A Series of Fortunate Disruptions
THIS ISSUE: Kal decides he’s ready to settle down with amps from Benchmark and new/old speakers from Revel—five of them!—then continues to play the field with a multichannel DAC and streamer from exaSound.
There is necessity as well as comfort in having a long-term reference system. The necessity derives from the familiarity with the reference that allows for comparisons and contrasts with the equipment being tested. The comfort that comes from the familiarity lets me relax and enjoy recreational music, relieved from the need to focus my attention intently on the sound. I do relish getting my hands on lots of interesting audio equipment and getting to play it in my own home, but it’s like a two-month one-night stand: The new stuff usually goes back even if I am impressed. I don’t change my audio equipment often.
It is not until something truly disruptive comes along that I think about making changes. This occurred with the Benchmark AHB2 stereo power amplifier.1 After the initial review, I returned the amp and tried to move on but could not. Memories of what it did with the midrange of my Bowers & Wilkins 800 Diamond loudspeakers haunted me, and I had fantasies of what a trio of monoblock AHB2s would sound like.
I had already moved on to the B&W 802 D3 Diamond speakers2 and was in the process of auditioning other speakers when the three AHB2s arrived. I found that their midrange transparency and absence of noise was addictive on every recording I tried. I knew I had to keep them, so I bought them.
The next disruption was less an event and more of a process. Since my adoption, in early 2016, of the B&W 802 D3, I have reviewed about a dozen loudspeakers in the same room, but recently some of them have been so unusual that the mere experience of them has provoked pointed comparisons and considerations. Things seem to
