quite obvious that as I’m still relatively young and listening to very dynamic music, particularly with powerful bass like rock and electronic, hence high volume is my natural choice and I like the music being reproduced as close to live events as possible. You might find it too much energy and less relaxing but I’m perfectly fine with that.

Having said that, I’m fully open minded and appreciate your advice to improve my system in a better way, will let you know how things go on this journey. You know I listen to various types of music, not just only rock and electronic, hence I’m keen on optimising my system to get the best out of it when playing my favourite tracks from other genres.

I’m no longer interested in tubes so Kedar’s preference is void here! I believe I’ll be able to achieve “tube-like” sound later on without tubes in my system.

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Agree totally , SS amps properly selected for the load and with necessary drive can deliver the full package , Pre amp is very important for tone ..


Regards

Audiohertz2 said:

What amplifiers did you hear them on ..?

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bonzo75 said:

Sigma MAAT – Final speakers from Italy – Zero Distortion

zero-distortion.org

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Impressive setup , the 8 ohm flat speaker impedance sounds very Comical thou ..!

Regards

I’ve just come back home from the Audio Show Deluxe. Actually the room with all the list prices combined together reach £1.5m really not worth the money, especially the Borresen speakers that cost £500k alone for the pair I was told by the Danish guys demonstrating their stuff.

as always, I know shows conditions are terrible and it’s not reasonable to judge how a system sounds. But when I came, the big room was very quiet with only a few people while its location is pretty isolated from the rest so it was not impacted from nearby rooms.

Honestly it sounds very clean with punchy bass but it lacks decays when the lowest notes played, it was just super fast then disappeared although with good power and slam. I just can’t justify how the put nearly £750k of cables there and I don’t see how many people just spend half of the money on cables alone in their system.

The Boyer room with their Kroma stand mounted speakers sound absolutely fantastic, even better than their bigger sibling in a system of £350k Wadax digital and £160k Engstrom amps. I have no idea about the price of the massive shunyata omega cables. Some pictures of today show.

I can’t upload the hires photos via my phone as it says the files are too large