Pre Phono: Van den Hul Grail; Audia Flight Phono; Grandinote Celio.

If it was a turntable it would be a direct drive, a Garrard.

If it was a tonearm it would be a Linn Ekos

If it was a cartridge it would be a ...yes a VDH.

If it was a geographical place it would be the Savanes in South Africa

If it was a wine it would be a Barolo Pio Cesare

If it was a pianist it would be Sviatoslav Richter

If it was a jazz guitar player it would be Wes Montgomery

If it was a tonearm it would be a Triplanar

If it was a turntable it would be an high mass, a Mitchell Orbe.

If it was a cartridge it would be a Dynavector

If it was a geographical region it would be Brittany in France.

If it was a wine it would be a Chateau Latour

If it was a pianist it would be Evgeni Koroliov

If it was a jazz guitar player it would be Joe Pass

If it was a turntable it would be a Sota.

If it was a tonearm it would be a tangent one or a Naim Aro; I couldn't decide between the two
If it was a cartridge it would be a Koetsu

If it was a region it would be the region of Tuscane in Italy.

If it was a wine it would be a Chassagne-Montrachet

If it was a pianist it would be Anton Rubinstein

If it was a jazz guitar player it would be Grant Green

Audia Flight Phono

This unit MUST BE BROKEN IN. Audia says it runs for 50 hours and this is the least for it to sound ok, but if your unit for a reason or another has not been ran in you will be aware of it very easily: it will sound bad. As simple as that. It is not a question of getting used to its sound. If it does not have enough hours of playing you cannot get used to the sound it makes since it sounds very poorly. The high frequencies will be aggressive and the sound will be closed in and also a little slow. After about 30 hours of music playing, not just leaving the unit on, it will start improving. At about 40 hours the unit starts to sound quite good and it will become excellent only later.

Of course I will write about its performance after the run in process has been done. So now you know that if you buy this unit and it doesn't sound good it means it needs to be played for many hours. I say this because we are at a level with these phono stages that if you buy any one of these without even earing it or comparing it  you will be totally happy.  And even comparing them will put you to the point of not defining a better or worse but of different qualities. Only at direct comparison you could prefer slightly one over the other, each one is so complete and so well balanced in its performance that you cannot not like it.

For this reason in the prelude I wrotw many of if it would be a pianist or a jazz guitar player it would be and so on. If you realized they are compared to absolutely excellent musicians , wines and so on.

Now back to the Audia and its main characteristic: warm austerity.

It is strange to combine these two adjectives. Generally when we think about austerity we think about being cold too. Not here. I don't have many things to compare this strange feeling to if not to a composer: Bach. If the Audia  was a musician it would be Bach. I think the music of Bach describes the Audia well. It has power and composure, it is austere but light and warm at the same time. It is articulate and deep and even when it goes fast it doesn't show it. It let the music go but always in a controlled way, it is easy but complete at the same time. Now about its warmth. How can be a unit absolutely neutral, austere and at the same time warm to make me think of Bach? The midrange warmth is not due to any kind of colorations. It is dead neutral. So from what this coloration comes from? It took me a while to figure this out. It is given by a lesser dynamic contrast or less evident then in the other range transient attack in the bass medium range. Doing this way the bass the medium is not coloured or pushed up a la Linn LP12 or a la LS3/5a giving an euphonic warmth, but it looses that very small percentage of transparency  that would bring this unit to sound clinical. I found out this to give also an elegant signature to its sound.

And then now we have to talk about the silence between the notes.  The Audia is the master of silence. This silence space is dark but not thick. I hate when is thick. Its redention of the silence is the best of the other two phono here. Another thing that the Audia does better then the other two phono here is the layering in the depth. This depth is at a level of absolute reference.

The Audia is the phono stage here that gave me more the feeling of giving what it gets and adding  less of its own to the music reproduction.
At its proposed price is an unbelievable achievement and very hardly understated since we don't have any recent review of this phono stage. It is on a pair with one of my two reference units and very close to the other one I use as reference, loosing in their comparison some timbric richness (but this reference unit has tubes) but winning with a deeper silence and more flexibility. One these two unit is more then double of the Audia price and the other one is more then the triple of its price...

VDH Grail.

At this price range you need to have something to say in a more special way that is common. We are getting in a territory in which the performer does not only have to know how to do it but it must have its own way of doing right. Like excellent musicians. They are not just technically complete but also each one of them has its own way of giving you the same musical message.

For the VDH Grail this special characteristic is instruments differentiation, but not like we normally intend it, for this reason this is its special talent.This differentiation is due to the rendition of their very own dynamic window (rare) and accurate space more then their timbre differentiation that is good but not excellent or the tonal colours that are very good but not in the rarely heard land. I will add more about this individual dynamic window since this is a rare characteristic. You ear the dynamic of each instruments not in an open window that contains the all dynamic expression of all the musical message that is more common, but each instrument has its on window, bigger or smaller. This I found very fascinating and entertaining. In combination with a great dynamic contrast. The Grail has the best dynamic contrast of the other two phono here. It has power and finesse. 

It proposes you a music you can see.

You don't only ear the instruments but you have an almost material reconstruction, like an acoustic hologram. If you like this you cannot find a better phono then this one.

Life is what you can see or music is what it can make you see.

Grandinote Celio

Here the key word is: you must know what you want and what you are doing.

I develop this concept. 

It does not has the layering in the depth of the Audia or its silence between the instruments or the dynamic contrast of the VDH Grail but with no doubt has the best timbre and timbrique shades. Expecially in the high frequencies is capable of giving textures and shadings and this is extremely rare. Then it manages to give the best medium bass that I have ever heard on a phono stage. This region is extremely detailed without being analitical or hard . It is just at the border of doing too much but it doesn't do it. It stops just a little before. 

Its bass goes deep but it is not tight but manage the rare ability to be agile even though it shoudn't be since a little soft. It is like a fat cat. It is agile in its movements even though is a little soft.

This is what you get with no loading so at 47kohm or at about 1000ohm.

If your system and your cartridge likes it or your intention is to build an analogue source around the Celio you will get to a magic level, you will get a fluidity that it even rare in the best tubed unit with a silence that for the tubed unit is absolutely imposible to obtain.

But if your cartridge or one of your cartridges don't like the 47 kohm load (or 1000 ohm) and you need to load the Celio down things will change. You will loose its magic. It will become just very good. If you like fluidity, tibres, and an absolutely impressive transparent and spelling medium range, just get the Celio and buy a cartridge that likes the open loading. I had an extremely good combination with a VDH Black Beauty medium output (1mv). 

The Celio is like a F1. You cannot blame the car if you didn't use the right tires or the right aereodinamic charge or setting. The Celio does not forgives. Or to say it better it forgives your mistakes but you pay for them loosing its magic. And out there there are very, very very few magic units. If you want magic get a Celio and work with it. You should just consider the Celio as the starting point of your analogue chain. It is the status  it likes to have and that deserve to have considering the final results you can get out from it.

Wireworld Platinum Electra Power Cord

This is the top of the power cord line offered from Wireworld.

There are still many out there, but they are becoming less and less, that think a power cord cannot make that much difference. The ones that keep on thinking this belong to the same categorie of people that at the beginning of the genesis of the hifi cable war were saying the same thing about interconnect and loudspeaker cables.

It is true that you can put up togheter an extremely good system with fairly cheap wires but generally these systems are already expensive and if you put on them better cables they will sound better anyway.

It is also true that each system and each ears have preference over a certain cable and it is not true that the more expensive one is always the best matching or to our liking.

This is a prelude to say I am not the kind of being seduced by a price tag (even though I am very sensible to build quality) , but I am not the kind of keeping an hard line that a cable cannot make a difference. I plug a cable and give time to settle and if it is good to my ears is good. For me it is like going out to dinner: I don't care if they explain me how fantastic and elaborate a plate is, I taste it and if I like I like if I don't l don't. But we have to admit that if we want to be for help to others we are not going to write about wines if we don't drink wine or about how good a fish is done if we cannot stand fish at all. We must have a certain exposition and a developped sensibility to these kind of taste and nuances. 

If you are considering spending this kind of money on a power cord it means you already been exposed to the ruin of being after not only to what you like but to the mistery of how good it can be.

Let's say it immediately: this cable is an extremely good power cord. Its place is with the very best.

The Platinum Electra is surely better then most cord cables costing 20-30% less (I say most since I didn't heard them all, it is impossible) and it is better of most costing the same price.

If Ihave to sum its sound up in few words I would say: tidy composure within a great dynamic expression. It is true that many times these two qualities or adjectives are mutually exclusive, for this reason I think the Platinum is a special cable. 

Its dynamic window is very open and relaxed nothing is projected or compressed. Yes you have a sensation of frequencies freedom in all the music spectrum. All this with a dead black silence. Noise floor very, very low. I would say there is no noise at all. Surely one of the lowest for a power cord.

Then you listen a little longer and you will notice every time the same thing: it is so linear in the medium high-high frequency, linear and clean. But the best caracteristic of this is the density of these frequencies. It is not clear and ethereal or splashy, it is clear with a density. And this is rare. Generally when hifi gears goes open up high things up there get untidy. Not with the Platinum. It is clear and tidy.

Focus is extremely good and also very good are its ritmic capabilities that keeps involvement high. This involvement is lacking in many hi end power cords. You enjoy them with your brain but not with your heart. The kind of an extremely accomplished guitar player that can play everything at the speed he wants, playing each note and chords without the minor esitation but that at the end you cannot care less since he is not able to convey the soul of what he is playing.

Its timbres are very well rendered but not so colorful as in other cost no object cables and its tidiness walks on a tigthrope to be felt, I said felt, but it is more a suggestion of being slightly mechanical then the actual feeling it is slightly mechanical. This last "weak point" I think actually to be a great achievement since it let the hifi lover that can sometimes be also a music lover like I am to appreciate both things: the hifi and the music. Sometimes in some system you hear the music well pulling all the right emotions out of you, but when you are in the hifi mood and you start listening mostly with your brain you realize you need more layers more focus and so on.

But is in the using with many gears that you are going to really get the best quality of this power cord. And this quality you soon realize is a necessity. Then you put it in a preamplifier, then to an amplifier then to another amplifier and so on. Your preamp was sounding open and dynamic, it will make it sound more open and dynamic, or it has a beautiful rithmic expression it is going to make this expression even more evident, the amp you plug in is neutral, is going to be even more neutral, it is warm sounding it will make it sound warm. This cable will let the component is connected to give it all it has. If you thought your preamp was good you never thought it was so good when you connect it to this cable. And even something else: I have a preamplifier that I always considered OK but when I gave it this cable I was stunned to find out how good it was. It is like it really needed this cord to fly. Especially components conceived to be as neutral as possible  will profundly benefit from this cable because they show too often the caracter of the power cord they are connected with. So when they are kind of slow or do not focus that well or show a constrained dynamic expression you won't believe what all these caracteristics comes from the power cords they are connected with. Of course I am talking about good, well above average component, not average components. To say the truth I don't know how an average not so good component will react to this power cord, I didn't try it with, but I doubt who spends this kind of moiney on a power cord is in possession of a mediocre one.

The problem with this kind of cables is that they are so obviously superior to so many cables out there that is a real, real problem trying them out without having the money to buy them.

Another problem that I have tried to solve was this: if I have enough money to buy only one of this Platinum, where should I put it? 

The more I listen to power cords the more I realize that we have to seriously revise our way of spending on our hifi. I think power cords are the cables to start with our search on making our system sound better.