Oooooooh.

We are always a little nervous.

We hear something at a show or two - we are very confident we undertand the sound of this something. We even write a glowing review of the sound - because we really liked what we heard.

We have loved the Kharma sound for years, and championed them for years to everyone that we thought would really enjoy them, even though we did not carry them in our store. Yep, some people think we are nuts. Whatever. We just love this stuff. Anyway…

Then we get the chance to put our money where our pen is. OK, yes. Yes please.

But one never knows for sure, for really sure, until it is in the room, hooked to the amps, using the cables and playing the music whether that something will sound as good as expected.

Well, …

We are SO happy.

These little guys are a-m-a-z-i-n-g.

Sweet, Emotional, Enjoyable, Real and Magical.

They are even sounding a little impressive. These little guys? Impressive?

And this is right out of the box. I mean crates.

We (I ) turned it up louder than the spanking brand new speakers wanted to go, while trying to keep SPLs below the point where the room gets overloaded. Even unbroken in, the stiffness and brittleness had a positive, enjoyable, dare I say it, adrenaline-inducing impressive character to it.

We put them on the Lamm ML1.1 monoblocks (also cold) and the Audio Aero Capitole MK II (also cold) with Nordost Tyr speaker cable, Valhalla interconnects and Valhalla power cords on the amps, Shunyata Anaconda Alpha power cord on the Capitole.

It seems to be a pretty good match so far. [Yes, to everyone who has been asking, we will indeed put them on the Lamm ML2.1 very soon now The ML1.1 amps just happened to be sitting there and I think we should put at least a few hours on the Mini with these larger amps. And the ML2.1 on the Marten Design Coltranes is really taking the feet out from underneath everyone who hears it - literally]

That’s as far as we were able to get.

Oh. Yeah. My Daughter is only 23. Oops. Sorry about that last post there sweetie. Well, at least she is still young enough to like people thinking she is older than she really is. Whew! Everybody got a good laugh at the old man’s memory skills.

Here are some unwrapped Minis:

Unwrapping was an exercise in keeping my fingers out the way of Neli’s scissors as she lectures me on being very careful to not scratch the little Exquisites. Happy to say that no blood was spilled by either of Neli, the Mini, or I. [Neli tells me that I am exaggerating and she wasn’t really that way at all, hardly. Yes, everybody, she is wonderful, just wonderful, to unwrap speakers with………]

Yes, they are in Aubergine. The diamond tweeter cover is a magnet! It just sticks on to the front of the speaker to protect the otherwise very delicate tweeter.

Those fingerprints that you see on the cover plates on these totally brand new, just unwrapped speakers are put there by fingers that have just finished eating Vietnamese takeout and whose owner shall remain nameless (but their first name starts with a ‘N’ if you must know, not an ‘M’ )

I’m sure she’ll have it polished up better than ever even before I wake up tomorrow - it is just so much fun now that I finally have photographic evidence that *she* also has fingers that leave prints…:-)

Yes, they arrived.

Yes, we (finally) got them uncrated.

Yes, we got them up the stairs’s’s’s’s

But they are still wrapped as I write this. This evening we are celebrating the Daughter’s 24th birthday with her and a friend (of course, it is not actually her birthday, THAT was when the REAL party happened … no parents allowed . Anyway, Neli is off getting a birthday cake and, well, we may not get to set these up until tomorrow?

The pain, the PAIN!

I mean I’ will take a chance and caussssually mention to the ‘kids’ that we could go downstairs and check the new speakers out. And then even more casuallllly ask if they would like to hear them. And, well then, it will take just a few minutes to unwrap them and hook them up (to the Lamm ML1.1 driven by the Audio Aero Capitole MK II to start). Hey its worth a try. Bet I have some chance of success too Aren’t I a sneaky Dad?

All Neli can say over and over and over is “They’re so cute! They’re so CUTE!”. They really are. These are pretty little speakers just oozing WAF. Well, I’m sure ooze is not an approved WAF adjective, but you get what I mean.

Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.

We had the Audio Note OTO SE here for a few days before it went out on audition. The OTO is a 10 watt Class A single-ended EL84-based integrated amplifier. The one we had here had a phono stage and retails for $3100.00.

So, we thought, what the hey and put it on one of our hardest to drive speakers (second only to the big Sound Lab U1 electrostatic speakers), the Acapella Violon High Sub.

Here it is on the Rix Rax driven by the Audio Aero Capitole MK II (it is not actually hooked up in this picture as we had a Violin audition and needed to show just what it was capable of and used the $20K Lamm ML1.1 mono-block amps for this purpose).

A close up of the OTO on the equipment rack.

The front of the OTO. You can kind of see the inside of the OTO here. There is a lot of stuff in this chasis, this thing is heavy! 30 lbs if it is an ounce - but that is just a guess since I had to carry it down the 45 steps.

The Rear of the OTO

A close-up of the rear of the OTO.

A close-up of the controls of the OTO.

The OTO actually sounded pretty darn good on the Violons. We heard the OTO, driven at that time by the Audio Note U.K. CD2.1x CD player (discontinued. Only $1000 but was about $1750 new, also out on audition, so no pics, sorry), right after CES and at low volumes (it IS only 10 watts) that system was better than most, well 99.9%, of all systems we heard at CES.

Yeah, this at $52K (not including rack) , is an expensive system including $48K speakers and the rest on the OTO, CD2.1x and Audio Note cables … oops and add a couple of $K for Shunyata power cords - but is was just so pleasant and musical after the sonic hysterics of CES.

The little CD player had less bass than the Audio Aero, which kind of worked well on the Violon High Sub (with built-in isobaric subwoofer) in that small room.

There were a few tonality problems, and it ran out of steam when we got it to around 90dB or so. But if *I* had only $53K or so, and a small room, and I knew I would be able to upgrade the upstream components later and get a larger room… This somewhat lobsided system would be near the top of my list.

Maybe we should do a piece on lobsided systems - usually I think the key to the best sound is Balance Balance Balance (you Brinkmann Balance turntable fans can stop smirking now ).

But it seems there are always special cases.