Neal Van Berg, of Castle Rock, Colorado’s Sound Science, was showing some NSFW gear. I mean, hey, they were naked! For an electrostatic loudspeaker, that level of indecency is fairly common, but it’s still shocking (and … rimshot!).
Shown here at RMAF was a pair of the mid-range Prince III from KingSound ($9,995/pair). These speakers are two-way panels (there’s a tweeter portion and a bass portion), and perhaps due to their sonic excellence (they’re dipoles!) and certainly in no small part to their expert set up, these suckers rocked the room. Ka-boom.
“You want bass response? Ha! I laugh in your general direction, you hamster!”
I will be honest. I’ve never heard a speaker trash-talk like this before. It was unsettling.
There were a lot of other goodies in here, too. From the top of the rack, I saw a three-piece ensemble from Antelope, which included the Zodiac Platinum DSD DAC with the Voltikus external linear PSU ($5,500 for the two), as well as an “Audiophile 10M Atomic Clock” ($8,995 à la carte, but with the DAC, the set runs $12,995). That last, the Clock, is so cool I nearly started jumping up and down in the room. Why? Well, it’s atomic. That is, it’s supercalafragalisticexpialadoshusly accurate. Bazinga. (Apparently, it also makes cartoon noises. Hmm. Maybe I don’t need another cup of coffee). As I’m sure you know, the accuracy of the clock is precisely where the performance of the DAC comes apart — yes, this is that whole to-do about jitter everyone gets all exercised about. The more accurate the clock, the less jitter; the lower the jitter, the more “analog” like the clocked DAC may sound. With this clock, it just doesn’t get any more accurate. Me likey.
A Sound Science M7 Music Server took the next shelf. This $5,695 server supports both PCM and DSD, with AES and USB outputs, and 3TB of internal storage. 32G of RAM, an Intel i7 processor and a Blu-Ray drive add to the goodness. And yes, it is fanless. JRiver was the playback software of choice.
Below that, a Lyndorf 2170 Digital Integrated Amplifier (with room correction — $4,995) and a Lyngdorf CD-2 CD Player ($2,790). On the floor was a Prisma 350 amplifier from Perreaux in New Zealand ($8,495).
Wireworld Starlight-7 (Gold and Silver) digital cables, with Silver Eclipse-7 signal wire and Platinum or Silver Electra power cords were used throughout.
During my stay, I heard everything an ESL is known for — speed, air, coherence and rich tone. KingSound panels are really something, and I’ve been impressed by every room I’ve found them in, so there’s gotta be something to that.
Nice work, Neal!
Just for the record it is a Perreaux Prisma 350W stereo power amplifier.
It appears that the indeterminate power amp may have been doing the driving of the stats, the Lyngdorf acting as control. Having Kings myself I doubt the Lygngdorfs 85W would cut the mustard.