Ooh-la-la.
Back in early 2019 my sweet wife did worse than the covid, on a trip to NYC for some training, she blew-out her appendix, waited 3 days to brew up a healthy dose of peritonitis, then finally went to urgent care—they promptly sent her to NYU-Langone where she spent several days in intensive care and several more recovering. I flew out to be with her but of course there is only so much sitting around watching someone be sick a person can tolerate. I visited Bonnie @ SoundSense, who engineered the acoustic remodel of my room, then paid a visit to Bob @ Rhapsody.
It was a social visit—yes, I wanted to hear some music to get a fix, but it wasn't an audition kind of visit, just listen to some music and tongue-wag. Bob played music through some Goldmund speakers (very nice) then switched cables and hooked up a pair of Diesis “Roma.“ We chatted a bit more and then I started paying attention to the music. There was an ease and flow that was hard to ignore... I was drawn in. I had little experience with horns before, and none with an open baffle design. The room was filled with music in an easy, effortless way. My Wilson's, in comparison, seemed tightly bound as if they had to force the sound out.
I've written before about the experience. I came home (my wife none to happy about the new object-of-desire) and I couldn't stop hearing the Roma's in my head. It wasn't terribly long after my acoustic remodel, so the Minister of Finance (MOF) was not keen to my buying any new speakers. I told the members of the Portland Audio Club about my experience, and how I wished I could have shared what I heard with all of them. For me it was an ear-opening experience. In this hobby, you just don't know what you haven't heard.
As the damn covid worked its way through the population, and the lockdowns broke the back of many small businesses, I noticed Bob @ Rhapsody seemed to be prospering. I told my wife he was branching out, opening listening rooms across the country (but none on the west coast). My wife says "you should do that". Whats that you say? Are you serious? I thought maybe she'd opened a bottle and not told me—got a head-start on the evening. So I sent an email to Bob saying he needs an RLR on the west coast, say maybe, Portland? Bob replies back positively and after a week of anxious debate (and review of the retirement accounts) the MOF says yeah, go for it.
So here we are, and my custom Roma are nearly ready to ship. I am so very excited to hear these in my room. Mine are a little bit bespoke, the leather wrap isn't standard on the Roma, only the Triode model. A nice gesture from Giuseppe.
Of course, once things are setup and have had some time to settle/burn in, my first thoughts will be how do these compare to my prior Wilson Alexia, which I had for almost seven years? Everything will be different as the ARC REF10 preamp and REF160 monos are now gone too, and mighty Pilium Alexander and Achilles take their place. All solid state vs. my tube rig, and twice the power! I wish my pockets were deeper and I could have tried the Pilium with the Wilsons I'm sure they'd have played well together. Wilsons are not shy about sucking up the power and only seem to get better when fed generously. But to add Pilium, Alsyvox, Diesis, and Bayz meant the prior rig had to go.
Stay tuned... it is going to be a fun summer here in Oregon City. Lascia che i bei tempi scorrano! (that's an Italian translation for "let the good times roll")
