"You Know, You Know" continues with a drum kit instead of tablas and a heavily distorted Fender Rhodes with wah-wah effect instead of the flute: This is a melodic indulgence in tonal colours, dynamics and groove. The album then comes to a calm and relaxed close with "Pastel Morning". I will certainly no longer neglect the "second side" as reprehensibly as before - at least if it sounds anywhere near as finely depicted and yet as emotionally appealing through speakers as it does through the S4 and the Peacock combo!

For some time now, I almost can't do without "Deep As Love" from the album Changing Places by the Tord Gustavsen Trio when testing headphones and amplifiers: The calm, melodic track fascinates with an almost hypnotic musical flow, especially with beautiful timbres of the cymbals and brushes on the snare drum, a pleasantly "woody" sounding double bass and extraordinarily dynamic strokes on the strings of the grand piano. All of this can also be enjoyed when played through the Peacock and the S4. But we're not only generally talking about fascinating sounds here, so therefore the KECES must now take up the comparison against the Phonitor x. Of course, it sounds different by a few nuances, but I can't detect any differences in quality with this track. With the SPL, the instruments seem slightly smaller, further away and therefore surrounded by more space, although I have to admit that I am far less convinced when it comes to any kind of spatial imaging with headphones than with good loudspeakers. The KECES shows marginal advantages over the Phonitor with regard to dynamics, especially with the grand piano.

Perhaps it’s Mahler's Symphony No. 5 with the Duisburg Philharmonic under Jonathan Darlington that can reveal more differences: The recording from the Living Concert Series conveys an astonishingly credible sense of spatiality - when played back through headphones. Tonality, vibrancy and transparency as well leave nothing to be desired. The KECES seems to concentrate on the more engaging, somewhat closer rendering of the instrument groups, while the SPL suggests a larger stage with a certain depth. Nevertheless, the differences are surprisingly small when you consider that the Phonitor is a dedicated headphone amplifier with rudimentary preamp capabilities, whereas the KECES is a full-featured preamp with merely a headphone output. Without a direct comparison, I don't miss a thing when listening to music via headphones through the S4.