I’m always keen to hear how products I’ve reviewed perform under show conditions. It’s like visiting an old friend. It’s a bit of a minefield, though, given that the components accompanying the one I’ve reviewed are likely wildly unfamiliar.
So it proved when I stumbled upon the room at the offsite Vienna Sound Fest event shared by VinnieRossi, Crystal Cable, and Audionostrum. As I walked in, I was greeted by Vinnie Rossi himself, and it was a pleasure to meet the man behind the brand. Rossi and I had conversed by phone several times while I was reviewing his Brama integrated amplifier, but we’d never met IRL.
I was predisposed to really like this system, fronted as it was by a huge, frosted wedding cake of a Transrotor turntable, a professional-looking TEAC reel-to-reel, and a VinnieRossi Brama preamplifier feeding a pair of Brama monoblock amplifiers. Cables were from Crystal Cable and Siltech. The Audionostrum Saturn speakers, each equipped with a wacky-looking prolapsed tweeter, were unfamiliar to me. They were big though, and beautifully finished. So I had high hopes, reinforced by the fact that the room was being hosted by Gabi Rynveld, a pianist and marketing expert, who knows her shit when it comes to assembling a system.
The first track, played from a reel-to-reel tape, was a pop song of some kind that was unfamiliar to me. Doug Schneider, who joined me for this visit, leaned discreetly over and whispered, “Does this sound bad? Or is it just me?” I nodded, indicating that it most certainly sounded like ass. The sound was closed-in and muffled, with no highs whatsoever.
Rossi switched over to the Transrotor and played some sort of easy-listening jazz, and it wasn’t much better. I decided that I should intervene. After looking through their records, I found a copy of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Rossi cued up side 2 for me, and we were in business. Punchy, snappy, yet with an easeful top end that was extended but very listenable—more like what I was expecting from these excellent electronics. Let me tell you, this was a huge a relief, because I hate having to quietly back out of a room and run for the elevator—especially when the room is hosted by really cool people who have become friends over the years.
After a couple of other records, all of which sounded excellent, Adam Czerwiński, a friend of Roman Nowak, the Polish distributor of Audionostrum, who’s an accomplished jazz drummer as well as a record producer, pulled out a test lacquer of one of his own recordings—one-sided, uncut, without a label. This was excellent jazz, with a loping beat, well played. But here’s the thing: this was, without question, the best-sounding record I have ever heard. Spacious, extended, with almost holographic imaging. Czerwiński explained to me that this was a very special occasion—he had only played this record six times previously, as this lacquer had a very limited lifespan. To say I was impressed, by both this record and by the overall sound of the system, is a huge understatement.
It turns out that the Audionostrum Saturn’s odd-looking high-frequency section is a hybrid affair, comprising a 0.75″ supertweeter pointing backward into a 1″ horn-loaded beryllium tweeter that covers the range from 1–10kHz. Above that, the supertweeter takes over. The two drivers are running in a sort of push-pull manner, although it’s much more complicated than that, and somewhat beyond the scope of this quick-and-dirty show report. The rest of the driver complement comprises a large paper-dome midrange and two 9.5″ carbon-fiber woofers.
The speakers were beautifully finished in highly figured wood and made an excellent match to this elegant, extremely high-quality system. Doug and I were somewhat time-constrained, being late for an appointment back at the official High End location, so I didn’t get a chance to grab the prices for all this equipment; but it’s not a cheap system, that’s for sure. That said, it was packed full of exceptional components and delivered excellent sound.
Jason Thorpe
Senior Editor, SoundStage!
