This week Justyn, Eli and I had the pleasure of updating this exceptional listening system for two of my favorite customers in Port Angeles. I met these folks about 15 years ago when they were building their home. I remember during our first meeting they told me they wanted to be able to sip wine, enjoy their view and simultaneously feel as if they were at a concert.
Definitely our kind of customers!
They stopped into our showroom a few weeks ago to see and hear what is available today in the world of high end audio music systems. We auditioned our Mola Mola Tambaqui, Aesthetix Memus, Focal Sopra No. 3 speakers (which I have been bugging George to come in and listen to since they first came out), along with our Nordost array of support for cabling and noise isolation products.
Fortunately we had originally pre-wired this room with Nordost speaker cabling so we have the ability to get every last drop of detail to our speakers fully intact without problems with phasing or noise issues. We had originally installed a pair of Focal Chorus 936 tower speakers which are still sounding quite good. I know this as I am listening to them here in our showroom as I write this. We traded them towards their new Sopra 3s.
We also originally employed one of our favorite of all time subwoofer, JL Audio’s F113. After 14 years, it still is reaching down to the last octave of bass and providing a believable impact of a kick drum, even in this very large space.
We are retiring the original Krell integrated amplifier and will be replacing it with our Aesthetix Memus. The Memus, for those of you who are not familiar with Aesthetix, is their award winning, “affordable” hybrid tube-preamp and solid state output integrated amplifier. This beautiful hand crafted component not only sounds like silk but also has an amazing ability to allow a listener to find the perfect volume level. This might seem trivial to some but anyone who owns a goose bump machine like this will tell you getting the volume level not just close but perfect is quite satisfying. The Krell Integrated amp we are replacing utilized a digital volume control and it has become a bit finicky, sometimes jumping up the volume steps when it shouldn’t.
I know I have said this before, but the Mola Mola Tambaqui is a truly musical game changer. The way it presents digital recordings goes well beyond anything we have ever been able to offer a customer. After every customer demonstration I have done it is always the same response, “I want this!”
We will have to wait on Memus as they are built-to-order. Jim White, the owner of Aesthetix, will not release any product until it is thoroughly tested and listened to. It sort of reminds me of the old TV commercial, “We will sell no wine before it’s time.” But in our customer’s case this actually works out just fine as the Sopras need to break in for a few weeks anyway.
Here are a few photos of this lovely listening room. I will post an update as soon as we are able to finish their upgrades.
