21 Apr 2012: Stamatis Giannoulis

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Today is one of my happy days of the month since we have ACA’s monthly meeting at Stamatis Giannoulis new place.

Stamatis got recently a new house on the northern side of the city in a nice residential area and of course he took special care the new house to have a dedicated room for his audio gear.

I arrived at the house rather early but some people were already there.

This will be an important meeting with 6 new members to be announced and also two of the founders of our club back with us.

The new system…

Stamatis didn't have only a new house but also an all new system for us tonight and all the members and friends had the eagerness to listen to the new system.

Phono: Art Audio Vinyl One
Preamp: Art Audio VP1 mk2
Power Amp: Art Audio Jota monoblock KR 300BXLS
Turntable: Acoustic Solid Royal
Cartridge: Clearaudio Insider gold
CD player: Ayon CD 5
Speakers: Avantgarde Duo omega

The listening Program …

Buddy Guy (Vinyl)
Patricia Barber (CD)
I wonder Why (vinyl)
Ben Webster(CD)
Billy Holiday (vinyl)
Charles Lloyd (CD)
Louis Armstrong (Vinyl)
Diana Krall (cd)

On request

Flery Dantonaki
Marinella

The first part of the listening was my favorite… analogue from a very good source with one of the best tonearm-cartridge combinations. I was very familiar with the LP’s of the first part and actually two of them are my favorites as well. The first LP, Buddy Guy , had a clarity, body and authority that you find only in well set-up systems.

The second LP, Billy Holiday was probably the best sounding of the listening with well balanced sound with body and purity even that the recording was very old.

Then the we started with the CD source and we listened two different trucks from Patricia Barber. To tell you the truth is not so hard for the ordinary listener to realize from the first five minutes that we are in front of a very good digital source with extraordinary sound. The digital source was one of the best and the synergy between the CD player and the amplification well matched. It was surprising close to the analogue source.

With the next CD, Ben Webster, was easy to listen the ability of the amplifiers to handle the speakers. It was one of the very few times that I enjoined CD reproduction so much.

We listened the rest of the LP’s and CD’s without any other thoughts just enjoying the recordings one after the other. After the end of the music program Stamatis played many tunes from other members requests with Greek music like the Flery Dantonaki and Marinella old recordings.

I will now describe the overall sound of the system in two lines.

The sound was open with good dynamics and pace. Soundstage was good and with adequate information. The most important point was the excellent matching of the components.

I had the opportunity to listen to this system with two other ACA members two weeks before this meeting and I can tell you that the sound was way better. I don’t know if the changes that Stamatis did to the step-up transformer or the number of the listeners in the room (too many people in this meeting so we did the listening in two shifts of 12-13 people in each one) gave me this impression but I can tell you that the sound today was not as good as two weeks ago.

Conclusion…

All the components of the system in very good synergy. Analogue and digital sources of top quality. Phono stage, preamplifier and power amplifier from Art Audio and finally the excellent Avantgarde Duo omega conclude to this result.

Finally the diner that was of high volume and quality well prepared by the lady of the house that we all thank for the hospitality, patience and kindness.