Brilliant Corners

Listening to the Leben makes what he means rather obvious. The first thing I noticed is the ample drive, grunt, and dynamic freedom—for me, the first and least things a good amp should accomplish. On "Intro" from an LP of 2009's eponymous record by The xx (Young Turks YT031LP), the programmed drums hit with such stupefying force that I sat grinning until the side ended. The Leben rendered those beats with real snap and with vanishingly little temporal smearing or hangover. The record is most remarkable for how effectively the band uses silence and dynamics. This, I thought, is how their music should sound.

There was also plenty of harmonic richness. Listening to "O Amore, vieni a me!" from a mono LP of Cherubini's Medea (Mercury Living Presence OL-3-104, with a scarily eye-shadowed Maria Callas on the cover), with Tullio Serafin conducting the Orchestra of La Scala in 1957, the strings, brass, and woodwinds sounded fleshed out, timbre accurate, and admirably colorful, which made their contrast with a young Renata Scotto's light-as-air soprano sound goosebump-level exciting. This is Scotto's first recording, and despite the Leben's burnished tone, the amp portrayed her singing with no shortage of propulsion, filigree, and air, refusing to gloss over her vocal textures and technique.

I also listened to a record that's new to me. A few weeks ago, I stopped at my favorite local record emporium: a storefront in Red Hook, Brooklyn, labeled Record Shop. Locals call it Bene's, after the memorable owner. As I poked around the bins, the record on the hi-fi kept pulling at me. It was a Brazilian band I'd never heard of, and what they were doing sounded arrestingly beautiful. The LP was by a duo named Burnier E Cartier, which was also the title. The man at the register said it came from Bene's "personal stash" and wasn't for sale. Later, Discogs informed me that it was issued on vinyl exactly once, in 1976, then once on CD, in 2002. All four vinyl copies on Discogs were expensive and located in Brazil. To make matters more annoying, the record doesn't exist on streaming services.

The following week at Bene's, I saw the record on the wall, for sale. I didn't have to be asked twice.

Octavio Burnier (the nephew of the great guitarist and composer Luiz Bonfá) and Claudio Cartier are out-of-this-world guitarists and singers, and the interplay of their instruments and vocal harmonies are like nothing I've heard. Imagine Steely Dan and Antonio Carlos Jobim working in a mode I can only describe, with apologies for the cringe-inducing adjective, as spiritual. The duo's other album, from 1974, also eponymously titled and also rare, was reissued in 2017 by UK label Mr Bongo. If Mr. B or anyone with a record label is reading this, please reissue this jewel. In the meantime, you can hear the album in its entirety on YouTube.

In any case, playing "Lenda Das Amazonas" from the 1976 Burnier E Cartier (EMI EMCB 7017) through the CS-600x showed off the Japanese amp's impressive way with space, raising a soundfield as wide and tall as any amplifier I've heard in my loft. Plenty of air surrounded the guitars, each hanging well above and behind the speakers, and the placement of every element was rock solid. Separation was very good, though lacking the eerily dead silence created by some solid state amps. This beautifully recorded, mostly acoustic music showed the Leben off to its best effect. As Mr. Hyodo suggested, nothing about the presentation stuck out, demanded undue attention, or otherwise interfered with the music's meaning and message. Everything sounded, uhm, natural.

We have to talk about headphones, don't we? According to importer Jonathan Halpern, the Leben's headphone jack is fed by the output transformers, but the power is dropped to about 1W using a resistor.

As it turns out, the CS-600x is a ravishingly serious headphone amp, though not without a few quirks. It paired more than respectably with the low-impedance Meze Elite and HiFiMan HE-R10P but made the high-impedance Sennheiser HD 650 as exciting as an eight-course lobster dinner. Played through dinky portables and other underpowered amps, this venerable 'phone can sound veiled and slow, but plug it into an amp with serious power on tap and you will discover its world-class pedigree.

Listening to the mournful "Dedication" from Andrew Hill's essential Point of Departure (24/192 AIFF file) through the Leben and Sennheiser heightened the contrast between the sometimes-comic timbre of Eric Dolphy's bass clarinet and the lump-in-the-throat emotion of his playing on what may be his single greatest solo on record. And the gear blunted none of Hill's knotty ferocity as he worked out his ideas about Thelonious Monk's music on the swaying, staggering "New Monastery." The Leben/HD 650 combination left the can head in me satisfied completely. My only niggle is the Leben's silky stepped potentiometer: With a relatively sensitive can like the Sennheiser, it provides too few useful positions.

A word or two about tube rolling. While the included Russian New Sensor tubes sound decent, they can be bettered without too much effort. Replacing the 12AU7s with Holland-made Amperex globes resulted in an across-the-board improvement, making the stock tubes sound a touch dry, brittle, and gray. More meaningful differences came from rolling the EL34s. Subbing in Russian Gold Lion KT77 reissues lent the amp more grunt, color, scale, and body. But it was with Sophia Electric's coke-bottle-blue–glass KT88s that the amp began cooking with gas: scale became obviously bigger, separation improved, bass tightened up, and close listening became easier and more fun. (Thank you, Sue at Sophia Electric, for the loan!)

Comparing the Leben to the Manley separates I've been living with proved instructive. The Manley Steelhead preamp and Mahi monoblocks, which together cost almost twice as much as the CS-600x, sound noticeably but not dramatically faster and more transparent. And their voicing is a touch more neutral.

But there's something about the Leben that's better at touching the heart. It's probably not for those whose chief passion is analyzing sound, but it's superb at allowing you to be carried away by the music on your favorite records. While not utterly perfect, the feature-filled, moderately priced CS-600x just sounds right. I know I'd never tire of looking at it and touching it, and I can imagine living happily with it as my only amp for the rest of my days. A chef in Kyoto once told me that things made by human hands are good for the spirit. The Leben is proof.

An Afropop gem on vinyl
It's gratifying when goings-on in our nerdy bubble precipitate changes in the wider world. One example is the way audiophile vinyl reissue programs—which often focus on US jazz and boomer-rock releases—have influenced the practices of record companies far and wide. Consider the story of Moffou, the midcareer masterpiece by Malian superstar Salif Keita. One of the most acclaimed Afropop records of the current century, this gorgeous analog recording from 2002 had never been issued on vinyl.

And then, on its 20th anniversary, it was. And not just any vinyl. Universal Music has released Moffou in Europe pressed at Optimal on two 45rpm discs. Better yet, it can be found stateside for just over 20 American dollars. We are truly living in an age of wonders.

A descendant of Malian royalty, Keita was born with albinism, considered a curse by many in West Africa, and further upset the traditional order by becoming a musician. He spent the 1970s as part of the seminal Rail Band and Les Ambassadeurs (their Mandjou, featuring Keita's unmistakable singing, is a classic), and later became a major player in the world music industrial complex, releasing albums like Soro and the Joe Zawinul–produced Amen. These albums often swamped one of the planet's most recognizable voices in synthesizers, drum machines, heavy funk arrangements, and other crossover production flourishes, ostensibly to appeal to white audiences in the West.

Named after a small, high-pitched flute used to scare birds from farm fields, Moffou is the record Keita's fans had been hoping for. It sets his sky-high, silvery tenor against women's voices (including, on one track, Cape Verdean star Cesária Évora's), acoustic guitars, and traditional instruments like a small harp called the kamele ngoni. The production is spare and intricate, layering unexpected instrumental touches and subtle electronic effects to create something that sounds timeless. One key was the participation of French engineer Jean Lamoot, who had spent part of his childhood in Mali. Another was Keita himself, who had never been in finer voice or sounded as engaged.

My copy sounds fabulous. The two thick, flat slabs of plastic fill my loft with a larger, more prismatic Keita than any digital stream I've experienced. It's also easily the most dynamic version, rendering the quiet moments with caressing beauty and the crescendos with jump-out-of-your-seat intensity. The Golden Voice of Africa has never sounded more alive—at least on record. To whoever at Universal thought to do this: thank you, thank you!