Distributor Fidelity Imports had six rooms on the 12th floor with various iterations of gear from their catalog of brands. Many of the rooms sounded great, but there were a few that really got a bug in my ear that were extra interesting.
Words and Photos by Graig Neville
In no particular order, Fidelity Imports was running Perlisten, Audia Flight, QED, and Titan Audio. The large floor standing Perlisten S7t Limited Edition speakers ($29,990/pair) were claimed to develop down to 15Hz in room! I didn’t have my spectral analyzer handy so I can’t confirm, but bass was subterranean and authoritative for sure. Getting down to 15Hz in such a small room requires power, and loads of it. The Audia Flight FLS8 Mono amplifiers ($9,999 each) fulfilled that duty. The LFS8s were fed by a Audia Flight FLS20 SACD player ($18,999) and a FLS1 preamplifier ($7,499). QED supplied all the cabling except for the Titan Audio power cords.
I was speaking with Eric from Perlisten in one of the Fidelity Imports rooms. Perlisten is just north of the Chicago across the Cheddar Curtain into Wisconsin. Perlisten is growing, they focus on home theater as much as 2-channel, and have outgrown their production facilities. They have found a new home they are building out for their needs and should be in their new facility in the fall of 2025. As that’s not too far from Chicago, I asked Eric about a factory tour – which he was excited to host once they moved into the new space.
Audia Flight, another brand brought in by Fidelity Imports, is an Italian company founded in 1996. All products are handcrafted in Civitavecchia, Italy. Design goals are to control negative feedback in a way to eliminate impacts to the musical signal and preserve high speed transients using current feedback instead of traditional voltage feedback. The amps indeed sounded fast on the Perlisten speakers in the Fidelity Imports room. Audia Flight has several lines including the Classic, Three S, FLS, and flagship Strumento Series.
Soulnote has been getting tossed around my circle of audiophile friends and Fidelity Imports had a Soulnote stack playing on Opera speakers. Opera Callas Divas ($11,999) were sounding rich and sultry on the Soulnote Integrated A-3 amplifier ($24,999), D-3 DAC ($24,999), Z-3 Network Transport ($14,999) and X-3 Clock Generator ($4,999). Cables were by QED and power cords were Titan Audio.
Soulnote has three lines that Fidelity Imports brings into the US: their entry level 1 series, mid-level 2 series, and flagship 3 series. For the 3 series D-3 DAC the X-3 Clock Generator is necessary as well. So, it’s really a two box product. I’m sure the X-3 can be used with other products, but Soulnote felt that separating the clock generator from the DAC was the only way to get the performance demanded of their flagship series.
Soulnote is a brand owned by the Japanese company CSR, Inc. Founded in 2004 by former members of Marantz Japan. Soulnote designers have some perhaps controversial ideas, but it’s hard to argue with the smooth and sultry results from their product line. I did manage to abscond with an A-2 integrated review sample and can confirm that Soulnote is onto something special. More to come from Fidelity Imports…
If you would like to hear even more coverage from AXPONA 2024, check out our recap report and highlights from our audiophile-oriented show The Occasional Podcast. You can stream the episode direct from the embed below, or from your favorite podcast platform including iTunes, Android, Google, Deezer, Spotify, iHeartRadio and more.
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