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Mr. Zanden is what the owner of the next system seems to be called informally and to protect his privacy. Once I saw his system in his suitably large room -- quite a rare commodity in this city -- I understood exactly why. He runs a complete suite of Zanden components, sources to amplifier.


However, chances are that first-time visitors will notice little else but the heavily faceted Avalon Sentinels which take pride of place on either side of the central table disguised as a colossal book on its side.

These rarely seen speakers come with active bass systems whose control and amplification units sat behind the table.

Frank Tchang's simple racks housed a four-box Zanden digital front end, a two-box Zanden phono stage, a Zanden preamp with outboard power supply and a massive top-line Kuzma turntable with linear tracking tone arm. Bracketing this highway to the stars were two of Yamada-San's 2 x 845-powered 9500 monos, the most Zandified system in all of Hong Kong.

Our host is an avid concert goer and listens primarily to classical Western music. Not surprisingly, it's exactly his favorite large-scale music which this system serves ideally by elevating the wood element over the metal and air constituents and adopting a midhall perspective for the listener based on the subjective mix of ambient and direct sounds.

Not as preternaturally resolved as Marvel's system, this setup enjoyed the room size to do very large dynamic swings with aplomb, without overpowering the room with undue pressure or hitting room lock (a phenomenon absent in concert halls but curiously valued by certain misguided audiophiles).

Mr. Zanden had a vinyl recording duplicated on polycarbonate to give our listening crew an even-Steven comparison between both formats. One immediately obvious difference occurred in the bass. On digital, it was tauter. On vinyl, it sang. Tonally, vinyl held the edge by painting with a richer palette, though not perhaps to the degree expected. Zanden's digital is simply awfully advanced in that regard. While coming in second, it did so without apologies.


Yamada-San of course is a vinyl devotee of the first order himself. He has taken a close look at Kuzma's tone arm and reportedly called it the best he's seen. It's quite the piece of mechanical engineering.


Running one of my bass test CD tracks, I noticed a relative lack of extension below 30Hz which these speakers should be capable of but perhaps not without some in-room EQing, something I don't believe the Avalon bass amps offer as a feature. However, with the exception of the occasional organ show-off track, classical orchestral music essentially lacks information this low so that particular aspect won't be relevant to its primary user.


I don't believe that the kind of startling microdynamic finesse their breed seems generally endowed with -- let's call it the immediacy factor -- can be as easily duplicated by more conventional speakers or the amps required to drive 'em with as it can with highly sensitive speakers. The Avalon presentation here certainly supported that notion. For my tastes -- and classical symphonic admittedly no longer factors very much in my listening sessions as it did in the past -- this system was voiced to favor the kind of music I don't listen to over the one I do. And that was exactly as it should have been. It's so easy to forget that an audio system's only responsibility is to pleasure its owner. This one fulfills its owner's needs to the 'T'. He is to be congratulated for having arrived already where most of us are still striving and struggling.