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Portishead is available as a SHM-CD—highly recommended—and then there's amazing Sinatra from Sinatra Sings Gershwin. Not all cuts are equally well recorded but listen to 1947's "I’ve Got A Crush On You" and then wonder what's wrong with today's recording industry. Over the past 60 years not only haven't they improved their recording techniques but perhaps even devolved them. An amplifier placed on the platform delivered both Gibbons' and Sinatra's voices with bigger volume in a more intense colorful fashion. The entire presentation lifted up but the elements which profited most from using the Monolith were vocals. I had more three-dimensional instrumental bodies too and finally there was real chemistry between musicians like adding color, sharpness and clarity to a faded old photograph.
Summary. As always I'd like to point out that there is some subjectivity to my observations. I don't mean that these are unreliable or listener dependent findings. I refer to a learning curve. There's no such thing as an absolute sound and if there was, we'd not recognize it. In our audio business the de facto reference is the best we know. Until we know better. Prior to that we can't conceive of better. Only when we finally chance upon something more sophisticated and complex do we realize that our reference point was just that - one point on an endless line pointing toward an abstraction called the absolute sound.
Anti-vibration platforms are a good example of this process and especially this unit. Since it doesn't change tonality, there is no quantitative improvement. What we witness instead is a shift in quality. This delivers better resolution followed by better depth and differentiation which lead to a more vivid reading. I was satisfied with the sound of the amplifier before I placed it on the Polish platform but once I did there was no going back to without it.
When we use just our ears, all we can do is compare what we hear. While testing audio products we compare a loaner to a familiar device of the same kind. When testing anti-vibration platforms there's the added variable of just what we put on it. Reviewing different platforms for this issue I used a few components but the main one was Ayon Audio's Spirit III tube integrated. I selected it because tubes are susceptible to microphonics; because it uses large vibration-generating transformers; and because at 31kg it's quite heavy. The latter factor allowed me to exert a lot of pressure on the platforms. During my reviews I occasionally also used a Jeff Rowland 625 power amp and Ancient Audio Lektor Air V-edition CD Player. As already mentioned the review was based on many A/B/A comparisons with known A and B known. 'A 'was atop a shelf of my Base VI, 'B' was on the Monolith Audio platform. I also compared it to other platforms like the CEC Wellfloat, HRS M3X and Rogoz Audio 4SG50. I used short 1-minute music samples.
