In Room 478, I heard the selfsame speakers that I currently have in house, the $24k Audio Physic Avanteras, driven by a dinky-looking $5k Trigon Elektronik “Energy” integrated amp and sourced by a wondrous Acoustic Signature turntable from Germany (which I would dearly love to audition in my home). It is rare that I hear a product under review sound better than it sounds in my own listening room with my own gear, but the Avanteras came close to doing that very thing in Denver. They were, in a word, phenomenal, reproducing everything from Clearaudio’s incredibly hard-hitting, deep-reaching Percussion Record to Joan Baez’s whispery tremolos with a naturalness, detail, and dynamism (both on pianissimos and fortissimos) that I heard in bits and pieces in other rooms but never together in one spot. Put differently, the Avanteras probably didn’t have the best bass, the best midrange, the best treble, the best transient attack, the highest resolution, etc. of anything at the show. But, in this room with this equipment, they came close to having the best combination of all these things. Clearly, contenders for Best Sound of RMAF—and truly great transducers that live up to Audio Physic’s motto: “No loss of fine detail.”
In the room presented by Audio Physic, Acoustic Signature, and Trigon, music was sweet and nuanced, played at low volumes, but nevertheless involving and deeply enjoyable. I admired the subtlety of touch, richness of texture, and ease of flow. We listened to a few minutes of One Foot in the Gutter, a live, 1960s recording by the Dave Bailey Sextet, and I swear I could hear the joy and humor in the band’s playing.
The system: Acoustic Signature Storm turntable ($7500, without tonearm and cartridge), Trigon Chronolog disc playermusic server ($9495), Trigon Energy integrated amplifier ($4950), Creaktiv Audio 1-4 Aktiv Plus audio rack ($2200), and Audio Physic’s 25th Anniversary Avantera loudspeaker ($24,000pair). All cabling was provided by Nordost.
The speakers were positioned with an extreme toe-in and created a wide, deep soundstage with solid, well-focused images. Despite the apparent complexity of the design—Reinhard Goerner lightheartedly referred to the Avantera as a “3-and-a-half-way, plus a half-way system”—the presentation was smooth and seamless—easy on the ears, easy on the mind, soothing to the soul.