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What I found out over the weeks is that the virtual reality Steve McCormack designed the VRE-1 to achieve has its roots in this completely undistorted and unvarnished connection with the source. I know that one will read here and elsewhere that there is no other way to musical bliss than harmonic distortion and I'll happily concur that harmonic distortion, lower resolution and treble rounding are far more enjoyable than dry and sterile harshness. But true transparency as delivered by the Esoteric P05/D05, GR360 amplifiers and now VRE-1 is actually warm, smooth yet ultra intimate and detailed like only live music can be. What a system like that won't do is fix poor recording quality, but if some of the magic of that instant has been captured, then components of that rare caliber will give it back to you and they will need no distortion whatsoever to make that very instant a pure moment of bliss.

I've owned Auber's Le Toreador [Decca 455 664-2] with Sumi Jo and directed by Richard Bonynge for years. Although I'd always enjoyed the unpretentious story, I also failed so far to consider it more than a second-rank piece in Daniel Francois Esprit Auber's production cycle (with a name like this, he's got excuses). I listened to it again recently and was instantly transported. I could hear faint stage noises and ambient cues all across my room. This recreated the space where the opera took place. Then I noticed how refined Sumi Jo's voice was, how glowing yet agile a soprano with impeccable French diction she commands. What used to be a pretty flat and unexciting piece took relief and volume and actually became fun. And did I say Sumi Jo's voice is absolutely gorgeous on this disc? Her tonal hues are actually far more diverse than I remembered from lesser systems but what truly amazed me was just how sweet and solid her timbre was through the Accustic Arts player when connected to the VRE-1.

I mentioned it already but the VRE-1's transparency feels elegant and refined, never bright or vulgar. I could listen to a whole range of voices from Leonard Cohen's deep bass to Nathalie Dessay's most ephemeral arias and always feel connected as though face to face with the singers. One late evening I came to my senses after a long dive into Callas' Traviata and realized just how much information is contained on those CDs everyone (me included) claims to be a compromised format. I don't know whether it is possible to get closer to the recorded event than over the system I was listening to at that very moment but CD is far less compromised than we are made to believe. It simply takes Herculean efforts to reveal all that was recorded in the first place. It is certainly easier to spice up the music with a pleasant blend of distortion than to salvage what was recorded (the famous spicy oyster omelet Gary Koh talked about in my review of the Genesis GR360) but it can't match the extreme refinement of the unadulterated original data.


Even older recordings that have been properly remastered to digital hide a wealth and richness of tonal diversity that I did not suspect. On Beethoven's Triple Concerto for Violin, Cello and Piano [EMI 7243 5 66954 2] recorded by Oistrakh, Rostropovich and Richter in 1969 in Berlin, I was surprised by the physicality of the violin and cello, by how much abuse Richter imposed on his piano, by the credibility of the pizzicato on the solo strings. I own five different versions of the Triple Concerto but none approaches this one for brilliance and emotional intensity. I prefer this CD version to any other I own yet I have to confess being taken by surprise by how much more ambience and tonal information the VRE-1 managed to unearth and make audible throughout the whole musical range.

A few more words on 'visual effects'. The VRE-1 is a true champion at reproducing those artifacts of the recording process which I now I consider an integral part of the playback experience. Maybe because I can't recall a concert where all sounds emanated from a single point in space, I consider hall acoustics and spatial layout of the music part of the live event. I want as much of those aspects in my room as possible. I want to hear opera singers walk across the stage. I want to hear drums echo back and forth on the walls of a Gothic church. I want my violins to be on the left and cellos on the right. I want the soloist to be in front of the orchestra, not on top of it. I want to know if the harpsichord was positioned in front or behind the string section. Because I was not in the room to witness it for myself, I want my system to provide as many clues for my brain to fool me into thinking I was really there.