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CHA-1 vs. CMA800R. That at 1/5th the purse the Questyle even entered this ring spoke loudly to its prowess. I'd already alluded that it matched the Austrian on detail density but trailed it on humanity. What did 'h' sound like? Take Diego El Cigala's Romance de la Luna Tucumana. As my review of it said, "the Gipsy dandy with the big voice and long hair revisits his much admired talent for giving Latin boleros and Argentine tangos and milongas the fiery Flamenco-styled makeover. The novelty here is the addition of Diego 'Twanguero' Garcia's Gibson 295 electric guitar and repertoire from Atahualpa Yupanqui and Mercedes Sosa. It's the next chapter in Diego El Cigala's Tango saga replete with a Mariachi trumpet on "Canción de las simples cosas" and Mercedes Sosa's imported voice on the closer "Canción para un niño en la calle".
PureMusic 1.89g in 176.4kHz NOS-style upsampling and memory play, SOtM USB bridge via AES/EBU to Metrum Hex
which fed the Crayon fed single-ended, the Questyle balanced to allow for instantaneous headphone swaps.
That closer is the cherry. It's a simple folk song made famous by Argentina's 'La Negra'. Here Cigala introduces it. Later he and Sosa trade verses. The latter nearly speaks her first like a poem, then sings her second in that unforgettable heart-rending voice conjuring up indios and campesinos, suffering and great compassion. The setting is sparse but highly atmospheric. It's charged with emoción. Utterly alien to the setting but strangely compelling is that elegiac yet twangy fat Blues guitar. It's counterpointed by the Platinum-tinged Flamenco guitar. All of it is recorded in a quite reverberant style to enhance timbres. With the Chinese the close-mic'd elements of 'spittle'—not actual but as a sense of sharpness—were more pronounced and harder. Bathed in white light if you will. As a result attacks were edgier, atmospherics drier and the splendid saturation of timbral hues more whitish to be less unctuous.
Review playlist with a track each per album.
Especially given price, did this suggest any major difference? Not. On quantities the offset was minor. Both presentations aimed in the same direction. Both looked at the scenery from the same perspective. But the CMA800R was the brusker less polished. Without giving up on its shot-in-the-arm directness, the CHA-1 was mellower and more fluid and generous with its decays. Its tones seemed to ring out longer, its colors felt richer, its progression of time appeared to move a tick slower. The Questyle was ultra fresh and hyper alert if a bit revved up as a result. The Crayon didn't have to try as hard to accomplish even more. It's as though it had been at the same job longer. Or was a well-worn perfectly maintained pair of shoes where the CMA800R was squeaky new. Experientially these little things summed into a quality that weighed more than its quantities. And again, this easeful mastery over against the very well-trained super fit grasshopper will cost you disproportionately more.

CHA-1 vs. AMP-12R. Bakoon's last word and ultimatum on headfi is the HPA-21. I'd returned my review loaner to Korea already. Whilst better still, the fact that I already owned the 12R and loved it made it easy to let the other one go. Given that within its power limit I find the Bakoon very similar to Crayon's CHA-1.2 for speaker drive though ultimately favor the latter for its added sweetness or pliancy, I was curious about this particular juxtaposition. On coin the Japanese/Korean is $5'995 to today's $10'500. This halves the prior distance of the Questyle. According to the law of diminishing returns, would this claw up Mount Compromise by a few more hard-fought inches?


With the 'human' element defined, on this count I had a meeting of equals - of two calm elders versus the Queststyle's excited spunkster. But distinctions remained. The most obvious if puzzling was how the Bakoon played it more compact. Compared to the deep-space Crayon explorer, everything clumped together more tightly. Whilst I tend to think that headfi staging is first and foremost a function of the headphone, this proved me quite wrong. The CHA-1 staged wider. It also recovered more air to render textures fluffier. And it put more space between its sounds. I'm not sure how this worked but it did. The resultant feel was plainly looser. This didn't mean slop or a loss of control. It simply meant greater freedom from literally more space.

The second distinction had the Bakoon slower. Naturally gear can't really slow down the musical pulse. When transients are steeper and timing is tighter and snappier, it simply feels as though thing accelerated. And in this game of a purely sensual pursuit which involves psychoacoustics and brain chemistry, perception is reality. The third distinction had the Bakoon slightly duller. Its colors didn't have the same 'pop' or sheen to be more muted. This reconfirmed my prior assessment. The Crayon's detail density is exceptionally high. It transcends attack clarity and raw multitudiousness. It includes harmonic envelope (timbre, tone) and big space made audible by decay reflections and generous scale. For all that deep zoom on the musical molecules, designer Roland Krammer has imparted his deck with a very mature—non-pushy easy-going—friendliness. This avoids the relentless or trying. It makes the CHA-1 into a bona fide statement of the transistorized realm just as ALO Audio's Studio Six is a statement in the full-on valve camp. Having reviewed the latter, I'm convinced it sounds quite different. Even at the top there are different ways to do the job, different flavors to pick from.

What remained were musical chairs with a number of loads to report on unexpected misfits or idealized scenarios.