I followed my visit to the
Kaiser/GTE/Fono Acustica room with a stop in a room occupied by Tidal Audio, dCS, and Argento Audio.
The system featured Tidal’s Piano DiaCera loudspeakers in an Ebony Makassar finish ($41,890/pair), which had an elegant, serene appearance, like calm, black waters, Tidal’s Preos preamp with phono stage ($27,990) and140Wpc Impact dual-mono Reference amplifier ($25,990), the dCS Puccini SACD player ($17,999) with U-Clock ($4999), and cables from Argento Audio: Flow power cords ($3100/2m), Flow Master Reference power cords ($6200/2m), Flow interconnect ($4100/1m RCA), Flow Master Reference interconnect ($8900/1m RCA), Flow speaker cables ($9000/2m), and Flow Master Reference speaker cables ($21,500/2m).
Holy moly. This
must have been the most expensive system I heard at the show, though I didn’t know it at the time.
My notes tell me that I was impressed by the system’s clean highs and deep, well-controlled bass. The overall sound was marked by excellent three-dimensionality and spatial effects with outstanding transparency and image focus, but didn’t have the transient speed of some other rooms.
