Unfortunately, Helmuth Weber omitted to bring along the crossover to the photo session. At least I came to know that it features an impedance linearization, in order to make the Cadenza an easy-to-drive load also for tube amplifiers. AudiaZ sources capacitors from Mundorf, Intertechnik and Duelund, mica capacitors from BCM, metal foil resistors from Isabellenhütte and foil coils again from Mundorf. No cutbacks are made on the cabinet either: AudiaZ gets it manufactured abroad in the EU from high-density maple multiplex boards. The chamber for the Accuton Cell midrange driver is additionally lined with a heavy and elastic composite material. It should be clear by now that Helmuth Weber doesn’t leave anything to chance in the selection of the damping materials as well – three different absorber materials are used in the three chambers. As one would expect, for the binding posts AudiaZ makes use of WBTs. The silver interior cabling I already mentioned before. Since even the version in high-gloss ebony veneer is not subject to a surcharge compared to the piano lacquer versions in white and black, the list of possible options is extremely short: The customer can only choose between ceramic and diamond tweeters, while the latter requires an investment of an additional 8,000 euros. After paying a visit to my listening room, Helmuth Weber decided to bring along the variant with the diamond tweeter to Gröbenzell.

At my first contact with the almost finished Cadenza at Chiemsee Hifi last October, it became quickly apparent to me that the decision for the tweeter I have been familiar with for almost a decade was the right one. For the latest transducer from AudiaZ succeeded in merging the Accuton drivers, which are not so easy to get a grip on, into a coherent unit. By the way, it wasn't just a one-time meeting in Rosenheim: Helmuth Weber and I got to talk shop on the subject of streaming and subsequently made one or the other device available to each other for testing. During my last visit to the AudiaZ listening room, this then allowed streaming at a very high level when listening to the Cadenza with songs I was familiar with - thanks to Qobuz. By then, much sounded so right to my ears that I could already have started writing a very positive review. But that’s not the style Hifistatement is known for. You can only assess really well-founded statements if the test object is the only unknown variable in the system – regardless of how well you might like the result in a foreign environment. So I asked Helmuth Weber to bring the Cadenzas over and set them up so that he would be satisfied with their performance. But that turned out to be a little more complicated than I expected, because he insisted on not finally aligning the speakers until they had acclimatized for 48 hours in my listening room. As reasons for this, he named the sedation after the transport and the influence of air pressure. Fortunately, the way from Rosenheim to Gröbenzell isn't that far...

This gave me two days to align the Cadenzas, which had been positioned just for the sake of it, to the positions where almost all the speakers in my room perform at their sonic best. In the process, I angled the AudiaZs much more inwards than their developer recommends in the user manual. But this way they created the illusion of a stage with great depth during the respective music pieces and didn't even allow to sense their own positioning anymore. This set-up then also found Helmuth Weber's approval. In any case, the Cadenzas do not rank among the mimosas in the world of transducers, where a few millimeters forward or backward, further to the right or left and a few degrees more or less of angling-in decide sonically about good and bad. Might this be due to the angled, triangular baffle? Of course, a few percent more euphony can be teased out of the AudiaZ through a meticulous positioning, but without it they still grant quite a lot of freedom when being integrated into the room.