Work in progress? So it appears from Jazzhead's less than stellar report is the Divin
It took a team of many movers to shift the Divin no less than 50 times, and it STILL didn't fire on all cylinders
Just how can we take this seriously?
The one thing I love about the AE guys is their enthusiasm. Whether they are pushing towards what's "Best" or what they like as a group, doesn't matter much to me. What counts as far as I am concerned, is that they look to be having a great time doing what they are doing. Theirs is just one path.
As for the small apartments, many affluent HK residents have larger homes on the mainland. Hong Kong isn't all bankers. The mansions in Shenzhen, like the ones at Mission Hills could surely house big systems. There's Shanghai too of course. Most HK distributors are in charge of both HK and Shanghai. Sometimes the entire PRC.
The best room in Munich is usually the Western Electrics,. And the guys who hang out there - Schroeder, Shick, Silbatone, John Roberts, have a very different taste to the Cessaro sound
No shortage of big hitters
One has to wonder how Cessaro can sound so lacking demoing the Gammas at Munich Show, and so stellar demoing the Carmen at AE Show
Maybe where AE have the edge is getting the difference w attention to acoustics, pwr and grounding
I own a pair of Cessero Gamma II. The first two months having them, they did not sound as good as my previous YG Sonja. It also did not sound as good as the Beta II (smaller lower model Cessaro) with just an integrated and a cd player at my agent's place. I was miserable. It was like holy crap I bought an Aventador but it ran like a BMW i8.
What was the problem? These horns are so damn HEAVY. About two tons. Ralph, the designer and owner of Cessaro, was only with me for a day and a half installing the things. It took one whole day just to move the horns out from the crates into my listening room. You need a linebacker to move the speaker an inche to the side. To really get them to sing, the placement of these horns is extremely crucial. Each place is different. Room size, shape, acoustics all substantially matter. It took me six months to get these 8 foot tall horns completely disappeared without smearing bass. My room is L-shape with glass walls on two sides. I had to redo my room acoustics having a sound engineer do the inroom frequency analysises and kept adjusting speakers and the room over and over. The phase and crossover point of the horns and subs had to be corrected. Good things these speakers has buttons for adjustability. Now, if you listen to my Cessaro, you will only hear music. Of course, these are not just the tweaks I had to do. Good sources, preamp, amps also need to be very good and tuned to match one another. I am lucky to become friend with Gerhard the owner of Ayon. So he came to tweak his gears that I use every time he came to Bangkok.
Why did Cessaro suck at Munich. Apart from room acoustic and limited time they had installing the system, I truely believe it was because 1) dirty power 2) grounding. I dare say you never gonna get the Cessaro or any speakers or system to sound like AE or mine (haha) unless you have clean power and good grounding management. To be honest I lost a lot of money going AE's approach in cleaning power but I got excellent results managing grounding using their Tripoint products. I even have these rediculous wrist-size grounding cables that my wife give me a look of pity everytime she sees them.
I value realism in sound most from a system. I wish they come cheap but they dont (not only cheap in term of money but also efforts)....ask Mr.Lavigne or Mr.Airbearing or Mr. Audiocrack or Mr.Karmeli who even goes to the point of unobtainum on certain gears. Some rediculosly expensive approaches from AE do work for me although many raves of their products sound or tone like dialogs in Fast and Furious. With my limited time and selected priority I couldnt find cheaper way. AE offer alternatives for those search for even small delta of sound improvements at high price. Reasonable? No. But the same goes to buying a $100,000 Patek Philippe. It's a hobby.
Regarding the tube inner glow, my top 3 systems including Mike's, Apogee Grands, and Yamamuras are all SS. Other horns are tubes. As you know I have preferred Vitus to some tubes. So that's not a requirement. My problem with these kind of Cessaro models was that the closed cabinet, at least with the Liszt, was sounding like a different speaker compared to the mids.
Thanks Ked . Seattle,had a touch of the tube when you auditioned ... GG for digital .
I wouldn't know how different these Carmen are to the Liszt , but they for most part sounded as a piece . Must make special mention of a Bach Toccata and Fuge file that Dietmar played back . Was a closed miked recording , but had enough ambience retrieval to suggest a large carvenous space from which emitted a big boned tone in its pristine glory . The shuddering /heaving / bellowing pedal mass was coveyed in all its majesterial splendor while being pitch specific and suffering no loss of resolution with descending frequencies .
The Carmen did not call attention to itself in terms of chuffing or localization . Sailed thru easy-peasy. There may very well be other recordings like massed choir ( which was not sampled) or an orchestra at full flight (not enough fare sampled to fully analyze)that might show it in lesser light . Of what I heard, it was good .. Very good .
Spirit ... Sorry , nothing further that I can add to quell or fuel your lust
Yes. The Liszt and Carmen has big opposing woofers inside cabinet with big open port. The two are basically the same except for the size of woofer. The Carmen has bigger ones. It's just marketing to make differentiation and exclusivity for AE.
I tried Trinity Reference and Linebacker XE power conditioners. They did not work in my system. I would say they took the organicness, the tone, and the aliveness of my system away. Not that they are not excellent product. They just did not work in my all tube system. I tried these two with my friend's solid stage system, and they work so wonderfully in his. The Trinity was the quietest and most dynamic of all conditioners I tried, but it sounded sterile and a bit coarse in my system. Also tried synergistic research top box and Torus Power. All these boxes alter the tone, texture and dimentionality of sound I perceived to be real. I also tried various top power cords, Goeble, Stage III, SR, etc. But I made a full stop at Siltech simple distributor and power cords. Of course I have dedicated lines, cutouts and all that.
I used to drive my YG with Audionet double monos and Soulution monos. The Audionet double monos were better than a pair of Soulution monos In my opinion.
Btw, I think you could be a rating agency like Moodys ..but on audio.
Lol thanks. But the rating agencies did not do their jobs when they were supposed to. The email from one of the CEOs to his staff published in the big short book is particularly hilarious
The Trinity was the quietest and most dynamic of all conditioners I tried, but it sounded sterile and a bit coarse in my system. Also tried synergistic research top box and Torus Power. All these boxes alter the tone, texture and dimentionality of sound I perceived to be real. I also tried various top power cords, Goeble, Stage III, SR, etc. But I made a full stop at Siltech simple distributor and power cords. Of course I have dedicated lines, cutouts and all that.
I used to drive my YG with Audionet double monos and Soulution monos. The Audionet double monos were better than a pair of Soulution monos In my opinion.
Btw, I think you could be a rating agency like Moodys ..but on audio.
Very interesting experiences Tango.
I have the same experience with power conditioners. My Siltech Octopus G7 sounds better on my system. I don't like filters from then.
I think you are reffering to the entry level Soulutions mono.
Respect to the cables, what impression did you have between Goebel PC vs Siltech PC?
Regards.
I have a friend looking to sell his Siltech $20k power cable in case one of you are interested. The Ruby double crown or something. The top Tara sounds better in his system
The one thing I love about the AE guys is their enthusiasm. Whether they are pushing towards what's "Best" or what they like as a group, doesn't matter much to me. What counts as far as I am concerned, is that they look to be having a great time doing what they are doing. Theirs is just one path.
Hi Jack.
I'm with you. It is easy to perceive the great atmosphere that surrounds all the show.
It is really impressive to see most of the actual Hi-End talents like Miguel, Javier, Touraj, Dietmar, etc... celebrating together the greatness of audio
I'm learning a lot with this new Hi-End point of view.
I think you are reffering to the entry level Soulutions mono.
Respect to the cables, what impression did you have between Goebel PC vs Siltech PC?
Regards.
Actually I had both 711 stereo amp and 701 mono amps in my system sir. My agent is a distributor for both Soulution and Audionet.
The Goebel is very quiet, excellent dynamic and good tone. Fit and finish is the best. It seems to have very big sound stage, but once you realize, it is really not so. The big sound stage is in fact a different presentation. It actually zoom in the sound making you feel like you are sitting close to sound sources and therefore perceive a bigger sound stage. I like a more realistic size and scale of sound.
I have a friend looking to sell his Siltech $20k power cable in case one of you are interested. The Ruby double crown or something. The top Tara sounds better in his system
I sat next to him at a RMAF Dinner--could'nt get a word in edgeways-ha! 
