What do these three Beatnik Bongos winners have in common? It’s all about the sound. In the case of the first winner below, it’s about amazing sound for an amazingly low cost. The next two winners are both really good systems with a vinyl source. We try to keep a balance, but if you know me, you know vinyl is how I like to listen to music. At any rate, congratulations to those who put these three systems together. I enjoyed listening to them.
Voxativ Absolut Hagen – Best Hi-End System Without the Fuss
Admittedly, the Voxativ Absolut Hagen System may not be the set up of your dreams, but it sure is affordable, and it sounds really good. Now, don’t let it’s deceptively simply looks fool you, as I said, it sounds really good. Plus, the whole system sells for $7,900, and that includes the Voxativ speaker cables and stands.
All you need to provide is a smartphone to wirelessly stream music to the system. You could easily add a music server and a turntable if you wish. With the built-in DSP, the folks at Voxativ say the system is flat to 45Hz and rolls off slowly from there. You can read more about the system here in my review.h
GTT Audio – Best System with a Vinyl Source Under $500,00
This is the kind of system you find only at audio shows. The excellent retailer from New Jersey, GTT Audio, assembled an incredible system from their top brands. They had the debut of the Kronos Reference Phono Stage at $45,000. The rest of this incredible vinyl system was a Kronos Pro turntable at $42,000 with a Black Beauty tonearm at $12,375.
They also had a Kronos SCPS 1 power supply at $15,000, Kronos Upgraded Reference Umbilical Cables for $5,400 and a beautiful-sounding Air Tight Opus 1 cartridge for $15,000. That means this vinyl setup alone cost over $100,000, but man did it make music.
GTT was also debuting YG Acoustics Vantage loudspeakers that sell for $32,800 for a pair. This may seem a little inexpensive for the speakers in a system at this price, but this was the most musical system I have heard that used YG speakers. They were driven by the Audionet HEISENBERG monoblocks for $105,000 a pair with an Audionet Stern preamp for $45,000. They used Kubala-Sosna Realization cabling and a Sosna XPander.
This system was mesmerizing on Sunday morning. The speakers just didn’t seem to be where any of the music was coming from, and it was such glorious music. Singers all had their own space and their own sound. Scale, space and tone were simply lovely. Yes, it is expensive, but it showed the superiority of an analog system in a significant way.
Quintessence Audio – Best System with a Vinyl Source Under $50,000
The Quintessence Audio room featured Sonus Faber Amati Tradition speakers for $29,900 driven by a pair of Simaudio MOON Monoblock Amplifiers at $42,000 a pair and a Simaudio MOON 850P Preamplifier for $28,000. There was Kubala-Sosna Cabling throughout the system, and everything was sitting on Critical Mass Systems component stands.
The vinyl source was an AMG Giro 5th Turntable with 9″ Turbo Tonearm for $13,500 mounted with the brand new DS Audio E1 optical phono cartridge for $2,750, including its dedicated phono stage.A
That a system of this price and quality could have a turntable, tonearm, optical phono cartridge and phono stage that have a combined retail price of $16,250 simply amazed me.
And, this was another room that showed the superiority of analog. The digital source, a Simaudio Moon 780 V2 Streaming DAC at $15,000 just didn’t make music come to life like the turntable system did. Of course, I do admit there’s considerable bias on my part when it comes to vinyl versus digital. Still, I can’t wait to hear the new entry-level DS Audio E1 optical cartridge in my system.
