Audacious Audio

As editor, I love it when Stereophile reviews new equipment. "New" attracts readers. But there are good reasons to review stuff that's not totally new (though usually it is still shiny). The best reason is experience, first-hand: You hear a component at a show or in your own system. You're impressed and decide it deserves a closer look.

That's why I'm reviewing the CH Precision L1 line preamplifier ($34,500 in silver), which has been on the market for several years.

Is audio reviewing a futile pursuit? As much as we reviewers may strive, through subjective observation and objective measurement, to accurately describe how a component looks, sounds, and performs, we frequently find words and numbers inadequate to communicate the mysteries that abound in the transcendent realm of music. How can we fully share what we feel when a component allows us to experience, sometimes afresh, often in a new way, sounds that elicit joy, sorrow, terror, or more subtle emotions? How do we encapsulate in words and measurements the sonic equivalent of the wide-eyed wonder that shines through a baby's eyes as she discovers something new?

Such emotions—hence such questions—can arise when we move from one music server to another, or even between different software running on the same server. They are particularly intense in the case of this review of the Ideon Absolute Stream meta edition (2024) ($24,000) and its optional add-on, the Ideon Alpha Wave LAN Optimizer ($6900), considering that the review lacks measurements.

The "Bowers" in the name of British manufacturer Bowers & Wilkins (B&W) refers to founder John Bowers, whom I got to know fairly well before he passed in 1987. In recent years, I've reviewed two Bowers & Wilkins loudspeakers: the 705 Signature two-way standmount in the December 2020 issue and the Diamond Series 804 D4 three-way floorstander in the January 2022 issue. More recently, Tom Fine reviewed the three-way, floor-standing Signature Series 801 D4 in March 2024.

Currently there are two models in the Signature Series, which was launched in 2023 to pay tribute to the company's groundbreaking John Bowers Silver Signature from the early 1990s: the 801 D4 and the subject of this review, the two-way 805 D4 standmount, which B&W describes as its "highest performance standmount ever."

It's funny how we discover some music in unexpected, twisting ways. A friend recently sent me the real estate listing for a beautiful home in Deer Isle, Maine, about an hour from where I live. I gawked at the pictures and calculated I'd need to work for Stereophile for another 127 years before I'd have enough dough to buy it. Then I noticed something unusual on one of the walls of the place: lots of gold records. Google helped me figure out that the house had belonged to the late singer-songwriter Dan Fogelberg. I knew the name but was unfamiliar with his music. Minutes later, I was playing the studio version of "Nether Lands," seemingly named after my country of birth. A beautifully orchestrated piece with restrained woodwinds and soaring strings, it reminded me of the best of Van Dyke Parks and of some post–Pet Sounds Brian Wilson songs. I played it straight through three times.

Part of the reason I was so smitten with the recording lay in the engaging, naturalistic presentation it received from the handmade-in-Switzerland Piega Gen2 811 floorstanders ($30,000/pair) that had just made their way to my listening room.

D'Agostino President Bill McKiegan asked if I might be interested in writing the first US review of the top-line, three-piece, fully balanced D'Agostino Relentless preamplifier ($149,500, plus $19,500 for the optional digital streaming module), which since its 2021 introduction had only received a single review, in Europe.

Me, review a $150,000 preamp? This was not a kid in a candy store–scale event. This was a kid let loose in a big-assed candy factory–scale event.

My glucose levels spiked. Questions whirled. What new virtues might a cost-no-object, presumably state-of-the-art preamplifier bring to my reference system? Would images be more corporeal? Would the soundstage be wider and deeper, tonal colors more intense? Would bass—already fabulous—be even more solid? Would the Relentless preamp move me closer to a premium-seat-in-a-live-concert experience?

Tubes, tubes, tubes—how we love to bask in their glow, roll them, and take their second-harmonic distortion into our hearts as if it were a child or a pet. Some may put out so much heat that we have no choice but to open a window, turn on the air conditioning, or listen in the garb of Adam and Eve before that fatal first bite. As they and you age, you can never be sure who's at their best. Tubes, at least, can be replaced, albeit at significant expense...

I haven't reviewed much tube gear, but when I have—Bruce Moore and VTL (in my pre-Stereophile days), Audio Research, and in our September 2022 issue, the towering Octave Jubilee Mono SE tubed pentode push-pull monoblocks—I've been enamored of their sound. I waxed ecstatic about the "captivating beauty" and "heavenly" highs of the Jubilee Mono SEs. I can still recall how gorgeous they sounded; every listen was special.

Hence, my enthusiastic "yes" to a solicitation from John Quick, VP of Sales & Marketing for Dynaudio North America, Octave's North American distributor, to review the smaller MRE 220 SE mono push-pull tube amplifier.

There was a period in the 1970s when many pop ballads that should have had understated arrangements instead turned grandiose and even maudlin. Take Gilbert O'Sullivan's sensational single "Nothing Rhymed" (a track that went deep for a pop hit, referencing famine, duty, and morality). Soon after the start, O'Sullivan's piano is overshadowed by a loud, saccharine string section.

Another example is "Lotte," German singer Stephan Sulke's portrayal of a dying love affair. The devastatingly wistful chanson is burdened by a mawkish orchestral track—the equivalent of glitterbombing an Edward Hopper painting.

Contrast this with Roberta Flack's definitive version of Ewan MacColl's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." Apart from Flack's voice and her emotional delivery, the gently strummed guitar and quiet piano do all the heavy lifting. An unhurried double bass and a couple of minimally bowed string instruments leave swaths of negative space, helping to give her interpretation its hushed, reverent character.

I reflected on all this after spending several months with Balanced Audio Technology's REX 500 solid state power amplifier ($25,000), which has more in common with the Roberta Flack track than with the bombast of "Nothing Rhymed."