International Sound & Sight Exhibition 2012

It's that time of the year again - for Singapore's major hi-fi show, International Sound  & Sight Exhibition (ISSE for short).

Being somewhat crowd adverse, I paid a visit on the first day of ISSE, which would be less crowded, being a Friday.

The reception level contained the larger exhibition halls, with the bigger systems usually setup in larger acoustic spaces.

First visit was to High End Research's room.

The Wilson Audio Alexia standing guard over the Pass Lab monoblocks

Wilson Audio's Alexia was being driven by Pass Lab monoblocks paired with an Audio Research Reference 10 preamplifier. The source was a Mac computer, feeding an EMM Labs DAC. In fact, quite a number of exhibitors were showcasing computer audio based setups.

The system was being played a bit too loud for my liking, with the usual hi-fi demonstration type of tracks. It was very dynamic and incisive, perhaps a bit too much so for my taste.

As it was close to a scheduled live performance, I made a detour for Z Yan's live performance.

She has a lovely rich voice that belies her petite frame. Her bossa nova style of singing in Chinese is quite unique. I truly enjoyed the experience, and picked up a copy of her CD on the way out.

Back to the lobby rooms for a quick look-see.

Voxativ speakers with an analogue front end

The TAD speakers were playing some choral music when I walked in, and the purity of tone and effortless reproduction was breath taking. Some other tracks were not so convincing, and the simpler types of music fared better in my short time there.

Going off to the 7th floor, where the smaller exhibition rooms were, I was impressed by the more consistent quality of the systems compared to past shows, where exhibitors persistently showcased large speakers that overwhelmed the acoustic space of the tight hotel rooms.

Poon of Horizon Acoustics gamely posing for a photo

Amplification duties handled by Modwright

Source duties handled by an Ayon CD player fed into an Antelope DAC. The Resonessence Labs Invicta DAC on the right was not playing when I was in the room.

The Nola speakers in Horizon Acoustic's room were performing well and left a good starting impression for me as I started my tour of the seventh floor.

Sky Audio - ALR Jordan speakers, D & T electronics and a Macbook playing computer audio

Sky Audio's room get's honourable mention for most surprising system. The D & T amplifiers were only rated at 60 watts per channel. Somehow, the ALR conveniently forgot that it was a small speaker and sounded big with more bass than it's dimunitive size would suggest. Steve Sai shared with me some of his views on tweaking, as well as the principles behind the latest version of his self-built range of cabling.

ASI electronics and Entreq power distributor and ground conditioner. Speakers are aliens from a far away planet standing very still and hoping to blend into the environment.

Sound Decisions - Da Vinci DAC, Electrocompaniet amplification and Thiel CS 2.7 speakers

Sound Decisions was demonstrating the brand new Thiel CS 2.7, which sounded significantly better than the CS 2.4 as well as I remember.Sammy Low, principal of Sound Decisions admonished me gently for not visiting for a while. In typical Thiel fashion, the 2.7 was clean, detailed, and simply passing on the message from upstream components. Sound Decisions is an official distributor of Stressless recliners that seemed to captivate many a listener, some of which ended up seemingly stuck to the chair on a molecular level.

X Audio - Brodmann speakers matched with MSB DAC and Octave amplification.

X Audio's second room - Accustic Arts electronics with Brodmann speakers.

Audio Basic - Aurelia speakers with the Calyx Femto DAC paired with Trigon electronics.

Steven Cheah of Audio Basic posing with the Aurelia Cerica. Perched behind, on the shelf is the Telos Alpha Wave generator.

Audio Basic had a very nicely tuned system with the Aurelia Cerica sounding excellent - far better than the previous two occasions I head them at Audio Basic's showroom. Steven also demonstrated the just launched Telos Alpha Wave generator. The crowd was suitably impressed, with a flattening of perspectives, and the soundstage moving forward and shrinking each time the Alpha Wave generator was switched off.

Some other very good sounding setups were also heard, with the Verity Audio speakers impressing with its excellent level of detail and naturalness.

Unfortunately, a scheduled appointment meant that I could not spend time listening to all the systems in detail, and I wrapped things up after 2 and a half hours at ISSE.

Aurelia Cerica - Quick Impressions

The first things that strikes you about the Aurelia Cerica is its unusual looks.Unlike most speakers, the Aurelia is slim and quite attractive to the eye - both for the Audiophile and the unafflicted. The sample I saw one early afternoon at the local dealer was finished in gloss white.

The next thing you will notice is its unusual driver arrangement, which has a symmetrical array of two mid-bass units flanking a cluster of three tweeters. The tweeters appeared to be recessed in a shallow wave guide.

On the rear panel of the speakers,are a single pair of high quality binding terminals, and a presence switch. The dealer explained that this controlled the high frequency output, with the "hi" position recommended for tube amplification, and the "lo" position for solid state systems.

Firing up the Cerica, the immediate impression is one of both coherence and immediacy. The full range driver crowd will feel right at home here. The second thing that impresses is the size of the speaker's imaging and soundstaging.

The Cerica has a very "live" and fast sound, and is quite different from the typical audiophile speaker which sounds more damped, and drier. Vocals take center stage, with a big emphasis on vocal texture and inflection. Listeners who like their vocals presented with laser focused precision are advised to look elsewhere. Music is presented with a very big and dynamic feel, more akin to a live performance, compared to listening to a recording over studio monitors.

Detail retrieval is excellent, with low level spatial clues coming across clearly. High frequencies are "wetter" than normal, with a strong emphasis on reproduction of acoustic space. I felt that its presentation was a little bit too bright, which could be an issue with partnering equipment - I heard them driven by a full set of Trigon electronics. Perhaps, a longer audition with softer sounding equipment is in order.

The Cerica has limited bass though, with no sonic illusions that the Cerica is a bookshelf speaker. Fortunately, the limited bass on offer is at all times, fast, tuneful and tight.

In conclusion, the Cerica is quite different in its presentation from the typical audiophile speaker, and may not suit all taste. However, listeners who demand a lively, dynamic and detailed speaker, with looks that need no excuses are well advised to give the Cerica a serious audition. In gloss white, the Cerica would blend in perfectly in modern styled homes.

Pricing is also competitive. My guesstimate of the Cerica's price pleasantly turned out to be more than 30 % off the mark.

Part Two

A week after the initial audition, I returned to the dealer who had re-positioned the speaker as well as the spare equipment around it. It happened to be playing when I dropped by and I immediately noticed that the speaker sounded totally different from my first audition.

The speaker sounded neutral, without any hint of brightness which I experienced earlier. The partnering equipment was identical - looks like this speaker requires a bit of setup to make it sing. Bass output was much more, far more than its cabinet size would suggest. On the downside, I felt that the immediacy and vibrancy was better the first time round.

Part Three

I just heard this at the International Sight and Sound Exhibition 2012. It sounded really great in the small hotel room, with both deep, extended bass, and an immediate midrange coupled with extended high frequencies. In fact, the Cerica sounded much better compared to the earlier two occasions I listened to it.

Darkz Footer (updated on 21 April 2014)

The Darkz footer is a new footer from Ansuz Acoustics. The footer is made out of 3 stacked circular aluminium discs with 3 ceramic ball bearings coupling the discs, i.e. there is a total of 6 ceramic ball bearings per footer.

The top and bottom discs have a further 3 circular depressions, to aid stacking if you wish to do so. You will obviously need to find an additional 3 ball bearings to do so, although none are provided. The whole assembly is sealed and the discs and ball bearings all stay in place.

The assembly can be opened by carefully applying some pressure to the central column and rotating the top and bottom halves in opposite directions. The two halves are coupled via a finely threaded rod.

The footer on test here is the base aluminium model in the line-up. More expensive models include a ceramic coated model, and a diamond coated one. In any event, the aluminium model sells for a not modest sum - S$500 for a set of four.

I initially intended to use all four footers, but settled on using three instead. Using four footers was an uphill battle, involving copious amounts of paper as shims to try and balance out the footers perfectly. In this respect, I am far fonder of height adjustable footers, like the Finite Elemente Cerabase.

My evaluation of this footer ended up taking far longer than usual, as it ended up under a whole  variety of equipment, including my mains distributor, DAC, preamp, poweramp, and even my Entreq Tellus grounding conditioner.

The Darkz consistently added a focused precision to music, with instruments and voices being very specific and pin point. There was also an increased sense of texture and decay. Soundstaging was presented in a more distant manner, which helped increase the feeling of depth in the system. On the downside, the overall tonal balance was leaner. The reduction of midrange warmth, together with the accentuation of leading edges tended to emphasize sibilance in my system. I also felt that the increased decay resulted in a perception of reduction of speed. In simpler tracks, with just a female singer, accompanied by a Piano, this was observed as a reduction is impact and scale of left hand notes, and a leanness in the female voice.

The above observations generally held true for most of the equipment I tried the Darkz with. After extended listening sessions, I eventually preferred my system without the Darkz, as I did not feel that the tonal balance of my system was going the right way.

After some head scratching, I decided to disassemble the Darkz and place small strips of fo.Q (TA-52) damping tape on the inner facing sides of the top and bottom discs. This reduced the slight glare and leanness of the stock Darkz. As like all other tweaks, your mileage may vary.

Close two years after the initial review, the local distributor for Ansuz, Giraffe Signature suggested that I give a five and four tier Darkz a try, as well as experiment with additional ceramic balls between the footer and the component being supported. To facilitate this, I was passed a bag full of ceramic balls (plenty to try out almost every configuration possible), and a five tier Darkz.

Four tiers with additional ceramic balls on top

Four tiers - make your own by disassembling your spare Darkz footer

Five tiers - the unfinished central column suggests that this is a prototype rather than a finished product

As I have long given up trying to balance 4 pieces of Darkz, I instead tried a set of three under my Cary CD-500. I also tried some of these configurations under a friend's tube integrated amp in his setup.

Stock Footer (Three tiers)

I tried this again to refresh my memory and my impressions were not changed. The stock footer was simply too analytical for my taste.

Three Tiers with additional ceramic balls

Add in three ceramic balls on top of each footer and this is a wholly different ball game (pun intended). There is an improvement in smoothness, bloom and length of decay. I still felt that there was a slight bit of an edge to music, but it was still a massive improvement over the stock footer.

Four Tiers

A lower noise floor with a smooth, articulate and nice bloomy sound. Any previous complaints were now complete forgotten.

Five Tiers

Even longer decay and shockingly low noise floor. This is my favourite configuration. It worked very well also in my friend's setup.

Five Tiers with additional ceramic balls

I felt that this improved edge definition but that slight hardness was back. Some guys would like this combination, as it offered the best of both worlds (at a price), but I preferred the glare free sound of the Four Tier and Five Tier configuration. So did my friend when we tried it in his setup.

Final Thoughts

The above configurations are well worth exploring for Darkz users. Moving from one stack level to the next mainly affected the noise floor, resolution, articulation and length of decay. It was interesting to note also that the staging and tonal balance was quite similar once you hit a three tier level with additional ceramic balls.

Perhaps Ansuz should have launched the product as a four or five tier footer from the beginning ? Well, better late than never.