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performance artist. I own one of his later integrated amps. He knows what he is doing,
Shortly before the show, I received this invitation from George Taylor of Canadian distributor Entracte Audio:
"Hi Robert, I am writing to extend an invitation to Room 353 of the Westin Toronto Airport Hotel at Toronto Audiofest. The room will be jointly operated by Angela YeungGilbert Yeung, (retailer) Absolute Sound, and Entracte Audio.
"Our primary focus will be on the launch of the new Angela YeungGilbert Yeung line of audio equipment. Mostin fact almost allof the production line will be on display. At the moment, there are no plans to display this product at any other shows.
"In addition to the production equipment on display will be the AG2022 integrated amplifier. It is the test bed used to design many of the Angela YeungGilbert Yeung amplification products. The AG2022 continues to be a platform for the design and development of power supplies and their application. This integrated amplifier is totally unique in the audio world, because in its "full" version it has more than 37 Farads (yes Farads, not microFarads [µF]) of power supply capacitance. We plan to use the AG2022 as a live demonstration piece to show how power supply expansion affects the performance of a piece of audio equipment. This will likely be the only show appearance ever for the AG2022it's just a little too difficult to transport, even on a semi-regular basis.
"We believe this demo will be interesting for two reasons. First, we plan on doing the demo in real time"hot-swapping" the power supply expansion packs while the amplifier is playing music. Second, we will be taking the base version of the AG2022 from its initial amount of capacitance of 1.1 Farads (1,100,000µF to its total capacity of over 37 Farads (37,000,000µF). We think that both the live demo aspect and the size of the power supply components involved make this somewhat unprecedented.
"If nothing else we hope to have an interesting and entertaining room, and we'd love to have you join us."
I joined them, and it wasan interesting and entertaining room, that is. It was certainly off the beaten path as far as typical audio show demos go, but it was convincing. A bit of background: Gilbert Yeung is known as the brilliant designer and owner of Canadian amplifier maker Blue Circle Audio, which Gilbert shut down in 2019 for personal reasons.
During his hiatus, he worked on, among other things, developing better power supplies by way of increasing their capacitance, which is measured in farads. The higher the farads, the bigger the charge a capacitor can hold. The demo consisted of George plugging an AC cord in and out of eight different AC receptacles connected to the test bed amp, in ascending order of increased power supply capacitance. This was meant to demonstrate successive changes in sound quality, but also the upgrade path available with Yeung amplifiers to the consumerwant better sound? Simply add an improved supply expansion pack to your existing amp.
One of the things I enjoyed about the demo was that it was done without any "coaching" from the exhibitor about what differences we should be hearing. Instead, at every 40 seconds or so of a song playing, George would quietly unplug the AC cable and replug it into the following one and let the sound speak for itself.
It was a good strategy. Every successive step in increased power supply capacitance produced noticeably better sound. By the end of the process, at the final step, there was no doubt that the sound had become significantly better than what it was at the beginning, even though I quite enjoyed the "base" sound. Improvements included a more focused, detailed, dimensional, realistic portrayal of the soundstage and the instruments and sounds within it. It was fascinating to witness so many upgrades in sound in the span of a little over 3 minutes.
Associated gear included a Melco N1/Z H60 Music Library music server ($7200), an Angela YeungGilbert Yeung D521 DAC ($5250) with SP Capacitor Pack 36 Power Supply Expansion Module ($3800), a pair of Fyne Audio F1-8 monitor speakers ($11,950/pair) with dedicated Fyne Audio FS-8 stands ($2440), and cabling by BIS and Oyaede.
(All prices in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted.)
performance artist. I own one of his later integrated amps. He knows what he is doing,