It’s been just over two years that I’ve been headlining this publication. It feels longer, but I suppose two years is enough time to build routines and create patterns.
These days, I spend at least six hours per day in my listening room. It’s a comfortable space on the lowest floor of our four-level townhouse. It opens up into the backyard, but for some reason I always keep the blinds down and the shutters closed on the patio doors. That makes it dark in here, especially given that the ceiling is painted matte chocolate-brown to increase contrast on the projector screen. The ten pot lights in the ceiling do fight against that gloom, so I guess describing it as cozy rather than dark is more appropriate.
That said, I’m thinking about bedazzling my audio rack. Lining the back edge of each horizontal bar with some kind of LED string lighting, maybe. That would brighten up the front of my room a touch. And I guess I could open the blinds more often—that would also help.
As I wrote that, I could hear some purists rising up in outrage. LEDs? Close to your audio components? Powered by cheap-ass switch-mode power supplies? The horror!
I’m far past such worries. As I spend more time talking to audio designers, I’m coming to realize how many ideas that have become accepted by audiophiles as canon are, in fact, poorly thought-out fairy tales—albeit ones that might have contained a kernel of truth at some point in the past.
About that switch-mode power-supply thing: many audiophiles still believe that these power supplies are not suitable for high-end audio components. Perhaps that was true once, but not anymore. Ask Ed Meitner about SMPSs. Or maybe Vinnie Rossi. Both of these designers employ SMPSs in their products, and it’s fair to say their companies build components that are at the cutting edge, certainly not cost-constrained in any way. If SMPSs were at all detrimental to sound quality, I have no doubt they’d use something else.
Another audiophile bugbear is that silver cables sound bright. Maybe in some alternate universe they actually do have a detrimental effect on high frequencies, but not in this realm. I’ve been using cables from Siltech and Crystal Cable for the past year, combined with Bowers & Wilkins speakers, which have a measurable rise in the highs. For absolutely certain, if these pure-silver cables caused trouble with the top end, I’d have noticed it.
My audiophile neighbor Ron is still hanging on to some of these myths. As part of our My Audiophile Neighborhood series, I’ve loaned him both the Siltech Royal Single Crown and Crystal Cable Art Series Monet speaker cables, and he loved them. Thought they were great. “But silver is bright,” he’d still say to me, even though these particular cables weren’t bright at all.
Network jitter is another audiophile myth that gets my dander up, and I started to write about it just now, getting ready to testify to its irrelevancy, but then I realized that I’d already done that. So I backspaced right out of there.
But back to those LED string lights. I actually think that they will make an excellent reviewer’s tool. I’ll probably have some sort of little card-remote thingy so I’ll be able to turn the lights on and off from my listening position. That means I’ll be able to inflict a ton of LED illumination on any component in my rack. Maybe, in a further affront to audiophile sensibilities, I should get the RGB-colored ones and make them pulse in time to the music?
I’ve been feeling dissatisfaction with my listening room’s layout and decor for some time now. There’s the whole light thing—or lack of it, I should say—and I’ve often considered expanding the lighting solution to the Ikea Kallax 5 × 5 record rack that lurks behind my sofa. As the years go by, it’s getting harder to read the spines on the records, so more light above each cube would help. But there’s not much room above the records, given that the cubes are 13″ and each record plus sleeve takes up 12.5″—that’s really too tight for day-to-day use. I ran a search on ideas for lighting up my record rack, and the most common suggestion is to use a router to create a channel in the underside of each shelf in which to recess the string lights.
My god, that’s a whole lot of work, and it would involve removing the records and dismantling the entire rack. That’s not going to happen. Too much work for something that’s always behind me. Still, I’ve been thinking about this idea for years, so perhaps I should just get off my ass and figure it out. Maybe next month.
In the meantime, congruent with my urges to brighten up my listening room, the appearance of components is creeping upward in my pantheon of important product attributes. Back when I was writing for SoundStage! Hi‑Fi, where my choices of equipment were somewhat more constrained by cost, I could let failures in appearance slide. A boxy speaker or a dull-looking turntable could be entirely acceptable and still warrant an enthusiastic recommendation as long as the sound quality was excellent.
As I’ve settled into SoundStage! Ultra, where cost is often no object, I’ve slowly become more discerning. Snobby, even. When we’re talking about extremely expensive gear, it needs to do more than just sound great. Build quality and either elegance or visual drama need to accompany that excellent sound quality.
Three examples. First is the VinnieRossi Brama integrated amplifier, which I’ve just finished reviewing. At first glance, it’s attractive, but not immediately flashy. That’s part of its charm. I was impressed even before I’d seen the amp—from the moment I first wheeled the mil-spec flight case into my room. The large, wheeled case, with its extendable handle, imparted a sense of care, coupled with an over-the-top physical presence. As I opened the case, I felt like I was decanting something special.
I don’t want to give away too many details about the Brama, but suffice it to say that it looks stunning in its all-aluminum casework accented by the creamy illuminated front dial.
I’d be overlooking the most physically impressive component in recent years if I didn’t mention the Marantz Model 10 integrated amplifier, which I reviewed a couple of months ago. Marantz really went all out with this amp. The front panel alone, which is ringed with a halo of lights, would be enough to make this big guy stand out, especially with the tasteful readout recessed in a portal right in the middle. But it’s the top view that really goes balls-out. Beneath a copper-tinged mesh grille hides the transformer cover and circuit board, also illuminated by a rich copper glow.
The fact that this amp sounds great is good enough news. The over-the-top styling cues elevate it to a physical work of art.
Same goes for the swoopy little Mola Mola Lupe phono stage I reviewed last month. As you can tell from my review, I loved the sound of this thing. It’s the best-sounding phono stage I’ve reviewed in recent memory—maybe ever. It’s definitely the most convenient and flexible. Appearance-wise, the Lupe isn’t as overwhelming in its design and execution as the Brama or Model 10. It’s way smaller, first off. If you’re looking for a big-ass statement piece, the Lupe isn’t it.
However, the Lupe is still a physically beautiful piece of industrial design. The casework is dense, is well-made, and exudes confidence in its manufacturing. The topside swoop is complemented by the feet, which are narrow and extend down each side of the chassis. The front window follows the trend of both the Brama and the Model 10: round and centered, tasteful and informative. Further, it also comes delivered in a black flight case, which is starting to go a long way towards making a serious initial statement with me. The half-width chassis is actually quite refreshing, and if I was inclined to start rearranging equipment, I could fit the EMM Labs DS‑EQ1, the Lupe, and the Meitner Audio MA3 on the same shelf.
While my reach often tends to exceed my grasp, it’s not going to happen this time. I’m certainly not starting any projects this month, lighting or otherwise. As of this moment, I’m getting ready to head to Warsaw, Poland, for Audio Video Show 2025, and that means I have to get ahead of the writing game. As I type this, I’m looking over at that VinnieRossi Brama integrated amplifier. The review is almost complete, and I’ll submit it before leaving for Warsaw. Waiting on the sidelines is the Audio Research D‑80 power amplifier, which arrived last month. My neighbor Ron helped me out by breaking in this brand-new amp, and in the process we discovered an improvement to the design that Audio Research has implemented in the latest production run. It’s a cool story, and I’ll relate it in an upcoming My Audiophile Neighborhood post over at SoundStage! Global.
. . . Jason Thorpe
jasont@soundstagenetwork.com
