01 Jan 2010: George Toufexis

By Tony Pothitos

Happy New Year to A.C.A and all its members!

This was our first meeting of the year and we observed the very Greek tradition of celebrating with the "Vasilopita" cake which is shared between those present and then the person that finds a lucky coin in his piece is given a present. Unfortunately it was not me! However I was fortunate to be designated the "reviewer" for the audition of the system.

First things first

Let me say that these reviews are not formal audiophile magazine reviews with carefully controlled parameters where various components can be compared to each other under well known conditions.It is more a presentation of a real working system in situ rather than a professional and strict appraisal of a combination of components.The listening environment plays a huge role and let us not forget that usually the room is chock full of members some of which do not maintain complete silence.As such sometimes the db levels are quite high in order to overcome the overdamped (with bodies) room and noisy environment. Thus the systems at times are forced to play above their comfort range.

My impressions

After attending many meetings of ACA and listening to some great systems I have come to the conclusion that you can see the personality of the owner in his system. George - our host - is a former military officer but you would never guess that from meeting him. He is always relaxed ,friendly and a warm person plus he has one of the largest collections of 45 singles I have ever seen!

Some of these traits were obvious in his system.Looking at his Macintosh amplification I expected a warm full bodied sound and I was not disappointed. The first piece-by Grace Jones- is not something on your usual audiophile test discs. Lacking some air and delicacy it was a good test of the system's ability to deliver PRAT which it did. Putting on the LP by Tracy Chapman everything became much more natural and the soundstage doubled in size.The speakers although not very big managed to put out believable bass although they could not reach the very lowest registers of some superspeakers.Continuing with the cd of Katie Melua it was obvious that the digital source was performing very well and the duet of Katie and Eva Cassidy sounded very natural and unforced.With the George Benson Lp we were treated to a showcase of excellent macrodynamic capabilities as an orchestra with a big horn section went at it full tilt into the middle of the piece.By then however the 100W amp was showing signs of strain and the volume had to be backed off to something approaching normality.In fact George told me he listens to well below these levels so that perhaps he is not using more than 20-30W peak.

George Toufexis' Member Page