After several months of waiting — due mostly to the electronic parts shortage, I gather — I finally got to enjoy my Rossini Player upgraded with the Apex circuitry. My dealer-friend delivered it last Sunday. I’m sharing my first impressions… and delights. (FWIW, Rossini Player is assisted by a Rossini Clock.)
In the following lines, I will use the term “feel” several times, in addition to “hear”. What I am pointing to with this expression is that it is a further degree in perception: there is “hearing and recognizing the sound of a flute” and there is “feeling the material” of the flute, the wood or metal it is made of. This is quite different. One could say that “recognizing the flute” or the trumpet or the oboe… is a cortical (mental) operation, while “feeling the material” of the instrument is much more direct.
Here’s what a short week (6 days for someone who otherwise has a full time job) of listening revealed so far. The Apex upgrade brings:
- Timbres. It is absolutely true that it is even easier to distinguish the timbre of the viola in a string quartet. But also the group of violas in a symphonic orchestra. Similarly, the cor anglais sounds even more different from the oboe. If you listen to the beginning of Peer Gynt (Grieg) by Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker, you will recognize without difficulty the so peculiar tone of James Galway’s flute!
- Substance :
- It is particularly spectacular with cymbals or with brushes hissing on a drum. But also the skin of all kinds of drums, etc.
- All the percussion instruments sound shockingly realistics (pun intended).
- It is particularly spectacular with cymbals or with brushes hissing on a drum. But also the skin of all kinds of drums, etc.
- The bass: more present, more beautiful, more controlled. This is possibly in the same chapter as “more substance”.
- I can confirm what I have read in a review: one has the impression to hear an octave more in the low register. It’s not exactly a matter of quantity, more a question of quality. It’s like this lower octave is more inhabited than before. The double basses can be heard like never before in my system. More than ever do they contribute to the foundation of symphonic music. But Yo Yo Ma’s cello also is more “full bodied” and sounding with richer harmonics.
- An incredible amount of micro-informations:
- The strings in a string orchestra vibrate differently. Not only do you hear the notes, but you quite literally “see” the strings moving across millimeters in space. You feel the strings and the resonance box of the instruments vibrate.
- The grand piano has even more body. One feels the material of the body of the instrument. You can feel that these are felt hammers hitting solid, strongly straightened strings. The sound is more solid than ever.
- On some recordings, you can actually “feel” the stage on which the musicians are playing, because you can hear it sounding, resonating like an instrument.
- The strings of string instruments — in the orchestra, in a quartet, in a chamber trio — acquire a real silkiness. If a violin “squeaks”, it is either that the violinist is not good, or that the recording is not up to standard.
- Spatialization. I would rather talk about the layering of the instruments.
- It is as if each instrument had its own amplifier, its own hi-fi system.
- The balance between the instruments, whether in small groups or in large ones, is truly lifelike. It is easier than ever to follow each instrumental part of a Mozart concerto, for example.
- A big surprise, for example, is the three-dimensional aspect of Jean-Michel Jarre’s album Oxygen. There are sound effects that materialize in space, that are floating in the air, spatially localized, that move from the left to the right, very clearly outside the space between the loudspeakers.
- The micro-dynamics. This is what strikes me the most and what brings me the utmost joy. One can feel the slightest inflections of the performers’ play. You can feel the tonal accents, you can feel the difference between pp and ppp (pianissimo and pianississimo). One feels the character and the state of mind of a pianist. You can feel if he is gentle and honest or if he just plays the notes, even if he plays them well. In all honesty, you could already feel it with the original Rossini. But with Apex, you can feel it even better, like there’s no doubt. I would say that before, I suspected that such and such an interpreter was delicate, whereas with the Apex, I am certain of it! Even more kindness and delicacy in the music: it is totally unexpected and brings so much joy!
- The music sings even more, the phrasing is more appearent, more beautiful — when the performers are delivering, of course! The musical intentions of the performers are revealed even more clearly.
- The overall feeling is that everything is at the same time clearer — as in more easily discernable — and calmer, i.e. relaxed in a very positive way. The cliché “blacks being blacker” applies more than ever.
- The voices. After all that I have just enumerated, it will come as no surprise if I say that voices are even more realistic. They were already realistic with the “original” Rossini, of course, but they are now even more so. In particular: it is as if the voice emission comes from an even more precise point in space (good sound recording, of course). And in addition, one perceives the body of the singer: his or her neck, his or her rib cage, which vibrate with the singing.
- A very big surprise, linked to the spatialization, is that the singers of an ensemble are much more separated than with the original Rossini. Whether it’s the chorus in The Pink Panther (Mancini’s score to the Blake Edwards film) or the larger chorus at the beginning of Philip Glass’ Koyaanisqatsi, the voices — I mean the singers — are separated in a way I had never heard before.
- A truly acid test is the “S” sounds in Liza Minnelli’s singing of You brought a new kind of love to me. There are absolutely no sibillances, everything comes from Liza’s mouth, nothing from the walls or from the ceiling.
All of this without “full burning in”, of course. While not actually listening — i.e. during the night and while at work —, I have simply left playing on repeat a dedicated “rodage” track .
I have to say that I have been totally and positively blown away by the extent of the improvement. Mostly, I must say, because I have a system that costs a fraction of the stratospheric costs of systems you hear at fairs or that reviewers in hifi magazines use to test gears of this caliber or that many members of this forum enjoy daily. My Rossini Player feeds directly — without a preamp — a Jeff Rowland 625.2. The speakers are Duevel Bella Luna Diamante. Everything is wired with Cardas Clear and powered via an Isol8 Integra. All excellent equipment, but nothing fancy or esoteric. So I was expecting an improvement, of course, but I was also wondering wether I would hear a “good improvement” " or just a “small difference” noticable only with trained ears. It was actually quite a pleasant surprise to hear such a large improvement. I’m not afraid to say that, musically — not technically, of course — the jump “Rossini orginal” → “Rossini Apex” is percieved by myself (and my wife) as being in the same order of magnitude as the jump from Bartók to Rossini (both with Rossini Clock).
I’ve never had the chance to hear a Vivaldi, let alone a complete Vivaldi stack. I didn’t even really wanted to, for fear of not being able anymore to enjoy as much my Rossini Player , which stands at the very end of what I could afford (I was helped by a once in a lifetime heritage). I was in total delight and I was telling myself that for 5 or 6 times the price of a Rossini (taking the cables into account), it should certainly be possible to go further, technically and musically, than what I was hearing at home. I have to admit it: I didn’t think that the difference could be so important. I have read in several places that the Rossini Apex upgrade brings many of the qualities of the original Vivaldi. I like the thought that it may be the case… and I can’t imagine what a Vivaldi Apex must sound like ! But one has to realise that to fully appreciate it, it takes equipment that costs some 10 to the power of 5 pounds/euros/dollars/Swiss francs.
In the end, I am extremely grateful and admirative towards the engineers and craftsmen — that’s a noble term to me — at dCS who researched and worked stubbornly to improve products that already seemed an achievement of some sort in the quest for musical realism. I am also grateful to the commercial people who are providing us with this upgrade at a very reasonable price — in the category of products in question. Buying an entirely new device at this price point would be totally out of reach for my purse, not even talking of the “post-Covid crisis” price increases.
Olivier :-{)
