AXPONA 2014

Kingsound and Purity

Jason Victor Serinus  |  Apr 30, 2014

Through the excellent Kingsound KingIII electrostats ($14,995/pair), Hegel H30 350Wpc amplifier ($15,000), Purity Audio Design new Reference class-A balanced linestage preamplifier ($10,995), Purity Audio Design Harmonia 300B tube buffer ($5500), M2Tech's new Young DSD/DCD DAC ($1699), Trigon CD II ($4250), and Dana Cables, music sounded very smooth but somewhat damped on top. A tenor sax sounded especially warm and inviting.

The Harmonia is the first 300B tube buffer, and comes in both single-ended and fully balanced versions. Sophia Electric 300Bs were used in the demo. "The whole idea behind the buffer is to make digital sound more realistic without rolling off the highs or affecting the bottom end," I was told. Maybe another component or the room itself was responsible for the overly smooth top.

COMMENTS
Pro-Audio-Tech's picture
Submitted by Pro-Audio-Tech on April 30, 2014 - 10:27am

I thought these were pretty warm sounding too, not in a bad way really because they sure had a big sound, (because of their SIZE). Would have perobably been nice with Zeppelin or that type of rock that is recorded with lots of highs.

Maybe the tube buffers were too much?

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