Ye Olde Editor the seeker: A moment in Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Israel, 2022 (photograph by John Robinson).
Well, actually from Long Valley, NJ, the home base of Bill Parish and GTT Audio.
Because there's significant news from that site.
Those of you who have been following my reviews, photo essays, and commentary over the years, you know that I have been a longtime seeker for the best of the best, the highest examples of the audio arts in existence. Being convinced that the "Golden Age of Audio" is right now, and not way back in a distant mythical past, I have been keeping my ears open for new breakthroughs whenever I heard of them.
"Trail of the Trace." Oil painting by Dan Zimmerman, 2019
From time to time, I would hear rumors of such excellence being achieved in an audio component. It would take too much time to gather up the master list; let's just say that over the 35 years that I've been editing Positive Feedback, I've gotten to hear some fine components in all categories from many different companies.
And we've all had some variation of that experience, I think. Every now and then, something special comes along, and reminds you of why you decided to get into audio. It may not happen often, but when it does, you smile and feel blessed for the moment.
My own category for the "best of the best" in a given product category has been my designation of a component as sui generis, that is, a design that transcends the quality category itself and is in its own category… there being nothing else like it in my experience. That is the highest praise that I can bestow.
But recently, I spent a long weekend in New Jersey at GTT Audio in Long Valley. And there I got to hear something that I had not heard before: an entire system that was sui generis!
I've watched it build up over the years. You can tell a lot about an audio distributor/dealer by seeing what its line cards look like. Some are chaotic and disorganized; others more coherent and focused. And a very few are highly visionary, evidencing an ability to find great designs and bring them into arrays that bring out the very best in a much higher synergy.
Bill Parish, Head Honcho of GTT Audio
Side note: I've known Bill for some 20+ years now. He's a friend closer than a brother, and one of my best audiobuds. A charter member of the Audiophile Cigar Society, he and I have been to many herfs over the years.
Nevertheless. If Bill's components and systems didn't do anything for me, we could continue to be audiobuds and cigar lovers, but I wouldn't be talking about his audio lines. I have a number of audiobuds like that.
In GTT Audio's reference listening room 1, itself a wonder. But here you see the Vivid Audio Moya M1 Loudspeakers, a quad set of Audionet Heisenberg Monoblock Amps, and a loom of Kubala-Sosna cables.
But going back to sui generis and maximum audio system synergy, Bill Parish of GTT Audio has certainly done this with this new reference system. After years of regular new discoveries and adding the best of the best; always more impressive experiences in his reference listening room.
Over the years, and after years of seeking, Bill has put together the following major players in an remarkable way, one piece at a time:
Audionet (see my prior comments at HERE and HERE)
Nothing more to say here. Audionet occupies the top rank of fine audio electronics in my book, as I have been saying since 2014. Sui generis, for sure.
Which is why Audionet is a permanent fixture in our reference stereo room here at PF Central.
Kubala-Sosna
Joe Kubala of Kubala-Sosna Cables... the Man!
You know, the role of high-end cables in a fine audio system is too often overlooked. Those who don't pay attention to cables... or who dismiss its effects completely (truly ignorant/stupid, that)... simply don't get it.
Those who get it, get it.
I have been paying attention to cables for nearly 40 years now. Once I became aware of the serious difference that fine cables made, I no longer had any questions on the subject. It was just a question of which cables, not if cables. And there are some brilliant cable companies out there: for example, Cardas Audio, TARA Labs, Synergistic Research, Double Helix Cables (headphones), RSX, and Skogrand all come to mind immediately. I'm sure that I would think of others if I spent a bit on the subject.
But sitting up at the mountaintop? Sui generis?
Gotta be Kubala-Sosna with its Realization line of reference cables.
Greg Weaver and Bill Parish with the Moya M1
I had spent years with the earlier reference, the Kubala-Sosna Elation! cables, which remain very fine in my audio memories.
But then, years ago, Joe sent me a single sample of what was then their new reference, the Realization.
Howard Sosna and Joe Kubala of Kubala-Sosna, AXPONA 2019
As I've learned with Kubala-Sosna over the years, adding one length...especially of the Realization...definitely brought a greater ease and naturalness...an increase in the sense, ironically enough, of the cable disappearing. With each additional length of Realization, that impression increased.
But the transformation to full glory, of the entire cable network dropping away, occurs when the last piece of the cable is Realization. Strangely enough, Realization hits its full stride in its vanishing act only when the entire loom is Realization.
GTT's reference Room #1 is completely cabled this way, and this is how I heard the Moya M1's. My own reference stereo listening room is likewise equipped with a loom of Realization cables. In both cases, the sound of the system was completely transformed by the catching away of the cables. Astonishing.
But it's particularly with the Moya M1's that the sui generis achievement that the Realization cables represent was confirmed.
Kubala-Sosna's achievement confirms that high-end cables are a true and complete component in an audiophile system...no less.
And Kubala-Sosna's Realization cables take their place at the mountaintop. Not cheap, but utterly transformational, particularly in a complete loom.
You've been informed!
KRONOS
Louis Desjardins of KRONOS, visiting Bill Parish and yours truly at GTT Audio, Long Valley, NJ
I've written again and again about KRONOS and its design genius, Louis Desjardins. So many times over the years that I'll simply give you the PF search results HERE. (Note that others at PF turn up, as well.) In my own listening room...where a KRONOS Pro LE plus Discovery RS tonearm plus DS Audio Grandmaster optical cartridge resides...in Bill Parish's reference listening room with its state-of-the-art KRONOS Discovery with Discovery RS tonearm...and at various audio shows. I've given Louis' work multiple awards, which in all fairness I have done with several other of these components.
Louis Desjardins in GTT Audio's reference Listening Room 1; behind him is the Kronos Discovery Turntable system
Louis' latest iteration of his Discovery system...for it is a system...is something that I cannot speak too highly of. After many years of listening to the improvements that Louis has brought to the possibilities of LP playback, I can only say that the full Discovery system is...yes...sui generis, as I have proclaimed before. It stands alone in the world of fine audio in my experience, and is the best of the best. Period.
If you think differently, make sure that you hear it before coming to final conclusions.
Vivid Audio (Specifically, see HERE, and HERE).
Master Fidelity
There it is! The brand new Master Fidelity NADAC D DAC (top) and NADAC C Clock (below). Simply the best that I've ever heard...
NADAC is a product line that I have known for many years now. In the days when Merging Technologies was producing some serious consumer gear, NADAC 2- and 8-channel DACs set a standard in its day. I have owned an MT NADAC MC-8 (eight channels) for many years now, adding its separate Power Supply unit as a separate box when it became available, which brought some notable improvements.
At the time, I considered it to be one of a few top-o'-the-heap references that I had heard. And the key person there that I knew was the brilliant designer, Dominique Brulhart.
Dominique Brulhart of Master Fidelity, then with Merging Technologies: a study. Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, 2015, Boulder, CO
But that was then; this, of course, is now.
In a nutshell: Merging Technologies concentrated more and more over time on its professional designs as the years went by, championing its Ravenna-based network systems and DXD (with and without reconversion to DSD). Increasingly, the consumer side of things with NADAC seemed to become a sideline.
Then Merging Technologies was purchased by the Sennheiser Group in 2022. It was folded into the Sennheiser division, together with other companies like Neumann.
Blue Coast Records Audio Engineer Patrick O'Connor (left) and Dominique Brulhart in the Blue Coast Records room, THE Show, 2016
Meanwhile, Dominique Brulhart and his team took up the challenge of the discontinuation of the old MT NADAC with a new company, Master Fidelity.
They have launched a truly revolutionary new DAC + Clock, the Master Fidelity NADAC D DAC and the NADAC C Clock. While not cheap, neither are they the most expensive DAC components out there. Millions of dollars went into the development of a new, true one-bit chip/chipset for the NADAC D, and now that it is available, I can tell you that Dominique and company have produced a design that explores new possibilities in the audio arts.
I got to hear the new Master Fidelity NADAC stack in the reference room 1 at GTT Audio. (Also at Munich, but you have to allow for show conditions there.) The experience over several days with this stack, plus the Vivid Audio Moyas, plus Audionet, plus the Kubala-Sosna Realization loom, plus the Dejitterit SwitchX (more on that soon) resulted in an inescapable conclusion on my part.
The Master Fidelity NADAC D+C stack was absolutely the best that I've ever heard. In fact, it joins my very short list of sui generis components. Best of the best...nothing like it.
And you can take that to the bank.
In which our hero meditates... (drawing by Ye Olde Editor)
The Obvious Conclusion
So... what happens when you take a complete set of sui generis reference audio designs, and put them all together into a carefully-matched system?
You end up with something that I've never quite heard in nearly 40 years: a sui generis system.
The result is music playback in which each and all of the components simply vanish... disappear... and allow the full glory of the recording come through.
No matter the source... NAS-based DSD, especially DSD256, streaming, or LP... this complete system took me to places in my listening experience that I've never been.
Having wrestled to try and put this into words for a few weeks now... wordsmithing is hard work, and exhausting...I can only say that this system is the best that I've ever heard.
If you are a serious audiophile, have the means, and want to know what I think "the best" is, then hie thee to GTT Audio ASAP. You'll be changed forever.
I was....
