Hello Audiogon friends,
Over the past 15 years I have transitioned from enthusiast to dealer to distribution.
I ended up wanting much more that was offered in the states and spent the last 3 years looking for innovation and not just premium parts to the same tired designs.
Enter Aries Cerat....
This company took me by storm with their true advancement of tube and horn design like no one ever has done before. Year after year they have innovated and released breakthrough products that I took the plunge and now I am hooked.
As easy example to give is the development of their designs starting with a 240lb DAC for digital and almost 2000lb horn system. When you look to develop the best equipment you need the best test bed to hear every last drop of information out of the recording. Most manufacturers who make bold claims do not have anything like this to produce what they feel is the best.
I love cello and trumpet and panels/stats fall way too short to give any real authentic spl and dynamics of live or orchestral music. Dynamic speakers and line arrays came close, but the high sensitivity to reveal all the source material and source components could give would only be had by a horn speaker. So when they designed the first zero diffraction horn I had to get that too :)
No honking, no resonance from cheap composite horns, no coloration. Natural as any dynamic speaker with true to life soundstage and imaging of a panel (provided you sit far enough away)
On the downside I find a good portion of my library unlistenable. The best example is an album of Chopin by Anneleen Lenaerts off Linn records. It is a studio master 192k 24 bit mastered recording and sounds great on other systems, but on this system all you hear is the background noise and breathing of the musician that makes it impossible to enjoy.
I am in audio nirvana and truly enjoy working in this industry when I have products as exciting as this to talk about and demo.
Vermouth audio cables were stellar without the associated price tag. As a former dealer I had the best and this outperforms 90% of what I have put it up against save the truly statement level looms. Why spend magnitudes more for such small improvements?
I encourage those who come through the Austin, TX area to visit and Believe in Hifi again :)
Maybe a year or too I will get over my phobia of Vinyl and find a table I can be proud of.
-Joshua
