By Epaminondas Tsandis
Introduction...
On March 16, 2013, we had ACA’s monthly meeting and we were invited to Vangelis Isichopoulos house to listen to his system. Vangelis is a well known audiophile and audio distributor in Athens and I think all of us should thank him for an wonderful night, full of memories of sound and vision.
It is the first time I proposed the pleasure to write for the club’s meeting and since many systems that we have listened to recently, are merely mediocre stereo systems reproducing sound that fall outside the category of a High end system and the scope of a high regarded critique.
On the other hand, Vangelis’s system is a real hi-end system and taking into account the multi-thousand dollars sum to which the hi-fi enthusiasts are usually attracted and sometimes convinced to pay to achieve the goal of the hi-fi dream, one should congratulate Vangelis on the presentation of a very good system, which does not require the potential buyer to spend substantial amounts of money. On the contrary, one should say that the price of the above system is quite reasonable on hi-end terms and much better than other systems we heard costing more or much more.
The System…
- CD: Ayon CD3s new!
- Turntable: Vyger Baltic M + SME 312 + Phasetech P1
- Pre: Ayon, Spheris I with phono and separate power supply
- Power amp : Ayon, 'Thor' 2x40watts parallel single-ended monoblocks
- Loudspeakers: Lumen-White, White light Diamond.
- Cables Power: Ayon+Nordost valhalla
- Interc. cables: Ayon xlr pre to monoblocks
- Speaker cables: Atlas Asimi series
- Power Conditioner: Quantum QX4-Nordost
- Power strip: Nexus biwire +Furutech rodium sockets
- Bluray player: Cambridge Azur 751
As a general remark, the system is well placed into the room, is musical and homogenous across the frequency spectrum, and well balanced. The speakers’ main strength lies in the middle region, the horns and brass sound correct and well focused. The base was good but lacked the feeling and the attack one should expect from these speakers. Voices came out articulate and true. There was also a good channel separation and good positioning of instruments left and right, with the voices coming out of the middle of the soundstage as they should in the best recordings.
The Music event…
CD’s and LP’s Played…
- Enya: And Winter Came (CD),
- Antonio Forzione: Tears of Joy (LP),
- Tony Joe White: One Hot July (LP),
- Thorens 125 – 1883 – Stimele, Hugh Masekela (LP),
- Boston Pops Fiedler: Gaiete Parisienne (SACD),
- Creedence Clearwater Revival (LP reissue),
- Duke Ellington: Duke’s Big 4 – Pablo (JVC, XCRD CD)
The system’s main disadvantage is the lack of depth of soundstage (partly due to the room acoustics and the placement of the system).
One could also point out the lack of ultimate transparency, lack of placement of instruments into the room and good but not ideal separation and positioning of the several layers of instrumentation. Also, there was a lack of air around the instruments and sound congestion at difficult orchestral and multi instrumental passages.
However, one could not expect more from a system at this price and I think that some of the problems could be solved with a more powerful amplifier driving the speakers.
Finally…
Again, Vangelis should be congratulated for the very nice evening, the wonderful tasty stand-up meal and a beautiful presentation which surpasses the system’s upper-middle price.
Vagelis Issichopoulos' Member Page
