Steven Norber, founder and designer of PranaFidelity of Denver, CO continues to bring great sound to audio shows. He is also a very welcoming room host. In addition to the PranaFidelity components, this room included an international mix of gear. Sources were from Helius Designs and E.A.R, both from the UK. All cables, power cords and the power distributor from Furutech of Japan.
The System
The beautiful red speakers in the photo are the PranaFidlity Vayu/fs. They are 2-way quasi line array with quad 15 cm woofers and a 30 mm tweeter. The frequency response is 29 Hz – 22 kHz with an 8 Ohm nominal impedance that never dips below 6 Ohms. Their sensitivity is 89.5 dB.
They were powered by the PranaFidelity purna/ma, 400 watts per channel into 8 Ohms for $8,950. Yes, it is class D, but this system in no way sounded like it had a Class D amp in it. I was so impressed with the sound that I actually asked to review the amp, even though it is class D. The preamp was the PranaFideity purna/ca which includes an MM/MC phono stage (40 – 80 dB gain) for $8,500 or without the phono stage for $4,500.
The first analog source was the Helius Designs’ Viridia turntable for $7,195. Due to some shipping damage, for this show, it had the Helius Omega Standard 10-inch tonearm that sells for $3,595. Also due to the shipping accident, they were using a Denon 103R phono cartridge. Even with these changes to what was originally planned, the system still sounded fantastic.
The other analog source was an E.A.R modified RS-Technics 1500 for $10,000 and the CD Player was an E.A.R Acute Classic for $6,795. I did not hear the system with the CD player, but with both of the analog sources, this room sounded simply stunning.
Note: A complete list of our coverage for this show is available here.