boulevard/14-05-02_audioconsulting
 

A Visit to Audio Consulting CH

28.11.2014 // Jürgen Saile

Here, on its throne, the UFO mothership - 85 cm in diameter! Uh, perhaps I should have brought along the Klingon Disruptor just to be on the safe side. Anyway, the turntable sits on vibration dampers from the company Accurion, who normally builds such bases for electron microscopes. By switching off the control you could slightly notice that the reproduction becomes unclear and the bass a little muddier. Relatively speaking. Schmidlin could not keep his fingers away from the tonearm. In his basement he has done some passionate testing and modifying and we find a completely new and entirely custom designed tonearm. The man is probably never totally satisfied with any outcome.
Here, on its throne, the UFO mothership - 85 cm in diameter! Uh, perhaps I should have brought along the Klingon Disruptor just to be on the safe side. Anyway, the turntable sits on vibration dampers from the company Accurion, who normally builds such bases for electron microscopes. By switching off the control you could slightly notice that the reproduction becomes unclear and the bass a little muddier. Relatively speaking. Schmidlin could not keep his fingers away from the tonearm. In his basement he has done some passionate testing and modifying and we find a completely new and entirely custom designed tonearm. The man is probably never totally satisfied with any outcome.
Weightlifting for tonearms seems to be a new Olympic event!
Weightlifting for tonearms seems to be a new Olympic event!

All theory is gray, before examining each individual piece of equipment - we just want to simply listen to music now. First, a CD from the Chinese musician Xie Jiao Ping is loaded into the CD player that still looks a bit unfinished at first glance. By the way, it is also a prototype. (Not the Chinese musician!) I don’t like to repeat myself, but I'll mention it once again anyway. It is, of course, powered by batteries (Not the Chinese musician either!) Whereby the gripping question for me is, how do you get batteries to produce the 5 volts normally required by the DAC chips? Without A/C of course. In any case, the Chinese musician is playing a Qin, a traditional stringed instrument with over 3000 years of history. The music, with its exotic harmonies for our ears, well let's just say, it takes some getting used to. For me these harmonies are not quite as strange as they seem to my colleague, Mr. Sommer. He looks somewhat aghast. Immediately after the first few bars we could hear just how much potential this system has. I have just one word: amazing! This system plays with more dynamics than I have ever heard and I’ve heard quite a lot. But not only that - tonality, airiness, imaging, and the illusion that real musicians are playing in the room are all at their finest. Nonsense - at their very best! These properties are, of course, not only evident listening to the Qin, but on all subsequently played tracks – irregardless of whether playing a record or a CD - a stunning performance was delivered. Drums played on a hifi system usually sound like “feet that fell asleep.” Whoever does not want to believe this should take a seat right near my drummer. It sounds like a shooting gallery with impressive reality and that reality very close by. Of course, a big horn speaker system could also have its say.

An old acquaintance from the 03.13.2014 review, the Autoformer, with which the volume is controlled. Here, however, in a home environment, where it can tremendously perform. In the back, the switching unit whose terminals work by the same principle as speaker terminals. As one can easily see that the NF cables are all unshielded. In addition, the WAF seems to play a minor role here. The rack is, of course, custom made. Did anyone think it wasn’t? The wood is selected by ear.
An old acquaintance from the 03.13.2014 review, the Autoformer, with which the volume is controlled. Here, however, in a home environment, where it can tremendously perform. In the back, the switching unit whose terminals work by the same principle as speaker terminals. As one can easily see that the NF cables are all unshielded. In addition, the WAF seems to play a minor role here. The rack is, of course, custom made. Did anyone think it wasn’t? The wood is selected by ear.


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