A few years ago, one of my clients from the 1980s contacted me after earmarking his large living room for an incredible sounding audio-video system. He loved what I had assembled for him back in the late ’80s, so he called me for this new upgrade. I want to share with you his quest to make the system fit his needs over the years. Even though the first version of his system was in the top one percent in listening quality, he was always driven to improve the sound.
His old system used the top Amrita Audio loudspeakers, locally made towers that were about the best you could get back in the ’80s if you wanted great clarity combined with lots of kick. We decided to use these speakers as our rears, because he had an unobtrusive place for them, and we wanted to aim all of his speaker budget at the top AtmaTec speakers for his fronts and center.
My client traded in his old tube Lazarus preamp for a NuPrime surround preamp, a wonderfully musical piece with excellent digital-to-analog converters and the latest surround processing. His old Lazarus hybrid amp (MOSFET transistors and tubes working together) was replaced by a NuPrime multi-channel power amp, in order to get the same incredible sophistication that he had from the Lazarus without spending a fortune. It sounded incredible, but the NuPrime surround preamp was a bit clunky to operate.
After experiencing how easy it was to operate the Yamaha Aventage surround receiver that we installed in his upstairs system, he requested that we get Yamaha’s top surround preamp to replace the NuPrime preamp. Fortunately, the Yamaha was just as musical as the NuPrime, while it gave him both ease of operation and the wonderful MusicCast music server’s access to music.
More than a decade after I built his first system, I discovered the AtmaTec Air Motion Transformer folded-ribbon tweeter. It finally fulfilled my quest to build a speaker that could actually match both the kick of a big PA horn speaker and the clarity of an electrostatic panel speaker. It was so much more powerful that eventually we had to replace his old Amrita towers with a new pair of smaller AtmaTec speakers that used these new folded ribbons to match the impact of the fronts. As big and gutsy as they were, we finally had to admit that the Amrita speakers couldn’t keep up with the AtmaTec front speakers.
This also gave us the excuse to upgrade to a 7.2 surround system, adding a third pair of AtmaTec speakers as his side surrounds. This system was crushingly exciting at any volume, yet as clear as clear could be. Then we made it even more refined by replacing the NuPrime amps with Jeff Rowland Design Group amplifiers. When everything is this excellent, each improvement is easier to appreciate.
We’ve made numerous other improvements, including better wires, power conditioners, and such, but I’m finding his newest request to be the most fun of all.
He realized that even with the end-all, be-all of surround systems, he actually prefers to listen in pure stereo. Soon we’ll be embarking on a design to use all of the drivers from his 7.2 system to build a massive AtmaTec stereo speaker pair that has three or four large folded-ribbon horns and five woofers per side for the most powerful impact imaginable, while maintaining absolute clarity.
And who knows? Someday he may want to upgrade that system back to full surround sound!
I love it when someone enjoys their music this much. Whatever your level of system, be sure to make it your own. You’ll listen to music more often.
Paul owns Golden Ears Inc. in Fairfield and has been a high-end AV consultant for over 50 years.