LATEST ADDITIONS

You want chunky sounds, vivid tone, socking bass, and a globe-like soundstage with notes that appear so solid and dimensional you might be tempted to try to pick them like an apple from an apple tree? If so, then step right up into the Altitudo room, which may look a little small for the amount of gear present and the size of the speakers I listened to, but make no mistake, the sound I heard from FLAC files streamed from a hard drive was clean, muscular, and colorfully diverse.

The Innuos/Asona room showcased and AB-tested two network streamers for me: the flagship Pulsar and the Pulse.

Ever notice that the language we use to talk about sound can be pretty aggressive? Reviewers often write about amplifiers "taking control" of a speaker, possibly "ironfisted control," especially if the amplifier in question happens to be a "juggernaut." In this particular linguistic trash fire, we also find "razor-sharp transients," "hair-raising dynamics," and that ickiest of descriptors, "bass slam." If words could smell like hair gel and drugstore cologne, these might.

All this verbiage is describing brute force, which we might use to push open a heavy door. But there's another kind of force that we encounter in the world, and consequently in audio, captured in the expression "life force." It denotes a sense of vitality and presence that isn't readily perceived by the senses—something lingering just out of reach of our rational minds. This force can be experienced in the terse saxophone solos of the young Sonny Rollins, the eerie abstract paintings of Mark Rothko and Pat Steir, and the deceptively quiet poems of Elizabeth Bishop. If you've ever been drawn in by one of the squat, gouged, lopsided jars made by a traditional Japanese potter, you know what I'm talking about.