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A few words on quiet versus loud. I find loud listening easy listening. Everything is obvious and laid out plain as day. Levels below this 'easy' threshold—clearly different from person to person—require keener attention. This adds intention. That mental focus can make the experience deeper and involve more of one's available attention. At least that's how it often works for me. And despite the massive double walls of our town house in the historical district where things were built to last, I remain distinctly aware of having neighbors. I thus also enjoy deliberately subdued sessions where I explore how far I can push in that direction before far-out illuminated inner space turns dull, grey and empty.
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Compared to the S2, this happened a lot sooner with the Aries.
Its THD-derived congealing effect was strongest at low volumes. Still with the prior coffee example, turning up output levels added black atop milk coffee. The milk remained in the mix but diluted. High-efficiency speakers without energy-robbing networks like the Voxativ tend to excel at resolution down into low levels. I would thus think that the Aries with more normal speaker setups which still play plenty loud for a given space and set of ears will make this more pronounced. It will impose a specific curtain call of loudness below which there's too much cream in the java for modern expectations of high-resolution separation.
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Inherent in the no-feedback SET concept are similar restrictions in the other direction. At the outer edges of its limited power band the Aries will exhibit higher levels of total harmonic distortion. A 100dB speaker is simply unlikely to ever go there hence I didn't encounter it. What I did hear specifically with tracks of deliberately high recorded reverb—say a solo piano captured in a church where ostinato bass tremolos are stacked with massive power chords—was a greater loss of distinction. Such tracks put very high demands on separation power. Overtones of overlapping fundamentals intermingle, then are embedded in compound slowly decaying reflections. Here the Aries sounded very rich, creamy, redolent and beautiful. It simply wasn't as astute as my transistor amps at teasing out the multitude of sounds into discrete items. For another simile,
if rapid outdoor arpeggios are like strung beads showing plenty of string, indoor arpeggios with room reflections show less string whilst densely reverberant spaces will show no string at all. The Aries is innately a bit less strung up.
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Observing the very filigreed ambient percussive aspects of "The Bat Part II" and "Au lait" on Pat Metheny's oldie-but-goodie Offramp, the EL34s demonstrated their upper extension advantage over the 300Bs. If cymbal trills throw off swarms of fire flies, the Aries had more and they sparked off farther before extinguishing. For this particular quality I slightly favored the Resonessence Invicta DAC with its marginally greater metal content over the warmer Eximus converter. On tonal balance the Svetlana EL34 had a tad more presence energy and midbass weight than the already modern-voiced Synergy Hifi 300B which is more linear than the vintage Western Electric archetype. |
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The Aries acted typical single-ended triode—i.e. pentode conversion didn't factor—with what I call elasticity. One way to envision the effect is to imagine tones as horizontally oriented elongated drops. The beginning of the tone is the round bottom of the drop, the end the receding tail. Transistors in general have a blunter sharper beginning and less tail on the finish. To remain visual perhaps a standard stick-on rubber footer turned sideways (flat on one side, semispherical on the other) can stand in for solid-state. In musical terms it's legato versus staccato. That distinction grossly exaggerates to require mellowing before it applies. But to exaggerate again, clearly the Aries is legato woman, not staccato man. If hifi had celebrity ambassadors, bossa sensation Paula Morelenbaum would be the perfect face for a global Aries campaign.
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A reader recently asked whether above 40Hz on single-driver speakers tubes make richer bass than transistors. Highly efficient drivers like the Voxativ generally don't like ultra-low output impedance. That tends to overdamp and prematurely roll off LF. While valves on more standard speakers nearly invariably lose out to transistors on bass, the tables can turn on Ampeggio-type transducers (unless someone crafty like Nelson Pass makes a solid-state amp with deliberately higher output impedance). The Voxativ widebander in the Ampeggio enclosure is good for 40Hz and on matters of reach the Aries wasn't at all disadvantaged against the S2. On a sealed monster 12-inch woofer like the Acoustic Elegance in the Aries Cerat Gladius meanwhile the Trafomatic came up short by comparison. That's mostly common sense.
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Conclusion: With the Aries, Trafomatic boss Sasa Cokic has built an integrated amplifier with obligatory remote control that takes a cheap pentode but makes it behave much like a 300B. Obvious advantages—far lower tube cost—are accompanied by less obvious ones (lower noise by not being direct-heated; more linearity). Disadvantages to some will be an obvious reduction of 'deep triode' aspects as once popularized by Dennis Had of Cary. Funnily enough very few competent SETs actually sound like that myth though they do become far more likely in entry-level models. No 300B amp I've heard escapes what I believe is the tube's inherent HF limitation. Silver transformers, silver wiring, exotic coupling caps etc. can attempt to disguise it but it's plain to me that far cheaper valves like the EL34 and EL84 enjoy an advantage which requires no heroic costly measures to harvest.
With the case evidence of Aries and Kaivalyas on hand, I might secretly think "no more 300Bs ever" if I were Sasa. That tube is overrated or simply no longer in sync with modern expectations. Reputation still says otherwise of course so the Aries flies below its radar. And because of this setup exotic/pricey EL34 SETs won't sell well. But I'll unequivocally state that I'd much rather have the €2.000 Aries than any same-priced 300B amp. And whilst my $4.000 Woo Audio Model 5 had small speed advantages, if Sasa was allowed to spend its $1.000 exotic-parts surcharge on the Aries, I'm convinced he'd beat it fair and square. So there. That even rhymes. I better call it a day before getting poetic... |
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Quality of packing: Very good. 25kg FedEx outer box wrapped in Caran, double-box inner also wrapped in Caran and properly cushioned.
Reusability of packing: A few times.
Ease of unpacking/repacking: A cinch.
Condition of component received: Flawless.
Completeness of delivery: Perfect. Included remote control.
Human interactions: Excellent.
Pricing: High value.
Final comments & suggestions: Astonishingly quiet in operation to be perfect for the kind of noise-sniffing high-efficiency speakers its low power ratings makes logical choices. Very contemporary cosmetics particularly in the gloss white as reviewed. Very responsive finely calibrated remote/volume taper combination to scale up and down slowly. That's again ideal for high-eff systems which routinely get too loud too quickly. |
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