I immerse in the music and listen enthusiastically through Otmar Liebert's album Dune, which is a fine example of innovative Nuevo Flamenco. Although Otmar Liebert's guitar playing takes the centre stage, there are interesting musical expansions and counterpoints provided by bassist/keyboardist Jon Gagan, accordionist Char Rothschild and drummer Robbie Rothschild. And then I come up with the, admittedly somewhat crazy, idea of plugging a Sortz Basic in its BNC version onto an unused output of my SOtM Clock, i.e. onto a component that is not directly located in the signal path.

"On the Road to Shiraz" begins with a lonesome electric guitar before handclaps by Robbie Rothschild make the centre of attention. Otmar Liebert answers with the melody line while Char Rothschild's accordion hovers quietly in the background. A funky electric bass then sets in and forms a counter rhythm, anchoring the melody and at the same time driving it forward. I can't believe my ears what I hear now. Otmar Liebert's guitar has more warmth and volume than ever, I've never come up to hear the handclaps so realistically, the accordion, which always appears to be somehow inscrutable, can now be heard finely defined, while the electric bass steps out of the speakers in an even more intense manner. The soundstage presents itself once again deeper and the overall presentation is more vivid and energetic. When swapping back, without the Sortz the difference is even more pronounced. Everything is more slender, the handclaps are less precise and the accordion gets lost again in the vagueness. That can't be true, can it? I alternately listen to the other tracks "Horse", "Moon Fragrance" and "Smoke". The result is always the same. With the Sortz, the sound is more open and multifaceted, the musical message more intense. Obviously, the suppression of background noise plays an important role here as well. Here, too, the result can be further enhanced if I also plug a Sortz Signature into the clock's second unused output. But let us leave it alone at this point - I have long since exceeded this beyond any reasonable proportions.

Let's rather deal with the question of whether we can do without the Sortz at the preamplifier in return, or not. Until now, I have concealed that for the listening impressions I have just described, that I simply left the Sortz plugged into my preamplifier - as described in Part 1. Or, to pose the question another way: Is it sufficient to let the Sortz operate on the digital level only, i.e. in the network area and with the DAC? To follow this assumption, I simply remove the Sortz from the preamplifier and am quite surprised how much sound I lose again.