Words and Photos by Jameson Mourafetis

Some of you have heard the Blu Mk2 or Hugo M-Scaler and know that impressions vary wildly from person to person. For some, the M-Scaler technology offers a subtle improvement, and for others, it’s a must-have that makes a greater difference than the choice of Chord DAC tier. For those of us who hear it and really get it, it can be puzzling that the magnitude of the impact varies so greatly, but I can say with confidence that Quartet just isn’t going to be like that. There’s nothing remotely subtle about the improvement the Quartet Scaler brings, and I’m confident that the range of listener reactions won’t be nearly as varied, at least not at the lesser end of the spectrum. Listening with headphones, specifically the DCA Stealth as well as my wife’s Abyss Diana Phis, the difference was stark. I’ll break it down into sections:

Imaging

For those of us who really enjoy the M-Scaler, the first standouts are imaging-related. Images are stable, dense, and solid. The edges of images are well defined. Space between images is definite. Focusing on individual images is easy. With the Quartet, all of this goes from something you can actively hear to something that becomes entirely effortless. These attributes are present but taken to a level where you don’t even have to focus or strain or try to hear them. It just happens. With live music, you don’t have to think about where each source is. They’re just there. Your brain doesn’t have to put it together. It’s second nature. Quartet is as close to this experience as I’ve ever heard with digital audio.

Stage Boundaries, Depth/Width/Height, Stage Coherence

Stage boundaries completely dissolved. Most of you are probably familiar with that eerie, lifelike “decay into empty space” feeling the M-Scaler brings in the Z axis and the extreme depth, but Quartet brings that quality to all dimensions. The decay into empty space extends to the sides, up and down, and of course, still behind images. Width, height, and depth of the images aren’t artificially stretched. It’s the space around them that expands. For live recordings, the space is recreated with much more extreme, lifelike scale in all directions with no emphasis on one particular direction. You no longer get just the narrower, depth-focused stage that the M-Scaler is known for. You get it all. There’s also no disconnect between “lobes” or “zones” to your front, sides, or areas at different heights like you often get with even some of the best headphone systems. The stage is completely coherent and without gaps in any direction.

Flow

This is an area that’s really difficult to describe. Some of you hear it with M-Scaler, some of you don’t, but with Quartet, it’s just so effortless and obvious. There’s a rigidity and stiffness and stiltedness to digital audio that most listeners would have trouble identifying without hearing it removed, and Quartet does just that. The music just flows. It’s “analog,” as cliché as that sounds. You’ll really just have to hear it to believe it. And for those of you who didn’t hear this attribute with the previous M-Scalers, I’m confident you will with Quartet.

Oh, and I guess at this point I should mention that this was all with a Quartet feeding a Mojo 2. Having heard Hugo M-Scaler with Qutest, Hugo 2, Hugo TT2, and DAVE, I’m certain the jump in performance with DAVE vs. Mojo 2 will be enormous, and I can’t wait to get a unit into my very nearly finished reference listening room.

For those of you who aren’t sure if the Quartet will be worth it at what I’m assuming will be a higher price than DAVE, I assure you, you’ll just have to hear it yourself. I think you’ll be surprised. As far as the effect it had on me: after years of waiting for Quartet to be released (and being a former Chord dealer, I knew about its development earlier than most), I had resigned to getting a much more expensive digital setup than DAVE+Quartet, but this rather brief listening session has upended those plans entirely. I can’t say definitively what my plans are without getting a unit in my room to test more extensively, but it’s hard to imagine Quartet won’t make its way into my reference system. Oh, and it’s also convinced me to repurchase DAVE.

This ended up being much longer than I intended, so my apologies for the rambling. Maybe it sounds over the top, but if it wasn’t clear, I was rather impressed by the long-awaited Quartet Scaler and had to get my thoughts down.

And I almost forgot to mention, I’m sure some of you have heard about the EQ feature mentioned by Darko and again in the CanJam preview video (and maybe earlier in this thread or over on the Watts Up thread?), but there’s also another surprise feature Rob managed to squeeze into Quartet: a line-level Pulse-Array ADC. More details on that to come soon, along with a full-scale review, but some of you will see for yourselves at CanJam this weekend, where the Quartet will be on display with DAVE. I’ll be there too. See you there!

I should also add that while the internals in the Quartet I heard are final, the casework is not, so expect it to look slightly different when it becomes available for sale later this year.

The post Chord Electronics Quartet Scaler | SNEAK PREVIEW appeared first on INDULGR.

Let me start by getting one thing straight: I’m not here for anything less than the best. As the ultra high-end reviewer here at INDULGR, my goal is to find the absolute best gear irrespective of price. I’m here for the crème de la crème. I’m always looking for the next thing to surpass my own standards. Anything less isn’t worth my time, and really, is it worth yours? Unless what I’m listening to just doesn’t live up to its price, that just isn’t a factor.

Words and Photos by Jameson Mourafetis

Sure $30k may sound extravagant for a small two-way tower, but the Carmels’ extraordinary performance never brings up the question of price.

The YG Acoustics Rebirth

If you’re new to YG Acoustics, they have been in the game since 2002, carving out a space in high-end audio. While they’ve always had serious engineering chops to back up their reputation, now under new ownership, the brand feels refreshed – bringing together loads of experience and ideas to the world of endgame loudspeakers.

Many of the last generation YG Acoustics speakers weren’t the easiest speakers to extract impressive sound from at shows–be it their finickiness with placement and room interaction or their difficult-to-find electronic synergy.

With their latest generation reference series, however, YG has moved beyond the gradual enhancements that many expect in audio, and while I’ve always been a fan of the Carmel speaker from YG Acoustics in particular, including the Carmel 3’s predecessor, the Carmel 2, Carmel 3 transcends all my expectations. The new YG Acoustics sound isn’t just evolutionary—it’s revolutionary. For such compact reference speakers, the Carmel 3s are making big waves. The third generation reference series is more than a few steps in the right direction. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

YG Acoustics Carmel 3

The YG Acoustics Carmel 3 is more than just a sealed (acoustic suspension) 2-way speaker. To say the very least, the level of engineering that has gone into these speakers puts them in rarified air in the audio industry.

• The cabinet is made from carefully designed machined aluminum panels and bracing
• The tweeter uses a new generation of YG’s hallmark hybrid soft-hard lattice braced technology
• The mid-woofer cone is machined from a single billet of aluminum.​

The Carmel 3’s proportions and aesthetics make it a perfect fit for the high-end home. The aerospace-grade aluminum cabinets not only look stunning but also deliver an impressive stage scale for such a compact speaker. The enclosure is built from precision-machined aluminum alloy, up to 35mm thick where needed for added stability. This sealed design, combined with strategic internal bracing and damping, works wonders to reduce cabinet resonances. The design approach again being holistically multi-domain, delivers state of the art performance in an impressively svelte form. As far as I’m concerned, in the world of high end audio, Carmels are a design icon.

For more in-depth information about YG Acoustics specific technologies: https://www.yg-acoustics.com/technologies/

YG Acoustics offers the Carmels in two standard finishes, black and silver, but a wide variety of custom anodized color options are also available. I am partial to their custom dark bronze.

What’s in the box?

While they may look more or less the same as Carmel 2 (link) on the outside, the internals are far from the same. The all new third generation Ultra-coherent crossover is designed using an iterative cycle of listening, measuring, and multi-dimensional modeling. YG Acoustics doesn’t use the typical single-domain finite element analysis typical to high-end speaker design. They take a more holistic multi-domain modeling approach while designing every part of the speaker–from the drivers to baffle shape to the waveguide to the crossovers–that optimizes for phase linearity, low distortion, and excellent transient response through the crossover range and beyond across a range of over 200 different simulated amplifiers.

This approach is computationally heavy, but gives astounding results. The new Carmel 3 presents a level of coherence between each of the state of the art, ultra low distortion drivers rarely found at any price. Something that frankly isn’t complained about enough in high end audio is how easy it is in many designs to discern where the midrange transitions to the tweeter especially when outside of the often narrow listening sweet spot. This is a region often fraught with issues in all but the very best designs. You can identify no such point while listening to the Carmel 3s even well off-axis, and that’s an exceedingly rare feat. It presents as close to a point source as I’ve heard despite the traditional tweeter-midrange arrangement.

Back to My Expectations

I’m a huge fan of ultra-high-end two-way designs, and I know they can deliver some of the most transparent, coherent performances in the audiophile world — but they do tend to have some compromises, and so with the Carmels featuring a small, sealed, highly damped aluminum cabinet design, I knew what to expect, or thought I did.

The Carmel 3 present a sensitivity of 87dB/W/m, I assumed they’d need a serious amplifier to reach their peak performance. While this is more or less true, and while they do scale well with serious current delivery, their use of amplifier simulations during the design process has really paid off, and I was surprised to find that even amplifiers with modest power delivery could deliver pleasant results. Surprises aren’t something I encounter much in the audiophile world anymore, and pleasant surprises even more rarely, but the Carmels managed to do so in more ways than one.

Electronics Pairings

So what electronics pairings did I land on to extract the most from the Carmels?

The first was the Soulnote A-3 integrated amplifier, delivering 120W into 4 ohms or 60W into 8 ohms—a match I never expected to work. I’ve covered exactly what the Soulnote can do in greater depth in my full review of the A-3 here, but let’s just say that, despite its modest power figures, it produced an engaging and distinct sound with the Carmels that I absolutely loved hearing, and recommend wholly.

The second setup was with the Carmels driven by the Karan Acoustics POWERb stereo amplifier, rated at 800W into 4 ohms or 450W into 8 ohms. While I thoroughly enjoyed the YG-Soulnote pairing, the YG-Karan combo showcased what the Carmels are capable of when given even higher-end electronics. Albeit not the most logical pairing when considering price, but I like overkill.

The 220 lb Karan amplifier brought out significantly more and better quality low-end and dynamics than you’d ever expect to hear from such a small sealed 2-way tower, even at very low listening levels; something I look for in every high end system, and something most fail to deliver. This setup surprisingly also opened up more in every dimension spatially despite being a slightly darker sounding pre and amp pairing than the Soulnote integrated.

I won’t spoil any more details on the Karan experience, as that’s for an upcoming review, but it’s clear the Carmels can scale impressively as you pair them with higher-end electronics.

As any speaker reviewer should, I did try the Carmels with a variety of electronics, and they didn’t exhibit the finickiness with electronics pairings older YG Acoustics generations often did. No high-end pairing disappointed, but the aforementioned two systems were my favorites.

Sonic Choices / Scale

I get it, just about every speaker review claims an “expansive soundstage.” But what Carmels do despite their diminutive size is genuinely unique and is nothing short of amazing. Like many small speakers, they manage the disappearing act very well, but unlike many small speakers, in medium and far-field setups, the scale and depth makes you question if you’re still listening to a ‘small’ speaker: not with exaggeration, but with natural, truer to life stage reproduction, and importantly, without the miniaturization effect that’s far too common in smaller speakers even in the high end tier. Even in nearfield, the Carmels manage to scale in a way that feels natural, and yes, again, uncharacteristic of their size. Imaging is solid and lifelike, with depth, height, and stability that brings each musical element to life.

Tonal Character

YG also has made bold choices with the Carmel 3 and with their latest generation of reference speakers, opting for a slightly colored sound over strict neutrality—and I’m glad they did. The result is a pleasing tonal character that avoids pigeonholing itself into serving only certain genres of music or just boring audiophile recordings.

The bass is tight and punchy, an effect only achievable to this degree with a sealed design, while the low-end quality and resolution exceeds what I’d expect from a two-way speaker. The midrange has a sweet, engaging, immersive warmth. The top end is smooth and airy without sacrificing detail. They aren’t dark or rolled off, but there’s a slight softness and refinement in the highs that are hard to find at any price.

Despite this subtle coloration, transparency remains exceptional across the frequency spectrum, and as I mentioned earlier, coherence across the spectrum is off the charts.

The Carmels bring out the best in even less-than-ideal recordings without sacrificing resolution. Feed them more audiophile-friendly, high resolution content and you’ll find that their resolution is up there with the very best options available. You hear deep into everything you play on these speakers, but it’s never unpleasant, never boring, and above all, never harsh. I’d go as far as to say that anyone who struggles with the hardness and ruthless extension you find in the top end of many of today’s best modern speakers should look no further.

While I wouldn’t pair them with overly dark electronics unless you’re sensitive to treble, this character opens up a range of pairing options, including many excellent electronics that might seem too bright with other high-end speakers.

That isn’t to say they don’t need to be paired with top-tier electronics – they certainly deserve to be and scale extremely well when you do so. But it is to say that you won’t run into that issue in the treble that does prevent many electronics pairings with many speakers in this price tier, and you’ll truly almost never run into a pairing that’s harsh or sibilant.

Its tasteful, subtle coloration is a unique feature in this product tier. While setup remains crucial for optimal performance, like with any speaker at this level of performance,, the design’s versatility makes it suitable for more setups and electronic pairings than most high-end speakers. These are easy to recommend, and that extends to the entire YG Acoustics reference range.

Conclusion

(the long version)

If it hasn’t already been made clear enough, I’ve always been drawn to high-end two-ways. While excellent coherence is difficult to pull of in any speaker design, as I mentioned earlier in the review, well-executed two-ways are tough to beat in terms of transparency and coherence when compared to 3 and 4 way speakers with far more crossover components in the signal path and more drivers to worry about, but the Carmel 3s manage to do something special in this category. While I’m filled with trepidation to say this and at great risk of offending one of my absolute favorite speaker designers, I have to be honest about something…

These speakers eclipse my very long-standing favorite two-way, the Magico S1MK2 (link), as my new absolute favorites in this category, and unless I opt for one of their even higher-end pairs of reference towers, such as the new XX, I will be purchasing a pair of the Carmel 3s.

Trust your ears. You won’t be disappointed.

And at the risk of ruffling even more feathers than I already have, before the change in ownership, I frankly didn’t consider them to live in the same echelon/tier as my absolute favorite designers, and now I absolutely do consider them to be among the best. The YG Acoustics reference series has gone from being finicky with potential–in previous generations–to being always excellent–with the latest generation. They feel like a completely different thing, and they’re absolutely at the very least in the same conversation as other top-tier speakers available today. I’m thrilled to learn that the new owners really do seem to know what they’re doing.  For those who’ve written off YG Acoustics in the past, you owe it to yourself to go listen to the new-gen reference speakers ASAP.

The new YG Acoustics sound isn’t just evolutionary, it’s revolutionary. For such compact reference speakers, the Carmel 3s are deservedly making big waves—and not just in audiophile circles. These are truly icons in the world of high end audio, and they’re a perfect fit for anyone who can appreciate state of the art sound and design.

So should you try them? I think you already know my answer. If ultra high performance, state of the art, world-class products are your language, then Carmel 3s fit right in.

And if you’re someone who appreciates a touch of warmth and tonal character over strict neutrality, then these are a perfect match. It suits listeners who want flexibility across genres without being limited to audiophile recordings.Even if you think you prefer a strictly neutral sound, you owe it to yourself to go listen to the Carmel 3s, and I can’t emphasize enough that if you’ve heard previous generations of YG Acoustics speakers and written them off, you’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t go and find out for yourself what the new YG Acoustics’ sound is all about. Listen to them. Again, trust your ears. And I have no doubt you’ll come to the same conclusions I did.

Specs & Features

https://www.yg-acoustics.com/products/carmel-3/

About the author and INDULGR

As he alluded to above, Jameson, the owner and publisher here at INDULGR, is the resident high-end snob. He’s very up-front about his disdain for anything but the best. He has no time for gear with endgame prices without matching endgame performances, and anything less than a brand’s flagship series shouldn’t even be mentioned in his presence. And yes, unlike reviewers at other magazines, he can afford, and will purchase, the absolute best gear irrespective of cost. His goal is to find the summit in the world of audio and to share it with the rest of the luxury world that doesn’t know they need it yet. To that end, he’s in the process of building the flagship INDULGR listening room that will make clear INDULGR’s level of seriousness in the world of high-end audio as well as other luxury segments we cover.

This is where the absolute best gear in the world will be tested. It’s rarified air to have a space suitable for such gear, and even rarer for a magazine to have the expertise to execute it to this level. Flagship gear will be heard in a way never before listened to by review magazines. The big fish in the small pond of audio shouldn’t be worried though, INDULGR is playing in a much larger arena, and we intend to test gear their rooms wouldn’t properly handle anyway. This is for the client looking for the absolute best without thinking twice about it. They won’t notice the money is missing. IE these are not the 90 year old audiophiles you’re writing to, so don’t sweat it. We’ll take it from here. 

The post YG Acoustics Carmel 3 | REVIEW appeared first on INDULGR.

Ego vita!

Call me Jameson — owner and founder of INDULGR magazine. While we all explore the world of high-end here at INDULGR magazine, I specialize in the upper most echelon of these pursuits, the “ultra-high-end.” When it comes to these audiophile toys, I’m only interested in the absolute best sound available. I’ve spent time as both dealer and customer — and as a result — thousands of hours testing equipment. It doesn’t take long for me to know if something is excellent or not, and frankly, I don’t have time for gear that isn’t exceptionally performant at any price.

Words and Photos by Jameson Mourafetis

Value isn’t really something I’m overly concerned with unless something doesn’t live up to its price tag or represents an extreme value in the world of luxury endgame gear — it must compete with the absolute best. At our top secret INDULGR HQ, the process of building out a large flagship listening space, dedicated to evaluating the pinnacle of audio performance is under way, and in a way that other publications haven’t had the space or funds to do properly. Stay tuned for more on that front, but for now, let’s dive into the Soulnote A-3 integrated amplifier.

Introduction: Soulnote A-3 Integrated Amplifier

I will always have a love hate relationship with integrated amplifiers. They’re almost always compromised sonically compared to their separate component counterparts, even though conceptually, they don’t have to be. The space savings and visual cleanliness of such for secondary or office system use is obviously appealing. My hunt for the ultimate “Super Integrated” continues, and my radar detected the new A-3 as soon as I received early news that Soulnote would be releasing a flagship 3 Series integrated. I’ve spent a few months with the Soulnote A-3, and it’s clear that it preserves all the build quality and sound, found throughout the rest of their flagship 3 Series components without giving up any of that wonderful Soulnote ‘voodoo magic’ through integrated consolidation. The A3 combines elements of Soulnote’s flagship P-3 preamplifier and M-3 monoblock amplifiers into a more compact single-chassis design, and brings forth sonic attributes not normally found in compromised integrated amplifiers. In terms of the brands offerings, which is to say relatively low power for solid state — but still relatively high power in the world of Japanese amplifiers — the A3 seemingly makes no compromises within their own world of “Japanese Super Integrateds.”

Aesthetics and Architecture

The Soulnote A-3, as well as the rest of the 3 Series lineup, manages to tastefully execute a bold-minimalist design in the world of high-end audio. The design language manages to break free of the monotony one might expect from the Japanese audio world while bringing some much-needed restraint to international markets. Soulnote certainly isn’t just regurgitating what everyone else has done in high-end audio since the beginning of time. Instead, their design fits perfectly into a modern high-end home. It can stand alone as the centerpiece of a serious listening system or integrate tastefully with most architectural styles. Regardless of how you display the amplifier, it’s beautifully finished inside and out, and every surface screams quality manufacturing. On first touch, however, it may be easy to mistake some of the design quirks — such as the teetering top-plate — for quality issues or oversights, but I assure you, everything about every Soulnote product is intentional, and done purely for the pursuit of better sound. 

Unconventional Design | Kato-san’s Philosophy

To get a better sense of the intention behind Soulnote, you have to understand the designer, Hideki Kato. Kato-san’s design philosophy is centered around improving dynamic performance rather than focusing on the static measurement parameters many designers these days are obsessed with. Music is far more complex than just constant-amplitude sine waves or pink noise. The way Kato-san sees it, measurement-focused designs overlook dynamic performance, the performance actually re-producing music. He advocates for something we at INDULGR insist on: trust your ears. According to Kato-san, measurement-driven design approaches often yield very technically good but boring, lifeless results. The concept of true dynamic-focused, listening-driven design has been eschewed for many years in western markets with static design focus still dominating many audiophile circles. Kato-san doesn’t throw away measurements just for the heck of it—measurements are taken as far as necessary with all decisions made in pursuit of audio nirvana for music reproduction, not a perfect sine wave. While he ventures into territory most here in the west would consider voodoo, the results are undeniable. Kato-san knows what he’s doing. 

The ‘voodoo’ in Kato-san’s approach extends beyond just circuit design, and this is made immediately apparent the moment you interact with the A-3. As mentioned above, the top plate teeters when pressed at the corners. The binding posts and power receptacle are floating and left unmounted. The amplifier rests on 3 spikes that dig into an included spike-receiving wood platform. As an aside, when packing the amplifier for my review, the Soulnote team giggled profusely when explaining that you do, in fact, spike directly into the gorgeously finished wood platform. More quirks are found inside the amplifier where PCBs are also left unmounted. Despite the intentional lack of rigidity of the chassis, you’ll find hardly any damping material anywhere on the amplifier. Every quirk was implemented with thorough listening tests, again, purely in the pursuit of music reproduction. Everything is tested by ear, and if Kato-san says it makes a difference, you can be damn well sure it did in his listening tests. The cumulative result is something very special, and just calling it Japanese quirkiness would be hugely reductive.

To read more about Kato-san’s design philosophy, I highly encourage you to read his series of blog posts, translated to English here.

Sonic Impressions

The quirks don’t end at the unusual design choices. The sound signature of the A-3 is far from what western markets are used to — it’s not the conventional sterile, boring, clinical, rigid, “correct” overly pleasant sound we’ve come to expect from too many high-end amplifiers from Switzerland, Germany, or the United States, but it’s also not the overly syrupy signature nor the bright, bass-absent signature you often find in the two main camps of high end Japanese electronics. The sound is forward and present, projecting the stage into your room with lifelike aplomb while retaining a subtle warmth to the overall presentation. There’s a sense of speed and transient snappiness, without giving up fluidity or microdynamic expression, that just isn’t typical to such stylized signatures.

The sound of the A-3 is rich and full-bodied across the audio spectrum, not just low-end-focused. While the bass output has great depth and speed, it doesn’t steal the show. It’s presented as one component of the coherent stage without leaving the rest of the spectrum an afterthought. Despite my usual preference for bombastic low-end, the A-3 provides such a pleasant signature that it truly didn’t leave me wanting. The midrange is stylized in a pleasantly musical and emotionally engaging way with vocals placed palpably in front of you. The stage isn’t exaggerated outwardly or shrunken — it’s there in the room with you at lifelike size with well-defined image edges. The top end is extended and crystalline but still smooth—not smoothed over or rolled off or sluggish the way you find in designs that pursue “tube-iness.” Ambient and other low level details are rendered transparently but not distractingly or exaggerated artificially.

Holistically, this amplifier oozes emotional engagement.

Standout Pairing: YG Acoustics Carmel 3

With the help of the excellent YG Acoustics Carmel 3 loudspeakers, the conclusion I keep arriving at is that not only is the A-3 wonderfully stylized, it also achieves what many high-end integrated amplifiers fail to do at any price: exhibit levels of sonic refinement that almost always require a discrete preamplifier to achieve. Did the Carmel-A-3 combination give me the most oomph in the lowest octave or gigantic macrodynamics? No, but again, while I usually would be disappointed by the lack of foundational low-end focus, the pairing managed to provide such a such a level of emotional engagement with the music that nothing felt lacking or out of balance, and the Carmel’s transparency allowed me to dig in and know exactly what the amplifier provided: the refinement of separates. With a more efficient speaker like many of those popular in the Japanese market, the A-3 may deliver more low-end, sure, but the more even presentation of the pairing, as-is, manages to impress. I don’t want to give away too much as far as my now-released YG Acoustics Carmel 3 review, but suffice it to say, the Carmel 3’s transparency allowed me to dig in and reveal exactly what the A-3 provided in terms of refinement.

The A-3, and Soulnote, in the world of High End Audio

So where does the A-3, and more broadly, Soulnote, fit in with the world of high-end audio? These products are musically and emotionally involving first in a way you won’t find here in the west while remaining uniquely stylized even in the world of quirky Japanese electronics. With their pleasantly stylized signature, they’ll find absolutely no trouble finding customers. I rarely find gear I’m excited enough to want to bring home for review, and it’s even more rare that I find gear I want to keep, but Soulnote has managed to more than pique my curiosity, and I’ll absolutely need to hear the rest of the 3-Series lineup as soon as I can.

Conclusion

What Soulnote has accomplished with this product is far from trivial. It’s hard to overstate how few so-called “super integrateds” really achieve the refinement of separates, but in my search for the ultimate integrated, the A-3 is one of the few. Without a doubt, you need to hear it with your own ears to understand it, but once you do, it’s made clear that Soulnote is worthy of the recent attention and praise it’s been receiving here in the west.

I think my thoughts here have been pretty clear don’t you? I’m with Kato-san when I say: go listen to the damn thing. Don’t let standard measurements dictate what you enjoy. Trust your ears. I have no doubt that the Soulnote A-3 will speak to most of you, as it has for me.

Specs & Features

https://www.soulnote.audio/soulnote-en/series-3/a-3

About the author and INDULGR

As he alluded to above, Jameson, the owner and publisher here at INDULGR, is the resident high-end snob. He’s very up-front about his disdain for anything but the best. He has no time for gear with endgame prices without matching endgame performances, and anything less than a brand’s flagship series shouldn’t even be mentioned in his presence. And yes, unlike reviewers at other magazines, he can afford, and will purchase, the absolute best gear irrespective of cost. His goal is to find the summit in the world of audio and to share it with the rest of the luxury world that doesn’t know they need it yet. To that end, he’s in the process of building the flagship INDULGR listening room that will make clear INDULGR’s level of seriousness in the world of high-end audio as well as other luxury segments we cover.

This is where the absolute best gear in the world will be tested. It’s rarified air to have a space suitable for such gear, and even rarer for a magazine to have the expertise to execute it to this level. Flagship gear will be heard in a way never before listened to by review magazines. The big fish in the small pond of audio shouldn’t be worried though, INDULGR is playing in a much larger arena, and we intend to test gear their rooms wouldn’t properly handle anyway. This is for the client looking for the absolute best without thinking twice about it. They won’t notice the money is missing. IE these are not the 90 year old audiophiles you’re writing to, so don’t sweat it. We’ll take it from here. 

The post Soulnote A-3 | REVIEW appeared first on INDULGR.