It was locked down like Fort Knox. Anybody that didn’t know somebody wasn’t getting in the TIDAL Audio room during the business to business days. And that’s probably for the better.
Words and Photos by Graig Neville
When I started on my audiophile journey, TIDAL Audio didn’t exist. I was an avid reader of Audio
magazine, for those that remember, and one of the goals back during that time was to allow what was in the grooves (digital or analog grooves) to come through as faithfully as possible. It was a goal where incremental improvements were made, with occasional leaps, but it was forever elusive. Perhaps somewhere in the 90’s, the popularity of home theater could easily be the culprit, the industry become less interested in faithful reproduction, or maybe they slowly just forgot. I don’t know.
Fast forward to the TIDAL Audio room today. I had the privilege of hearing the new Contriva G3 and the new Tidal Ferios G2 amplifiers and they are everything we have come to expect from TIDAL Audio. However, to put this all in context the elephant in the room needs to be addressed. See, the other system in the TIDAL Audio room was the Bugatti Royale ($465,000).
We have all had those moments of epiphany in our audiophile hobby. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t care. That first time the sublime muse spoke to us and we were forever smitten to pursue the “perfect” sound. To truly appreciate what the Tidal for Bugatti Royale can do, you need to have had those moments and you also need to appreciate what level of manufacturing, hearing, and know-how went into making TIDAL Audio’s flagship product. To understand what you hear with the Bugatti Royale you need to change a few paradigms on what a hi-fi system should do. Because at the end of the day it shouldn’t do anything, but it has to do everything.
I could go into details about how dynamic the system was in the TIDAL Audio room, or how smooth it was, or the sense of realism it conveyed, but those are just words. The Bugatti Royale transcends explanation, but hey I’m a writer, it’s my job to try to relate my experiences to an audience. I know of NO systems on the market – at any price, that does what this system does. It is the most colorless, even frequency, system I have ever heard – by a wide margin.
I’ll paraphrase the words of TIDAL Audio owner and head designer Jörn Janczak by saying that a system’s job is to let the source through untouched. The term “wire with gain” is often bantered around in the cable world, but this system takes that concept to the highest level. There’s silence, and then there is music. You can look at the industrial design of the speakers or the appearances of the electronic box that interfaces with you, but I’ve never experienced such a pure musical experience. No colorations, no frequency imbalances, no compression, no sibilance, no – nothing.
The system had great bass, dynamics, clarity, et al., but nothing drew attention to itself. The system in the TIDAL Audio room might as well have been invisible and just happened to be objects in the room, and there was this disconnected music that’s happened to be playing.
It was like nothing else I’ve every experienced and it has changed me. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to look at audio the way I did before this system. It is the reference system all reference systems aspire to be. Experience the Bugatti Royale if you can, it is the pinnacle of the audio industry at this point in time, and I expect it to be for several years until TIDAL Audio releases something even better.
Back to the Contriva G3.
This is more germane to the TIDAL Audio house sound I heard at Capital Audio Fest. TIDAL Audio is as classy as it is unpretentious. Sure it’s expensive. The new amps are $95,000 for the pair and the Contriva G3 start at $79,000. The sound will blow you away if you can afford it. TIDAL Audio is one of those brands that once you start down that road it’s audiophile end-game. There is no where else to go in my humble opinion.
[Ed–We’ll talk more about the Contriva G3 and Ferios G2, along with the Sunray G2s, in the TIDAL Audio room when Marc Phillips submits his show report.]
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