System Details
| Pre Amplifier | Ypsilon PST100TA |
|---|---|
| Power Amplifier | Alieno 100LTD |
| Speakers | Zellaton Plural Evo |
| Cables | Schnerzinger Resolution Two |
How does it sound?
Have you ever met someone that finishes your sentences or shares the same quirky favourite movie? Or can quote your favourite line in an obscure song that no-one else has ever heard? That moment where you meet someone who REALLY understands you. That’s the feeling this system gives you. There’s an inherent ‘rightness’ to this sound that is both simultaneously calming and stimulating. This is not a ‘normal’ or ‘usual’ hi-fi system experience. It can’t even be described as unexpected. The way this system presents music is so different to what you have experienced in your journey to this point, it needs getting used to… and once your mind catches up… Wow!
Here is a system that brings out a deliciously rich sonic palette, infused with layers of interwoven harmonic beauty. This beauty is often absent from the music, removed by the mechanical, electronic, imperfect nature of a hi-fi system. Here the beauty is not only present, it is abundant. If you are an appreciator of dry, lean, detail-oriented, monochromatic sound then read no further – this system is not for you. If you are sensitive to tone, timbral quality, nuanced complexity and want to feel like an artist is gracefully applying their sonic brushstrokes on a blank canvas of creative potential, then you should rejoice for you have found your redemption in this fusion of rare audio component masterpieces.
This sound is a celebration of music in the most enjoyable way. Not by analysing the sound but by simply FEELING it. It has a palpable liquidity to it, flowing from one note to another and exposing the emotional underbelly of the artist. All of the elements are there but it flows with a sense of abundance and luxuriance. It’s not trying to emphasise the structure of the music or any individual elements. It’s not dissecting the music and acting like an audiophile tool, stimulating your cognitive sensibilities. Instead, the music is one entity with a sense of ‘wholeness’. The rhythms and melodies playfully dance around the beat and engage your senses. We found ourselves smiling, tapping our foot and closing our eyes, surrendering to the musical journey.
Cohesiveness is another other bandied about word that has almost lost its meaning. Part of the realism that this system portrays is the way the sonic picture is stable and accurately located. If you are listening to a dynamic violin piece, as the music moves from lower frequencies up to searing highs, or the violinist sways left to right, the image moves in a realistic way and you can literally point to the source of each sonic element. Your mind immediately engages with the emotional expressiveness, or an impassioned lyric, or a visceral instrumental.
The pièce de résistance of this system is its ability to effortlessly communicate the journey of the individual instruments, voices, beats or any element of the piece of music. For example, if you are listening to a jazz quartet, you become more aware of the skill and playing styles of each of the band members. Each instrument seems to have its own 3-dimensional space with a magnifier. I’ve never experienced this phenomenon so starkly, where without concentrating, I become aware of what everyone is doing both individually and as a whole.
Imagine a mode you can select where each player’s nuanced actions are obvious as if you were only listening to that player in isolation and another mode that can be selected where all the actions of all the players, all the music in totality, combines like one magical tapestry and flows like a river. Now imagine that both modes are on at the same time!
Why does it work so well?
I talk a lot about system synergy and this is a good place to start in order to explore why this system is the recipient of so much praise. In every hi-fi system, the designer of each audio component has an opinion about which sonic qualities are more important than others. Given that making a ‘perfect’ component is impossible and if attempted, hideously expensive, all designers therefore approach the creation of their products with a personal list of priorities and ‘not-negotiables’ about what kind of sound they are aiming for. This is commonly referred to as ‘voicing’ and is a very important consideration.
In principle, combining components with similar design priorities results in a positive synergy (assuming you enjoy those sonic characteristics) and combining components with different design priorities results in poor synergy (sometimes shockingly bad). For example, imagine that you are particularly sensitive to the timing and propulsive aspects of music, so over time you have enjoyed components with a focus on transient speed and PRAT (Pace, Rythm & Timing). If your amplification, cabling and speakers were all designed with this emphasis in mind, then what each component was trying to achieve is complimented and enhanced by the surrounding components in the chain. If however, you replaced the power amplifier with another brand which had been designed with a focus on tonal & harmonic richness and spatial/ambient expression, then the new power amplifier’s topology, power supply, component selection, etc would not be ideal for PRAT. Most of us have experienced these moments of synergy and non-synergy in our audio journey. This system is an example of synergy of the highest order.
What is interesting here though is that all of these elements that make this system sing are virtually one-off or unique designs. This is not a case of ‘the path less taken’. This technology and methodology is literally the path that no one else takes!
At the heart of the system we have the legendary Ypsilon PST100 but the ‘TA’ passive only version which is effectively a super high quality autoformer. Passive preamplifiers have a reputation for purity and integrity to the signal. The Ypsilon is an example of that ability… on steroids. In order to achieve this level of performance, Ypsilon built their own transformer in-house. In fact, this is what Ypsilon are renowned for. Fanis Lagadinos is the pre-eminent high quality audio transformer builder of this generation. Coupled with the genius of Demetris Baklavas’s circuit designs, Ypsilon are at the pinnacle of transformer-based amplifier designs. So given the absence of an active gain stage, this preamplifier sonically disappears and its transparency is the gift it gives to its partners in the system.
Alieno amplification is still well outside the audio mainstream awareness, despite the fact it wows visitors at the Munich show every year. The brand will always be an ultra-boutique choice because all Alieno amplifiers are meticulously made to order by the hands of Fulvio Chiappetta in his workshop in Italy. This is a very low volume, highly specialized design that is truly unique (OK, I will stop using that word now). To be frank, Alieno amplifiers are so different, so extraordinary, that many people still cannot believe the claims that are made about their performance.
Take a moment to read the Alieno design philosophy on our Alieno brand page. If you are an amplifier enthusiast, you will find it very interesting. A high-level short summary goes like this. Many people believe that in theory, a single ended tube amplifier with no output transformer would be the most transparent to the signal, emotionally engaging sounding amplifier possible. I said ‘in theory’ because an amplifier of that description doesn’t exist. Why? Because it would have a fraction of a watt of power, therefore wouldn’t be able to drive any speaker and is therefore useless. But if it was possible, then wow!! But it isn’t, so it remains a theoretical construct.
To solve the low power problem, an output transformer is usually added into the circuit and that introduces some problems, namely a colouration of the sound which causes that old cliche ‘tube amps have loose, flabby bass and rolled off highs’. If you reduce the size of your output transformer to reduce these effects, you get less power, which takes you further from your goal. Or you go to a push-pull design which is OK, but now you’ve moved into a different topology which loses the magic of single ended designs. Many great amplifiers deal with these challenges by having a hybrid design, which is a great result but still not ideal as you’ve now introduced a solid-state stage in the amplification process, losing some of the magic of a great tube design.
After more than 30 years of designing amplifiers and working on the ‘impossible conundrum’, Fulvio designed a circuit which he called the ‘current multiplier’ which made it possible for him to take both the voltage and the current from a single ended circuit to the loudspeaker without an output transformer and without a solid state device in the signal path. This is so revolutionary that many audiophiles feel that it is impossible, but… just wait till you listen to it!
The Alieno 100LTD is an OTL-OCL (Output Transformer Less & Output Capacitor Less), Single Ended, pure Class A design. Furthermore, it produces 100W of power and is NOT a hybrid tube & transistor amplifier. Can you understand why this amplifier just doesn’t sound like any other amplifier on earth? Because it’s simply not like any other amplifier.
There’s a purity and immediacy to the sound (that’s the single ended bit) with an unbelievable transparency (that’s the OTL bit), coupled with an organic naturalness, with authority, grip and top to bottom tonality. This amp is a killer and despite the cost, is an absolute bargain. Emotion, emotion, emotion.
Coupled to this rare amplifier is a rather uncommon speaker. Zellaton’s driver technology has its origins in the 1920’s. (Note: that was not a typing error). Over 100 years ago! Continuing the connection to the family line, Manuel Podszus applies modern resources to an idea that has been evolving for multiple generations of designers. The hard foam technology used in Zellaton driver construction is simply not considered by any other speaker manufacturer on the planet. The reasons?
- The knowledge required to make then is simply not available.
- They are extremely difficult to make and they take a long time to manufacture.
- They require a lot of refining and work by hand to perfect – more time & lack of available know-how.
It makes perfect sense as to why they are not considered by any other speaker manufacturer. However, imagine if you had the knowledge, materials, tools, patience and craftmanship to be able to make them. Would it be worth it? Unequivocally, undeniably, undoubtably YES! These drivers are in our opinion the ultimate incarnation of the dynamic driver technology and are the extreme antithesis of the mass-produced drivers that commonly adorn familiar speaker company designs. In every way that you measure the performance of a driver, the Zellaton drivers are on another planet of performance. But this is only part of the reason as to why these speakers have such a compelling sound.
Because they are so capable, they are comfortable in faithfully reproducing a wider frequency range, so Zellaton employ a midrange driver that is responsible for most of the frequency range. By crossing it over to the tweeter at a much higher frequency and crossing over to the bass drivers at a much lower than normal frequency, the speaker acts as a single driver wide bander with high & low augmentation. Zellaton then make the highest quality, most expensively built crossover network that we have ever seen, further creating the effect that there is no evidence of the existence of a crossover in the sonic presentation.
The Zellaton Plural Evo is 3-Way floorstanding speaker system with 1x 180 mm (7″) full-cone mid woofer, 1x 30 mm (1,1″) soft dome tweeter and 2x 280 mm (11″) full-cone woofers. It has a partial open baffle cabinet and a variable bass tuning port under the cabinet. At 92 dB sensitivity, it is easy to drive, agile, transparent & extremely revealing of upstream equipment. At 95kg per speaker and adorned with the most professional paint finish you will ever see on a speaker, the EVO Plural makes a mockery of most high-end loudspeaker products. This is a SERIOUS speaker with a combination of modernity, grace and presence. Just looking at it elicits a sense of extreme capability.
Close your eyes and listen. It just sounds different to what you have heard in the past. After a few minutes, you realise that this is a new type of sound, very resolved, fast and nuanced. Subtle yet with an immediate dynamic expression. The resolution brings to light every individual string in an acoustic guitar, communicating the vibrational journey of each string. The wooden guitar body contributes to the sound distinctively and yet all this ultra-resolving ability brings with it no sense of etch or fatigue… an elegant, elevated presentation. The fact that most of the frequency range is being produced by one driver gives a point source style of presentation, allowing you to locate the artist accurately in the soundstage along with a cohesion that sounds incredibly natural. Start playing well recorded tracks and the hair on the back of your neck stands up. Combining an amplifier that has such emotional rendering capability with a speaker that opens such a portal into the music seduces your attention in such a way that you forget that you are sitting in a chair, in a room listening to a system. Far out!
The choice of cable in this system is of paramount importance as the wrong cable could easily dissolve the magic of the Alieno and Zellaton. You need a cable that has that transparency and naturalness to allow this rarely curated signal to flow through the system and into the room. Enter the Schnerzinger Resolution 2 cabling system, the perfect partner for this grouping of super-natural sounding equipment. This is a brand of cable that is not well known in the mainstream audiophile consciousness because the brand does not partake in promotion & marketing.
In the 1960’s Georg Schnerzinger researched energy transmission methods and as a music lover he also developed ground-breaking audio products. He believed that a “phase stable signal transmission is of fundamental importance for an unbiased transport of electrical information”, an insight that was ignored in audiophile circles until recent years. His grandson Dirk Klocke is another one of those rare audio engineering geniuses known only to a small community of music connoisseurs and his Schnerzinger cables are well respected for their sonic invisibility and natural sound. We experimented with many cables for this system and loved how the Schnerzinger cables interacted with the Alieno and Zellatons. The introduction of the Resolution 2’s was sublime. Now I know why Zellaton highly recommend this brand of cables to be used with their speaker systems.
What changes could you make to the system?
If you wanted to save money, but maintain the sonic qualities and synergy of this system, you can try:
- Replace the speakers with the Zellaton Emotion speakers. You will lose some bass energy but the overall tonality and emotional expression would be very similar. This is also an extraordinary speaker.
- Replace the cabling with Schnerzinger Resolution 1.
If your budget extended a bit further and you wanted to upscale this system, you can try:
- You can move to an ALIENO preamplifier. Wow!
- You can replace the cabling with Schnerzinger Resolution 3. More of all that goodness.
- Replace the speakers with the Zellaton Stage Ultra. This is moving into another stratosphere but so does the cost…
Why Cappadocia?
If you could close your eyes, click your fingers and be transported to any place on the earth, where would you go?
I’m sure that everyone has a different answer to that question but what came to us was to go to a place that was magical, so different to the familiar, so far removed from our normal experience that it would be a wonderland of beauty and intrigue.
Cappadocia is an ancient district situated on the rugged plateau north of the Taurus Mountains in Turkey. Millions of years ago, ancient volcanoes erupted in the region, forming spectacular pillars, minaret-like mountains, eroded valleys and a landscape that many describe as ‘alien’ or otherworldly. If you travel to Göreme, you can have one of the most amazing experiences – Hot-air ballooning over Cappadocia!
At the moment, everyone wants to experience the exclusive Cappadocia hot-air balloon ride. Seasoned travellers say it the most thrilling thing that they’ve ever experienced. It has suddenly become top of everyone’s bucket list but these hot-air balloon rides are booked out months, sometimes years in advance and actually getting a booking is considered extremely fortunate.
Can you imagine how that would feel? Imagine gripping the basket and looking out over this scenery. Standing in a balloon overlooking an astounding ancient landscape, heart racing with an acute awareness that this is a special moment – the thrill of being human. We named this system after Cappadocia because it evokes similar emotions of wonder, amazement and intrigue. This equipment is boutique, rare and exclusive. Look out over the vista, take a deep breath, feel your heart racing and cast your eyes over the landscape. Existing totally in the moment, soaking in the realization that this moment is incredible…
