Integrated Amp Reviews

In the capability and flexibility of its digital platform, the Inspiration CS 2.3 hunts with the big dogs. I asked John Woo of Bluebird Music, distributor for AVM in North America, to describe the capabilities of the AVM X-STREAM Engine, which is new for the CS 2.3 model; X-STREAM is a powerful digital processor/controller, powered by an ESS 9038Q2M chip. He told me that the CS 2.3 supports hi-rez streaming up to 24/192 and DSD 256 natively. It is Roon capable and supports Tidal Connect (but with no MQA support), Spotify Connect, Qobuz, and AirPlay 2. All are accessed with the AVM RC X App. Included in the package are several "teaser" cards, for a free trial of Roon, Tidal, and Qobuz. Bluetooth is an older version: 4.2, which was introduced in late 2014. It has smaller bandwidth than more recent 5.x versions and shorter range. Supported profiles are AD2P (basic Bluetooth audio streaming) and AVRCP, which facilitates use of Bluetooth-based remote controls. Bluetooth on the CS 2.3 is best used for casual listening.

We live at a time in which software and hardware are intertwined in much hi-fi gear. "This keeps us working," Besser said. "We have a large team that has to update compatibility for iOS and Android systems. We've added two dozen new functions within the last 13 months. You have to keep track of these things, because they change every other minute. We haven't seen a day go by without some licensing-agreement change. This is a sign of the times: You have to study law to stay on top of it."

It is possible to access functions of the Inspiration CS 2.3 via the front panel, but the best (and intended) way is with the RC X App, which was a quick and easy install on my phone, downloaded from the Apple App Store. (It is also available for Android, downloaded from Google Play.) It often seems like half the consumer world is trying to get me to put things on my phone; it has become the technology fulcrum point of our era.

With the CS 2.3 hardwired and my phone connected to my network via Wi-Fi, the RC X App automatically sought a connetion to the CS 2.3. When it found it, a small icon appeared, with a label highlighted in pink; the pink label indicates that the CS 2.3 is in standby mode. Tapping the icon powers up the CS 2.3, and the icon turns green. Another tap takes you to the main menu page of the RC X App, where music sources can be chosen. Hit the icon one more time to put the CS 2.3 back in standby.

I did all my listening utilizing the app. After spending some time with it, I found it intuitive and a pleasure to use. Navigating menus and submenus felt logical and appropriate—with one exception: The operating manual neglected to mention that if you hold and slide the volume slider, the volume changes are very large. If you tap left or right of the virtual knob, though, the volume changes in very small, ½dB increments.

Our monopoly internet provider, Spectrum (the artist formerly known as Time Warner), services our old apartment building in Manhattan. For years, I've required little of my internet connection, so I haven't paid much attention to it. Perhaps because I had unchecked all the "updates" and "offers" boxes when I signed up for my internet service, as I do with everything I subscribe to,

I was unaware that my internet service was much slower than what's currently available—much slower, in fact, than what I was paying for. A service call got me a new modem and router and speeds about 10 times as fast as what I had before, for the same monthly fee.

The benefits of faster internet were obvious immediately: no gaps, no dropouts. It helped with watching movies, too. 192kHz and multi-DSD files have been a pleasure to listen to.

Listen to this, listen to that
Some of the most fun I had listening with the new Inspiration CS 2.3 was listening to internet radio. The incorporated Airable internet radio service allows access to a huge database of online radio stations. You can find a station by typing in call letters or searching by genre or other criteria. I had not played with internet radio since the miserly Apple removed it from iTunes so that they could charge for it with Apple Music. I've missed WWOZ in New Orleans, which broadcasts the greatest roots music from roots ground zero. Or that fine classical music station, WQXR right there in New York City. What fun it was to sit in our apartment on the Upper West Side, look out the window down toward midtown, and hear a live performance at Carnegie Hall by the Cleveland Orchestra, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst. It was live all right; I even heard a cell phone ring! In addition to basic artist and title info, the display on the app lists the audio format being broadcast—for WQXR, a modest 140kbps MP3 (footnote 2). You can add any number of stations as favorites and play them with a tap on the app.

The first CD I played on the front-loading CD player was a long-time reference, The Reiner Sound, specifically the very fine 2001 JVC XRCD version ( JVCXR-0215-2). I've used this recording for years to judge systems, and the Inspiration CS 2.3 did not disappoint. The lovely muted strings that open the album, on Ravel's Rapsodie Espagnole, sounded velvety and delicate, as they should. When that piece ramps up to those terrific percussion outbursts, the dynamic energy was all of a piece as heard from my little standmount Sonus Fabers, augmented by an REL subwoofer. CD playback can be controlled from the RC X App except you can only eject a CD via a button on the front panel.

I got chills while listening to a CD I hadn't heard in while, Ronnie Earl and Friends (Telarc CD-83537). I had the pleasure, years ago, of attending a session for this album at Bearsville Studio in Woodstock. Among the "friends" sitting in with the guitarist was Levon Helm on drums. After they had laid down a smokin' slow number, "Twenty-Five Days," Levon turned to me and said: "Love me them sweet blues." When music is reproduced with this level of quality, it's like a time machine transporting you to other moments and places.

To try out the USB-A input on the back panel, I inserted a thumb drive on which I had loaded a few test tracks. The titles came up on the RC X App; the audio format was also displayed—nice. All sounded just fine. This is not a feature I would use very often—maybe if I was carrying around a recording project on a flash drive and needed to hear it. Which could happen. In general, though, I don't "burn" or "rip" music. I "play" it, then store it on what I call "shelves" or "record racks."

However, now that I had upgraded my internet service, I could take full advantage of the Inspiration CS 2.3's ability to stream from various hi-rez music providers. Taking it to the 192/24 Qobuz limit, I listened to Alan Yoshida's 2012 remaster of the Coltrane masterpiece Blue Train (Blue Note BST-81577). Though not as thrilling as the recent vinyl remaster by Joe Harley and Kevin Gray, this version got my juices flowing: real air and slap from Philly Joe Jones's drums, and when the three horns start playing in unison, it was pedal to the metal time. All this with none of the clicks or dropouts that had been troubling me for too long.

I tried a couple of headphones to see how they would play with the Inspiration CS 2.3, connected to the mini-phone jack on the front panel. AVM says that the CS 2.3's headphone amp runs in class-A. Streaming jazz station KCSM in San Francisco, I listened to Ray Charles doing "How Long Has This Been Going On?" Despite the limited bandwidth—this station broadcasts on the web at just 96kbps MP3 or 64kpbs AAC—my AudioQuest Nighthawk 'phones sounded terrific. These cans are voiced to the darker side—the better to suppress any digital compression nasties—and with the CS 2.3 driving them, the presentation seemed to open up a bit, getting more detailed with a bit more air. My Sennheiser 560 S gave a less pleasant result, sounding thin.

I recently purchased, for the Apartment System, a Pro-Ject Debut Carbon EVO turntable. This was already a fine-value package, but shortly after I purchased it, distributor Fine Sounds America offered a free stylus upgrade, from the stock Sumiko Rainier a notch up the line to the Olympia stylus. Would the Inspiration CS 2.3 allow me to hear a single-grade quality change in one element of a system?

On a before/after comparison using an Albert King LP, I'll Play the Blues for You (Stax STS-3009), I heard a nice, if subtle, improvement in soundstage specificity and dynamic pop. The biting sting of Albert's flying V was right there, just as I recalled from hearing him play live.

A few blocks away from our apartment, on West 72nd Street, is an old book and record store that managed to weather the COVID storm, presided over by a nasty old man at a dirty old desk, selling a wonderful assortment of old LPs alongside books about music and even some sheet music and scores. New York strong!

The high point of my listening sessions (to date) with the AVM Inspiration CS 2.3 came when I brought back from this store, in fairly good condition, a copy of Ella Fitzgerald's very first LP, Ella Sings Gershwin (Decca DL 74451). This record was recorded in 1950, before the Norman Granz period, "with an assist from Duke Ellington." I love it when my ignorance allows me to hear things for the first time—things I missed earlier in life. Ella sounded superb.

The awards ceremony
The AVM Inspiration CS 2.3 is a delicious example of having cake and eating it. Some out-of-the-box thinking has taken shape in this small, attractively finished box. Designer-owner Besser is proud that many of the subcomponents for AVM are produced nearby his small German town; he told me he can literally call out the window to one of those vendors just next door.

But whether someone is carrying trays of capacitors or steins of beer back and forth is less important than the quality of the resulting products. That quality is patently evident in the AVM Inspiration CS 2.3—real creative excellence. It is not inexpensive, but when you price out everything it does—DAC, streamer, CD player, line and phono preamp, amplifier, headphone amp—and how well it does it, the smallness of that number starts to impress. I'd like to give the CS 2.3 an award. Instead, I'll reward myself: I'm buying the review sample, to use in the Apartment System. Gut gemacht, AVM!

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Footnote 2: For those of you not experienced with internet radio: 140kbps MP3 is probably slightly above average for quality, but the data rate of internet radio stations is gradually improving. The very best today are true hi-rez; check out the three Mother Earth stations from Munich. As I'm writing this, their three stations (the original, which calls itself "eclectic and sources all its music from vinyl; "Instrumental"; and "Klassic") are broadcasting at lossless 24/96 FLAC.—Jim Austin