Toronto Audiofest 2024

I’m tempted to write in my report on the Charisma room that the sound of its demo was full of charisma! It wouldn’t be a lie, but I know it would sound forced and insincere, wordplay meant to be clever but that would ultimately sound lazy and induce a cringe-reflex in the reader.

So, I’ll stick with a more sensible approach. Charisma Audio is both a dealer of products made by other companies from around the world and a manufacturer known for its low-output MC cartridges designed by company owner and chief designer Bernard Li, who was helming the exhibit. The company was showcasing items from both categories, plus from another category.

Among the goodies on display was a Well Tempered Lab Amadeus 254 GT turntable ($11,520) fitted with Charisma Audio’s top-of-the-line diamond cantilever-employing YYZ moving coil cartridge ($10,815), a Well Tempered Lab Bill’s Phono Stage with an external speed control unit ($3680), a made-in-Germany Audio Exklusiv P112 hybrid integrated amplifier ($11,730) equipped with an ECC88/6N6 tube in its driver stage, cabling by Japanese company Tiglon, AC accessories by Giga-Watt, and Charisma Audio’s newly-launched Caprisse bookshelf speaker model ($TBD)—that other category I mentioned—which employs an SB Acoustics tweeter and an ATD AGTi mid/bass driver.

However, it wasn’t the turntable that was playing music when I was there. It was a Revox PR99 MKIII open-reel tape recorder, refurbished by Mr. Li himself. Next to it was a product that was much more discrete looking than the Revox, but which still managed to catch my curiosity. It was a Wonder Audio Labs LP/CD demagnetizer ($1095), said to remove ferrous contaminants on a disc to facilitate its reading by the cartridge needle or digital laser. According to Mr. Li, this consumer LP/CD demagnetizer is better than previous ones because it uses two elements to demagnetize the disc rather than the usual one, which results in doing a better job.

What does it all mean? On a reel-to-reel tape recording of Jazz at the Pawnshop, the soundstage was, more than usual in my experience, see-through transparent, spacious, 3D-like, with its parameters extending far to the back of the concert venue and deep inside the listening room. Instruments sounded well-separated, timbrally accurate, and tonally colorful.

Ah, what the hell—the sound was full of charisma!