Yeah, yeah, everyone wants to know how it sounds and how it compares to the Meitner…

So do we!

You can really tell it is still breaking in because everyday it sounds… different from the day before. One day is is bright. The next it is over-damped. Tomorrow… ?

And, like everyone else, there is some trepedation on our part that it will get ‘stuck’ with of these abnormal personailities and be done breaking in, stuck in a less-than-optimal ‘gear’.

But the Capitole takes about 6 weeks before it settles down (usually, but sometimes it seems to break in much more quickly (!?)) so we are trying to be patient.

And the sound is converging towards something very… I would say analog. It doesn’t have the detail of an LP, of course (nothing digital has that much resolution, …so far, anyway), but there is this feeling, this kind of warmth that is not like tubes and not like anything else but vinyl. I know, it is kind of weird – but the Capitole was somewhat like this, at least dynamicaly, and the Prestige seems like it is following in its footsteps – but more so…

At least today it does.

We have a pair of the yummy Audio Aero Prestige monoblock amplifers here on loan. We’ve had their baby brother, the Audio Aero Capitole 50 watt stereo amplifier here for a few years and loved it – so we have high-expectations for these puppies.

Here are some pictures…

More on how they sound later (they are however, largely unbroken-in, and we need to fit them in between auditions… too many things breaking in at once makes for not-so-nice listening sessions)….

Meanwhile the Prestige SACD/CD player in continuing to break-in quite nicely.

Got the new player in… was it yesterday?

Here are some pics:

The player is sitting on an HRS Isolation Base and has a HRS damping plate on top.

You can see here that the Prestige, like the Audio Aero Capitole, comes with three Black Diamond Racing Cone feet, two ‘4’s and one ‘3’.

The Prestige has a built-in preamplifier, also like the Capitole. The powercord is a Shunyata Anaconda Vx, the interconnects are the Stealth INDRA.

Our first impressions are very favorable. Our expectations were low, switching from the warm Meitner, which had been on for a week or two since the show, and has been broke-in in for a year now, to a cold Prestige with no time on it . But we were very pleased… out of the box, CDs were actually very enjoyable – as we couldn’t help but play about 10 different CDs to check it out (naw, just like most people, we can’t stand waiting until the player is warmed up and broke-in in more than a few hours like we are all supposed to….).

Burn(in) baby, burn(in)!