At the advice of Jeff Wilson and Bob Kuehn, two highly discriminating members of the Bay Area Audiophile Society back home, I auditioned a system with truly enviable, openness and three-dimensionality. The combination of the ART Audio Adagio 26Wpc stereo amplifier ($13,000 with the eye-catching canister light), Gill DAC/preamp ($7500), Audio Excellence power supply, Silversmith Platinum cables, Pranawire power cables, and Ars Aures Midi Sensorial speakers ($19,000/pair—where do they come up with these names?) offered a glimpse of the grace and vulnerability rarely exhibited by many of the brutes of the industry. As Karina Gauvin shared a bit of her soul on Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne, I basked in the system’s all-enveloping warmth. The Bill Evans track chosen by Lee Landesberg of Landes Imports sounded fabulous. Definitely one of the high points of my Saturday morning at the RMAF.
