Mike and Neli went on a little audio adventure to visit Audio Note in the U.K., the Munich High-end 2019 show, and the Acapella Audio arts factory where we listened to the Sphaeron Excalibur speakers (pictured) for most of the day.
Details galore forthcoming after sleep and uploading and sifting through several thousand photos, 100s of videos and many recordings of various systems in 24×96 hi-res audio.
Acapella has recently come out with a music server. You’ve seen it at shows, but it is now in production and we’ve been using it here on both the big and small systems for a month or two now.
On the big system we run it into the Audio Note “Fifth Element” DAC at 24×96 and it sounds very good. Not as good as the very expensive Audio Note CDT-Five transport, but sometimes the laziness bug strikes and one just wants to set it and forget it.
On the smaller system we use the Audio One’s on-board DAC [which we also use on the big system sometimes when we want to experiment – it is VERY competitive (or better) with everything we’ve heard at the price].
The unit perfectly complements the rest of the gear in this system, which are honestly some of my personal favorites of all time and which I could happily live with forever (AN SORO integrated, AN/E Spe HE speakers, TT2), which are all in the $6K to $10K range.
We’re not giving up on CDs just yet [but if YOU are, let us give you our address and instead of just throwing them away… :-)], but their days are numbered and some are getting harder to find and more expensive – and some are now 50 cents.
Audio One music server, Price: $6875.00 USD
Neli will be at Capital Audio Fest November 2 – 4 [I am unfortunately otherwise occupied].
Please visit her and tell her how awesome she is and and how wonderful her rooms sound 🙂
She will be alternating between the Old Forge Studio room featuring the Acapella Audio Art “La Campanella” loudspeakers and the Triangle Art room.
