A very musical clam

I love giving nicknames to things: my black car is “Scarbi”, my oldest motorbike is “La motina”, my vintage city bike is the “Umbertodeidel36”, my turntable is the “Garrardzilla” and my speakers are the “Gotorama”.

The recently acquired Audio Consulting’s Meteor AVC passive preamp?

It’s the “Clam”;-)

Looking at its quiet, unassuming beauty, the unique beauty of hand shaped and polished shell-like rounded case, it strongly reminded me of a clam-shell.

Funny.

I was away for my daily job for some days and when back home, I immediately turned ON the 300B amps, Meridian disk player and… nothing more, as the Meteor… aehm, The Clam is passive, so;-) always ON.

I played some disks I well know, a late evening relaxed listening, indeed.

Susanna Abbuehl’s April on ECM - I already wrote about this wonderful disk:, female voice, percussions, clarinet, piano… while I was listening to it, I realized something I already noticed during the very first listening sessions, some days ago.

The cymbals sound isn’t only the shimmering, high pitched sound normally associated with brass cymbals: when hitted with a felt mallet, they also produce a lower tone, like a gong, some octaves lower than the higher sound.

This sound went, most of the times, lost… with the Partridge’s 300B and Meteor, everything is well retrived and made enjoyable.

A friend asked about this preamp: but does it really makes the difference?

YES! ... definitely yes, folks!

All the times I change the passive preamp for my upcoming survey, I immediately hear, pros & cons, what the preamp adds or subtracts, in terms of harmonic blossoming, detailing and ambient retrival capabilities.

Overall sweetness or edginess are also an issue and the best performer must be balanced on this feature, so important, paramount for a true-to-life grand-result.

Everyone is well aware of something like – I like this piece of gear, yet to be fussy and picky ohhh, how I’d wish it to have a tad more warmness of XY and a bit of detail more as YJKX!

Well, that’s exactly what’s going on with my passive AVCs survey: the Luxman AT 3000 is sweet, detailed without exaggerating; the Fidelity Research AS 1 is an audio surgeon, extremely sharp, razor-like, speedy and unforgiving, but superb sounding, indeed.

The Silver Rock is both sweet and sharp… perfect?

The Meteor is both sweet, sharp and with an authority and such a beefy, rich, thick (when needed) and eerie (when asked for) to make me exclaiming: found it!

It’s the ideal passive, the fabled, seldom found “wire with gain”…

In Meteor’s very case, it’s a silver-wire with a gain;-)

I listened also to Keith Jarrett’s Paris Concert on ECM… the noises from the audience, the KJ’s pedal work and puffing and humming and feet tapping are like heard anew, for the first time.

This improved retrival ability gives more music and a sense of cohesiveness, effortless and complete immersion in musical event.

The Cabasses’ sound louder and cleaner, not edgy or shouting.

… and yes;-) on Jonathan Faralli’s percussion disk I use for final resolution test, the bowels growling on Salvatore Sciarrino’s piece is extremely audible, embarrassingly so!

The Clam… aehm, the Meteor is the ideal, cost-no-object line preamp for the discerned music lover and scholar. 

A true statement.

While I strongly felt I was reaching the very peak of musical satisfaction on many parameters, just swapping randomly, choosing from my small array of world-class preamps, I now really feel I reached my ears limit.

So, to my friend Roberto, asking if the Clam makes the difference, I reply: yes, again.

Everything is crystal-clear to me and to my ears.

Thanking Dr. Serge Schmidlin for his no-frill - almost poetic, yet so well technically grounded - approach.

Audio Consulting Meteor Toroidal AVC or the passive line-stage preamps survey - the final challenge?

I spent again some very pleasant hours with Dr. Serge Schmidlin of Audio Consulting fame...

His conversation is always so interesting, he's always witty, curious and well informed.

Only difference from the other times we were together in Munchen or at his Commugny, Switzerland buen retiro, yesterday we were at my place, in beautiful Veneto, Italy, few kilometres from Venice.

Good food, good wine, good company and chatting... we ended completing the good... list listening to some good;-) master tapes played on the mighty (freshly restored, up-to-specs by master technician Giorgio Foschi) Telefunken M15A on my Gotorama...

... and surprise-surprise, from a small carrier-bag, an egg-shaped thing appeared: a Meteor toroidal top of the line all silver AVCs passive preamp!

This sought after, seldom seen, masterfully built piece of gear is made out of two American walnut shells with a Macassar ebony centre "ring" and the exotic hand wound toroidal silver wire toroidal is impregnated, better incapsulated, in natural bee-wax.

Nothing more, nothing less...

This is an expensive - someone could say hideously expensive - piece of gear... yet, I can fully understand Serge's approach: it is not about avidity, as quality, hand-made quality costs, but this wouldn't be enough to explain everything.

A comparison comes to my mind: who would dare saying anything rude about a luthier job and his masterpieces cost?

Think about an acoustic pre-WW1 Martin or a Bottelli classical guitars... they both are about 600 grams selected woods assembly whose cost is almost negligible!

Why these beauties cost nowadays 5-digits sums?

... because if you place same raw woods on a table surface, they're not sounding, they're not giving music!

So, isn't it correct, appropriate, right to give a value, a money-related one, I mean to all the above immaterial added-value?

A luthier precisely tailors woods, details and bespoke care to meet the musician needs... Audio Consulting does the very same, adding the magic to silver wire, nickel cores and woods making them able - like a stellar quality musical instrument - to play music.

Give to all this a price-tag! You can only buy it or don't buy it... love or hate it!

It's my strong, sincere opinion you simply cannot appreciate the lacking of colorstions, the overall sense of beauty, something so pleasantly easy and true to life.

Just after a couple hours listening sessions, music and nuances are blossoming at every minute passing.

Impressive.

I'm only now beginning my journey in tasting the Meteor: the preamps survey will include a truly challenging tournament, where Luxman AT 3000 will be judged vs. Fidelity Research AS 1 vs. Audio Consulting Silver Rock vs. Audio Consulting Meteor vs. Thomas Mayer 4 chassis vs. Le Solstice vs. Marantz 7C, so also adding to the trial three conventional (or so) preamps I have handy for good measure and personal enjoyment.

Stay tuned.

Serge Schmidlin's Audio Consulting or Audio Consulting's Serge Schmidlin?

... as I really don't know where the man and his company blends to a single unit.

Beside the empathy and friendship with Serge Schmidlin, as a simple matter of intellectual and soul clicking between two human beings, there is something more which makes me every year like a swallow in fall, to fly or jump - as the Alps' passing through - i.e. via Mont Blanc's tunnel - to Commugny, near Geneve, Vaud, Switzerland.

Also if our meetings last only some hours, the long wave of inspiration and reciprocal teaching/learning is something which goes and goes... an imprinting which usually changes something in me as an individual and a music and audio scholar...

Not bad for a short journey - i.e. less than 5 hours drive from home, don't you?

People sometimes spend enormous amounts of money only to get a fraction of what I usually bring home from Serge's in terms of sheer enjoyment and knowledge and experience!

Zen?

Magic?

Voodoo?

No, folks... it's only care for details and sincere interest and untamed passion for searching and trial & error and curiosity, which, YES!, doesn't kill the cat;-)

Every time I visited Serge's place and listened to his system, with Meteor's Phono and Line stages and crazy, superb direct driven turntable and MIPA power amp and Rubanoid's speakers, I always, SAY,  always felt the improvements going on in music rendition: from multiamping to mono amping, bass Rubanoids' so resonance-free sounding, and seldom heard depth of image and detailing...

The turntable and its seismic base, laboratory-grade standard... using a Miyajima bamboo cantilever MC cartridge!

Meteor Line Passive AVC in black... coming soon, just stay tuned;-)

Few hours ago I experienced THE sound everyone should be able to listen to in his music room... lively, effortlessly, untiring, quick and smooth...

The overtones and harmonics in acoustic instruments are so, sooo.. natural!

Then, like usually, as also choosing the discs as a listening program to a session is an art in itself, things go and go and go...

Music and chatting, sharing and enjoying music and sound and everything in between.

... and some trivia: like the Laurindo Almeida/Ray Brown direct-to-disc on Jeton, where I immediately heard an incredible wow&flutter sound which made my head to turn to Serge in search of a reason for the guitar sounding drunken-like and the double-bass as played by a newbie, not the veteran Ray Brown... he smiled, and explained to me the reprint of this disc was made from an original pressing... played on a Clearaudio gigantic belt driven turntable...

The awesomely flawed re-pressing...

The original direct-to-disc, flawlessly and nicely sounding...

The wow & flutter champion... a legend!

Embarassing performance, we ended laughing about the choice of using a belt driven design instead of an idler-wheel or a direct drive turntable!

At Serge's place, also little mistakes turn into knowledge and experience: during a listening of the 2 records set of Kavi Alexander's Water Lily "Confluence of the Rivers" by Ry Cooder and V.M. Bhatt, on superb 45 rpm vinyl, after re-setting his battery-fed power amp protection, he forgot to also re-set the battery PSU, so we listened for some minutes on heavy cap filtering option, usually disconnected during critical listenings...

Sound was OK, yet... when Mr. Schmidlin corrected the above and repeated from the first groove the listening, everything was so different and better...

Sound and music were breathing, again and the sense of trueness was back, with no doubts, at all.

Peter, Paul & Mary, Dean Martin, some XIIIth Century music, an obscure Swiss music disc sung in Bernese dialect, both audiophile and simply good records were shining and just reaching our souls through the ears, as it should be.

Too bad if this quality costs... but... BUT... who well spends, less spends... let's consider how much money we spent on audio since everyone's beginning...

That's why everyone should only trust his own ears: listening only to the best and then choosing, on own budget and tastes...

The lesson, the real one is: don't trust in me or in other WEB gurus or magazines... play an instrument ,  go to concerts and improve your hearing skills... then buy depending on your wallet depth and don't regret if you could end enjoying more a cheaper audio system than a million worth one.

Just play the actor role, not the catering best-boy... don't think too much, just use your ears, first... there is no better suggestion.

Thanking Serge for hosting and making my (too short) Swiss' journey a bliss... and the return trip already looking forward to the next visit.

May he never loose his attitude and good will in tweaking and experimenting and sharing his findings .

Switzerland's Gems - at Serge Schmidlin's place

A couple of days ago I visited again Serge at his place, in Commugny, near Geneve.

A couple of years passed after my first and last visit at Audio Consulting's headquarters and must say - being, like all best audio systems I'm aware of -  a work-in-progress, Serge and his cohort of Swiss artisans did an incredible series of smaller and bigger adjustements, little steps, one after another, which so deeply transformed and improved the overall sound and music enjoyment and listening pleasure.

We spent a lot of time chatting like every time we meet... it's such a pleasure relating with him: his being technical doesn't mean being boring or supponent or hyped or self-indulging with the superiority of this or that vs. that or those... as a plus, art of conversation is a seldom found treasure, these days, and Serge masters this elusive art, as well.

Mr. Schmidlin owns the rare gift of being doubtful... NOT unsure: his goal and target is always well in his mind...

Just knowing that because of our being humans and unperfect beings, everything is perfectible and the lath can... must be made higher and higher, for the sake of knowledge, self-consciousness and... "artistic orgasm".

Yes, I used the above just as it is and how I felt: a flood of emotions and surprise and pleasure, I'll call it an orgasm, as when we began our listening session, few minutes and a couple of tracks, liquid music, first and, most of all, the incredible Audio Consulting turntable (and Meteor preamp and amps and Rubanoid's speakers, now still more refined and performant since my 2012 visit) were enough.

Let me try to better explain: we repeated the listening of (percussionist) Jonathan Faralli's Sciarrino "Elogio alla Perfezione", a sought-after disk we both learned to appreciate after our mentor Jean Hiraga's suggestion... the music is made of very simple sounds, yet my personal experience at home and the memory of last listening at Serge's, I felt a world of improved music presentation, made of better harmonic complexness and amazing decay of every note in a sort-of continuum and multi-layered hide & seek, where no nuance get lost in thermal or any other distortion... resolution and dynamic of this three ways ALL hand-made ribbon speakers, multi-amped, caps-only/no-mains-while-playing-music fed system using every known trick to get the ultimate awe in listener: the highlight on this Faralli's piece was... Faralli's bowels rumbling during the quietest music passages... unbelievable.

The mike captured a possibly hungry percussionist, a man, of course, so prone to human facts like this boiling bowels sounds coming from his belly.

Incredible, but so true!

Trick isn't the way to describe the way Serge get this awesome result, folks.

It's serious, time-consuming, old world way, trial and error... everything is tasted, dissected, tasted again... kept or thrown away and so and on...

Serge humbly told me it's 25 years work to obtain what we heard... he's aware of how good the system sounds, yet he's never 100% pleased and content and this fuels his being so thirsty for every tiniest improvements, as they simply are handy, it's a matter of a few minutes or an year, but they still happens, and happens and...

We experienced together, as a matter of fact, no hypes... it's everything there...

Playing vinyls, we experienced the life-likeness and the normality of the superb 45 rpm recorded by Kavi Alexander and his Water Lily, Meeting by the River, slide acoustic guitars and percussions, Ry Cooder and V.M. Bhatt... the sound of Cooder's guitar was so vastly improved when using only pure, charged caps PSU vs.  the above and battery, in parallel... talking about the turntable PSU!!!

Only a bunch of curious and bravehearts can afford such an experience without any shame... and you don't need to be a bat to appreciate it.

I almost was in tears listening to another 45 rpm on Sarastro french label, "Verite du Clavecin", a solo Hemsch harpisichord dated 1755, engineered by the great, late master-recordist Georges Kisselhoff in Paris - I suspect, also if not quoted on record liner notes - at Notre Dame du Liban church, near Pantheon: Mr. Kisselhoff's recording venue of choice for many, many years.

This visit will need more time to be fully digested in all its deepness.

For the moment, I'm only sure I wasn't able to appreciate the above mentioned rumbling bowels from Jonathan Faralli's belly on Gotorama... I only listened to these "sounds" with my smaller system, i.e. Studer A730, Luca Chiomenti's Scherzo amp and Cabasse Dinghy 221 speakers... also if many, many other parameters cannot be compared with Audio Consulting's or Gotorama's systems.

So, my larger system is outperformed by my smaller one and more time is to be spent on fine tuning and lowering noise floor on pianissimos on Gotorama's.

Something Mr. Schmidlin mastered in his reference system as a true sensei-san.

Chapeau to Serge Schmidlin and Audio Consulting of Switzerland for reaching such an high level of musical bliss... making it so easy to be appreciated and enjoyed.

Difficult things made easy is something which only happens to the best... the very best.


Thanking Serge for great experience and hosting... and, hey: I just found my copy of Sarastro's "Verite du Clavecin":-)))