I hesitated a long time to write this post. After all, I first thought that the Audio Note just did not drive Kharma very well, especially when the Kegon amplifiers just did not drive the Kharmas to distraction – which they had with every other speaker we had tried them with.

With the Audio Note Ongaku, the Minis were well driven, surprise! and the Minis were able to fill up our large room with sound [more surprise!] , including bass, very nicely thank you. In fact, it was the best we had ever heard the Mini Exquisites sound.

Even though many people who heard this system thought it was the best system we had here, for their taste, [as some did with the AN SEC Silver Sig speakers in this system previously], some of our test tracks, like the 1st cut on the SACD version of Santana’s Abraxus – just did not lite our fire like they had with the previous, Very Large reference speakers we had in our main room.

Then Neli put the Jorma Design ‘Prime’ speaker cables on the system replacing the Valhalla [No, we havn’t heard the Odin yet… tick tock tick tock…]. Usually these cables add detail and ambiance and coherence – all those ‘cable-ish’ things – which these did again. But…

They seem to also now let through more dynamics, like there is more power coming from the amps. The sound wave front is much more bloomier, larger (and it was pretty big before) – the ‘color’ of these cables, orange-ish in my mind – just ADDED to the color of the Ongaku and Kharmas, both exemplary examples of what controlled-color-machines should be themselves.

With the Meitner CDSD/DCC2 digital and 10m Valhalla interconnects as source – the system was given a very pure signal.

Anyway, this is the first system where the sound rivals that of the previous system with those Very Large [Acapella Triolons] speakers… and in such a small package, too!

The soundstage is as wide and about as tall as the 7 foot speakers [except when those other speakers put the soundstage up in the rafters, which it did if you were sitting low in the listening chair] – but more firmly fixed in place.

The resolution is better – something for which the Kharmas have few peers.

The color is ‘better’, which is to say that there is more of it [in general we like a neutral sound, but not too neutral, and this lies pleasantly within our preferences].

The wrap-around sound is better – don’t know why that would be… maybe the Ongakus which we never tried on the previous setup.

The bass is, of course, not has powerful (compared to 8 10 inch woofers, surprise) but it is satisfying enough that we only miss it sometimes [and can you say… ‘Midi’ Exquisites … with their 4 large woofers? I knew you could :-)]

The dynamics is not the same, compared to that of the 30 inch and 20 inch horms – but it is only in very loud complex passages that it becomes a fault. The punchiness of the amp, and the broadband nature of the Prime cables, seems to make up a lot of ground with respect to the difference in efficiencies.

The only nit I have is that there is the slightest reticence in the mid bass somewhere – and we do not know if this is a characteristic of the speaker, speaker-amp combo, or perhaps lack of adequate vibration control on the source equipment…

So anyway – this is cool. We’ve had a number of people up here who are picky [you know, EVERYbody is picky – what is with that? :-)] and they seem to agree that this ain’t too bad sounding. So we aren’t going insane. Too much.

What does it mean that one can get much of the benefit of large efficient speakers with a properly driven small speakers [add a subwoofer for that lowest octave, which no speaker can do anyway unless it is the Marten Coltran Supremes – which will be up here presently]?

It might mean that there is a conservation of system cost – you spend it here or ya gotta spend it there – move the money from speakers to amp and cables. But this isn’t exactly true, as expensive speakers needed expensive equipment as well.

It might mean that, given money, you can chose to have a few constraints, like being able to see out the windows – and still have world-class sound.

Or it might just mean that Neli and Mike just got lucky and that there is no deep meaning here at all.

Yeah, that is probably it.

Oh well, party on dudes and dudettes.

P.S. Here we have Neli’s solution to holding up the Elrod power cord going into the Ongaku. Too bad I tore up my Harry Potter box from Amazon in a rush to get the latest book out – we could of used it instead to add a little ‘magic’ to the system… 😉