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Preamp sonics. To take advantage of the Stello's fully balanced outputs, I teamed it up with AURALiC's Merak monos. Their very low-Ω power suggested my white twin-port 5-driver 3-ways, the Rhapsody 200 from Lithuania's AudioSolutions. Once again the comparator was the Eximus. Its lack of remote makes it more inconvenient for those who run playlists or random mode. That's because individual tracks from different albums often are recorded at different levels to mandate volume trim every few minutes. As the Stello would agree, I consider a numerical display de rigueur to manage precisely repeatable levels. That in 2013 an €8.000 preamp launch like Mola-Mola's would lack such a display is incomprehensible. Here the HP100MkII's $1.300 sticker is a knock-out. Its wand duly followed suit with a very broad IR window. This worked reliably 60° off axis so sidewall placement at an oblique line-of-sight angle was no problem. Yeah!

Given the previous page's findings it came as little surprise that as preamp—now DAC duties were handled by my usual SOtM battery-powered USB bridge and Metrum Hex converter—the Stello repeated itself with a warm yet dry sound that gave very agreeable body without valve-type textures. Unlike Nagra's 'spiritual' space explorer called Jazz where ultra low-noise small signal bottles inject air and layering, the Stello focused on musical materialism. The key virtue was minor warmth without humidity. The listener perspective was medium nearfield: not the transient-heavy zone of front-row proximity, not the decay-laden zone of being deep inside the ambient field where hall sound dominates. The combination with these class D monos (input transformer coupled, linear power supply, modified UcD400 boards) was very attractive, the speakers' propensity for vintage Sonus faber excess nicely controlled.

The Eximus aerated this scenery with more depth and top-end energy. It sounded bigger and staged farther behind the speakers. Interestingly I preferred the Stello at very low levels where its bodybuilding chops went farther. At standard levels the Eximus caught up and trumped with its added space. Twice the coin thus buys you more than a fancier case. My next question was, how well would the Stello replace a passive pot? Out with the Meraks, in with Crayon Audio's CFA-1.2. Out with the AudioSolutions, in with the soundkaos Wave 40. Out with the Zu Event XLR leash, in with an equivalent RCA (the Crayon won't take balanced).

With an ultra-bandwidth more refined amp and more sophisticated speakers the space game automatically moved up. The Raal ribbon's power response wasn't swamped out by paralleled mids and big woofers like the Lithuanians. This instantly parlayed more top-end sparkle and an opened sun roof. Omar Bashir's on-string action on his oud became more visible and so were the micro bursts of harmonics spraying off.
Two girls listening.

Yet with this very well-implemented integrated, the Stello's contributions actually proved mildly subtractive. Without it an energetic rein let go. String attacks popped even harder, focus was luxo-lens sharp and my sense of speed and sparkle higher. I felt closer to stage. There was more bluster as though the air was charged by breaking-surf ions. With the Stello I moved emotionally back from the stage. Things mellowed and thickened a bit. Less adrenaline, less translation of recorded space. More relaxation and the mild softness of deeper shadows.
Tribal elder Simon Lee discusses a project with his young clan's men.
Very much to its credit however—think added circuitry, one more interconnect, sane budget—this performance delta was reasonably narrow. The solid-state Crayon is so tonefully SET reminiscent that it requires a preamp of Nagra Jazz pedigree and more than ten large to improve upon it. The Stello's defeat at the hands of the CFA-1.2 came with the territory. Naturally this conclusion includes bias. A listener favoring less transient intensity willing to give up some stage depth and ambient recovery could well find the HP100MkII more palatable especially with recordings on the hard and bright side. I confirmed this with some Middle-Eastern ladies like Elissa, Asala Nasri Aktar and Nancy Ajram. Non audiophile productions could well favor this voicing.


Intermediate conclusion. Until the Stello S100MkII arrives to report on built-in synergy, the HP100MkII's tripartite uses strike me as sequenced into headfi, pre and DAC: strongest first closely followed by the second, the third more removed. The sonic materialism discussed above might connect to the use of high-gain high-feedback on-chip amps though Burson hits on a similar aesthetic going proudly discrete. Be that as it may, the HP100MkII is sonically chunky, robust, slightly warm and well damped or dry. 16/48 USB falls in line. It resolutely avoid the brittle, glassy and edgy which on that input is paid for with lower resolving power aka lesser rise times and diminished attack speed. As is becoming hoary company tradition, April Music's latest is a very nicely built deck which looks great, includes all the necessary features, sounds lovely and is very fairly priced.

Much affordable gear goes after flashy but faux resolution to curry favor with a quick audition. Simon Lee approached his task from the far longer-lived basics of tone, smoothness and substance. That's a rock-solid foundation to build on. As I showed, more air and speed can easily be injected in the source, amplifier and speaker if desired but more 'resolution' buys little indeed if it manifests as lean, nervous, edgy and fatiguing. This Stello avoids those mistakes like the plague. Back to the real basics indeed. Or for those to whom 'basic' reads 'cheap', we switch to the equivalent of 'affordable' and call it Forward to Fundamentals!
... more when the S100MkII ships...
April Music website