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Per their specifications the Kismets readily go right down to palpable but inaudible levels below 20Hz at which point the Sashas have turned into rather expensive floor shakers. Proceeding further might start rearranging pictures on the walls in someone else’s house. In Britten’s Sinfonia da requiem, mallet strikes on timpani give a clear sense of the taut skin-like nature of the head, which is followed immediately by the much broader sound of the underlying bowl. Even this instrument with its relatively limited range can convey surprising subtlety.


Soundstaging and imaging: With the best recordings the entire orchestra reveals itself in my listening room arrayed in a line left to right with a perspective that suggests my seat is in row J Symphony Hall Boston (about the middle of the first block of seating). The soundstage is deep and wide but perhaps not as ultimately finely layered front to back as that of more expensive amplifiers. However, Jazz combos and smaller classical instrumental ensembles definitely do allow one to see around, between and behind the individual performers. The late Eileen Ferrell, the veteran jazz and opera vocalist, is pretty much there in flesh and blood but doesn’t stand out quite as crisply as is the case with the best solid-state or tube amplifiers. In the front the sound field extends perhaps a foot or two outside the left and right speakers and is of reasonable height.


Unlike the imposing wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling rectangular sonic billboards projected by the largest speakers—or monitors in some cases—the Kismet soundstage is less pronounced although there was little sense of any lack in this regard. They produce a convincing soundstage and locate instruments with accuracy and stability.


The lack of a definable character to the background is certainly a plus. The music takes place within a well-defined acoustical space which is remarkably transparent if not invisible. In the Reference Recordings Exotic Dances from the Opera (HR-71 HRx) there’s a relatively restrained melodic transitional section in the otherwise wild and bombastic Saint-Saëns Samson and Delilah Bacchanale that should melt the stoniest heart. Spatially the massed strings are as in life. The first violinist is much closer to the conductor than the rest of the violin section, which stretches out far to the left and behind. Violas and cellos call out to the violins across the front of the orchestra. The front violins are surrounded by some air; one can clearly hear the difference between what the first chairs play and the somewhat simpler parts of the second and third violins.

Reverberation from lively rich acoustical spaces, for example a monastic chapel, is simply stunning. One can readily hear the sound reflecting from the walls behind the stage, the sides and ultimately the back of the hall. In studio settings, everything is of course considerably drier but still rather authentic to my ears. And there’s a complexity to say nothing of long duration to the reverberations such that the timbre of the instruments and voices driving it is definitely part of what’s bounced back to the listener. It’s not one-note reverb by any means.

Tonal balance: The Kismets playing through both the Ushers and Sashas show outstanding neutrality across almost the entire audio range and are relatively free of pervasive or annoying colorations. For those not familiar with the term, think of putting on tinted sunglasses. While there’s an initial excitement at the rose-colored scenery, pretty soon one gets rather tired of noticing the tint more than what’s going on. Coloration in the audio sense is directly analogous. Too much warmth is eventually soporific; too little warmth or an excess of coolness gets tense and tedious. And what about the speakers? They may add colorations of their own. Same for the cabling. The tonal accuracy of some products varies depending upon frequency and power levels, which is especially irksome.


Eliminating that tint in one’s audio glasses is essential for the correct portrayal of timbre. Everything else depends upon it: If things get too warm, cellos become violas and vocalists seem to float heavenwards. Too cool and the music descends into an oppressive underworld. Lack of tonal neutrality can also derail dynamics to some extent at least in my experience. Neutrality anchors the timbre to reality and is an important foundational element for good listening.


On a scale running from -10 for very cold to +10 for very warm, my observation—and Klaus confirms it—is that the Kismets are set at the factory to be slightly on the warm side of neutral and that’s a good place to start for most listeners. The initial voicing of the amps is around +0.5, half a unit to the warm side. If you describe your speakers and cabling beforehand, Klaus can dial in an appropriate setting for you at the factory.


Voicing your system for fun and pleasure: Over a period of several months, my Kismets drifted a bit towards the warm. The startling gyrations of the somewhat informal power grid here in the Hawaiian Islands may well have had something to do with it. We get electricity from wind, solar, water, bagasse, coal and fuel oil but achieving power generation multiculturalism is something of a work in progress. But after taking a few moments to tweak the bias, everything was brought back to normal. Higher bias makes the Kismets warmer; lower bias cooler. A couple of millivolts make a noticeable difference.


Setting the overall tonal balance to one’s personal tastes involves adjusting, for each bank of power transistors (there are two banks per amplifier), a bias and a balance precision trim pot. You’ll need an inexpensive voltmeter to measure the levels and a non-conductive alignment tool but with a little experimentation and practice it can be done in 2-3 minutes per amp. My online audio colleague Mike Galusha was exceptionally generous with his patient explanation and instructions on how to get the most from these controls. It is really not hard at all and the results are well worth the slight effort.


Experienced servants of tube amps are familiar with the drill. However hearing the gradual introduction of warmth was quite educational and a little surprising in that one often reads about coloration as if it were fixed in the electronic DNA of an amplifier. Apparently it isn’t. In any event neutrality can be dialled in to a fare-thee-well in a few minutes. Trading in a coolish analytical speaker for one that’s much warmer or brighter makes the ability to adjust the bias in the field a rather useful desirable attribute.

Instead of accepting the tonal balance as fixed to require swapping out gear to change it, one can instead hear in the same system a range of coloration including of course 'just right' somewhere in the middle. With the bias set to lower levels around 18mV, detail and definiteness dominate the sonic experience, not a bad thing at all for some listeners. Every instrumental or vocal line is clearly audible as a separate entity. On the other hand the three-dimensional body of vocalists and violins for example is reduced and there’s a feeling of coldness and solidity but not necessarily dryness throughout.


When the bias is set to the higher end of the range, say 27 - 28mV, the individual performers in a chorus or woodwind section become a bit congealed or unnaturally pushed together. Details are sacrificed euphonically as are transients. There’s just too much warmth. The overall impression is that of a languorous high-humidity summer day which, although sticky, has virtues as well.


At 22 - 23mV, everything is just right at least in the context of my other equipment and room. Now strings simply melt one’s heart with their lovely smoothness; female vocalists radiate all those subtle cues of feminine allure; and images have a good deal of weight which contributes to a better sense of three-dimensional volume. When that long sustained money note comes to an end, you are left hanging there following every little variation in the emotional expression of the artist as the sound gradually slowly tapers off and finally ends. The musical expressions created by the human voice are convincingly physiological rather than synthetic.


With the neutrality of the Kismets set spot on, one hears instrumental and vocal timbres accurately, the inherent tonal ambiance of a recording venue and the rest of the production chain. Some halls are slightly warm and mellifluous, others have all the warmth of painted cinder blocks, meaning they’re sterile, dry and cold and still others are somewhere in-between. On both the Ushers and the Sashas—more so on the Sashas because of their low-frequency extension—you’ll be able to hear these distinctions quite easily.

Conclusion: At the not inexpensive $5,000 price level, several fine amplifiers are available, mostly stereo, which precludes the considerable advantages of monoblock architecture. And they usually don’t have the Kismet’s low-impedance power output or current, which are so beneficial for both the Ushers and the Sashas. From the relatively limited selection of similarly priced monoblock products, one might audition the Krell S-150m, the Rogue Audio M-Series or the PrimaLuna DiaLogue 7 to get a feel for how they all compare.


Up at the very high end, the current international crop of truly marvelous reference-grade solid-state amplifiers—for example the Swiss Soulution, the Japanese Balabo, the American Mark Levinson—is staking out new territory with respect to realism and accuracy but keep in mind that the sales tax on any of these gems is more in many jurisdictions than a bespoke pair of Kismets delivered.


What do this new breed of fabulous amps do that the Kismets don’t? All these products extend and refine those basics of musicality the Kismets so admirably establish. And they combine the sonic virtues of solid state and tubes in a harmonious manner: They also offer holographic 3-D imaging, effortless orchestral peaks, that last measure of neutrality and more expansive soundstaging. Given their spectacular build quality and price, they should. Prices range from $40,000 to $75,000 and some weigh in at close to 200 pounds a side.


For those wanting an initial tempting taste, the Kismets are a much more affordable way to cross that unmarked boundary in audio, the other side of which is realism. They will transport you to those lands where suspension of disbelief is the norm, where one can sit back and listen for hours to music rather than an audio system. And they do it without conspicuous shortcomings. With respect to the fundamentals of dynamics, tonal balance, transparency, soundstage and timbre, you’ll be over that invisible line by a considerable distance and may well not want to return. So why did Klaus chose the name Kismet which variously means destiny, fate, karma or luck and of course was also the title of long-running Broadway and West End musicals? Well, these were all part of it but rather characteristically Klaus says he just likes the way the word sounds...
What’s in the box? Detailed user’s manual; test tracks; no cables.
Pricing: Something of a bargain. Sold factory-direct in the US and Canada, through distributors elsewhere.
Final comments: Impressive realism, powerful, detailed and natural. Very easy on one’s ears and budget. Don’t forget the WBT 0705ag upgrade.

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