All, back in mid September I had the opportunity to visit AudioArts to hear a system that included: FM Acoustics 266 pre-amp, 223 phono, 108 mono amps, Zellaton Statement speakers, Brinkman turntable, Fuuga cartridge, and Brinkman DAC. Here are some pictures of the system from that night
The FM108 mono amps are small! However, they drove the Statements with no problems and quite loud if desired. The overall characteristics of the system when playing vinyl were: excellent tonal balance and a mid-range to die for, three dimensional imagery, soundstage focus and definition, excellent dynamics, extremely low noise floor, proper scale of performers or instruments meaning that vocalists, for example, did not appear to be larger than in real life. Piano music was reproduced beautifully. One of the highlights was listening to the Peggy Lee, “Dream Street”, album. It’s mono and I believe it is an original pressing from the 50s. It’s in great shape and when I heard Peggy Lee’s voice I was shocked at the details that were reproduced. She has a rather unique vocal style on some of these cuts and it was “fool you real”. The Nina Simone, “Little Girl Blue”, LP was also an original pressing from the late 50s; also mono. It would likely be rated “good” using the standards for rating on Discogs. There were scratches and pops present on the first few cuts. Gideon then demonstrated the de-click/de-crackle feature of the FM223. We replayed the first few cuts with these circuits engaged. The scratches, clicks, pops, were attenuated to a very low level where they did not interfere with the enjoyment of the music. Even more remarkable is that I could not detect the rest of the musical presentation being altered. Can’t understand how FM Acoustics does this but it is very effective and unique in my experience. If you are a buyer of used vinyl like I am, this feature can be used to playback a recording that was not treated well during it’s life. The other day I was in a used record store and found a Julie London, “Her name is Julie”, first pressing. When I looked at it, the surface showed signs of wear. I decided to not buy it because I thought the surface noise and scratches would be too great. If one owned the FM123 or 223 the de-crackle/de-click would likely make this record very enjoyable again. When we played digital sources these same characteristics of the system were present although I really enjoyed the vinyl presentation more than the digital. I think this was driven more by the selections than the format. The Brinkman DAC sounded very good playing back local files or files from Tidal. Gideon is carrying a new DAC since then, Le Son. I may get a chance to hear this new piece soon and I will report back if/when I do.
FM Acoustics / Brinkman / Fuuga through Zellaton Statement sounded like music. Another unforgettable and enjoyable audio experience with a truly state of the art system.
