RMAF 2013: Sonus Faber, Wadia

There was something remarkably relaxing about this room. When you've grown accustomed to the clutter of normal audiophile life, there's sometimes something a bit enticing about one-box solutions. Imagine your entire system consisting of a little Star Trek-looking box and two pretty little speakers..! I'd heard the Sonus Faber Olympica I stand mounts ($7,700) at CAS paired with Audio Research and gleaned a favorable but vague impression -- I thought they were pretty, but they didn't really wow me. There was nothing vague about their performance with the Wadia Intuition ($8,500), however; the combination made my ears really perk up.

The British folk-pop group Tunng’s “Hustle” sounded appropriately ethereal, with Mike Lindsay and Becky Jacobs’ breathy vocals floating sweetly among the piano, tambourine, and banjos. As the song got rolling, the system kept up beautifully, maintaining the coherence of the different instruments and not falling down on the heft and texture of the percussion. It made me want to sing along! Fortunately I have restraint.

This set-up makes a convincing argument for system synergy, as well as for the idea that more boxes are not always better. For tight quarters or for an office system, I can think of little better.