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One-brand systems in the high-end are often viewed as suffering a split personality. Consumers believe that famous amp makers adding speakers or speaker makers going electronics are mostly me-too maneuvers meant to leverage market penetration and show-room presence. Whether true or (where) not, it's certainly an entrenched perception that providers like Krell, Meridian, Naim, Rega and others deal with. As chronicled, WLM getting into the act differs by side-stepping the whole not-designed-here aversion. WLM boss Hannes Frick is no amp designer. All he leveraged for this project were good ears trained by decades of selling electronics. He identified Sasa Cokic not only as a premium designer but also maker capable of providing a finished product at the right price. Frick specified power, features and sonic flavor, his feedback guided Cokic's finalized circuit choices and the collaborative product is openly credited as such. That's not merely honest, it neatly sidesteps the usual perception issue. It's OEM with a twist - formal cooperation.


Put differently, WLM is not only staking its hard-won reputation on the Sonata. WLM's speaker designers also tell us that "this is how we always intended our speakers to sound". Obviously there are levels of refinement, from different speaker models to different (forthcoming) electronics models. There are variables in cabling and source components. There's the room and the listener. But one wouldn't be wrong to assume that, for a given budget, the Austrian's new WLM Acoustics division presents a kind of best-case scenario for their speakers; a built-in assurance of interactive electronic happiness. With the remaining variables in mind, what can be said about the WLM-squared sound?

For a bang-on accurate assessment of the La Scala, read Ralph Werner's syndicated fairaudio.de review. For how the La Scala interacts with Red Wine Audio's gear, read our System Review first to cover the basics. What follows merely details the differences. To wit, the Sonata is texturally juicier, not quite as dense and more extended in the treble than either the 30.2 Signature Integrated or the Isabella/30.2 Amplifier combination. What I described in the system review as analogue-type mass and warmth, the Sonata shifts a bit into the light. This results in a slightly cooler, subjectively more resolved presentation with more 'upfront action'. A perfect demonstrator is Hector Zazou's stunning ... In The House Of Mirrors [Crammed Disc].
If you love Indian or Persian traditional music and are fondest of the 'alap' intros where the soloist improvises with serpentine pitch bends against complex decay patterns over a drone without any percussion and none of the later heavy-metal speed riffs, Mirrors has your name on it. The entire album is deeply down-tempo and combines extremely minimalist electronic enhancements on the acoustic contributions of Uzbekistani tambur and oud, Indian violin, bansuri flute and slide guitar, with guest appearances of muted trumpet, percussion, piano and Zoltán Lantos on violin. The recording quality of the harmonically very complex string instruments is exceptional. This gets us straight to the heart of the matter.


In my CD collection, this album is arguably keenest for getting one "inside the string". The low-pitched timbre of the metallic tanbur for example is exceptionally rich and raw. Here it is nudely out in the open without any distracting accompaniment. It's all about variations on the theme of tone explorations - incisive, quivering, growling, rattling, piercing, resonating, shifting harmonics. The Sonata's greater treble resolution reaches deeper inside that action than the Red Wine Audio gear. What happens in that very first instance of a pluck when the string lets loose its metal molecules, then adds the wooden resonator reaction while finger pressure and position massage where the tone goes and how it ends... that the Sonata makes more visible. As such, the experience is richer, deeper and more illuminated.


What adds to it are the EL 34s' THD interactions over the Tripath amps. The latter's warmth is tweaked with primo coupling capacitors to 'generate tone'. The Sonata's tubes get there with less warmth but more inner energy and actual textures. On one hand, the resultant sound gets a bit leaner. On the other, there's finer timbral sophistication. An album like Zazou's celebrates that. It strips the demands of our attention down to solitary melodic lines surrounded by echo and ambiance riding on exotically rich, sinuously flexible timbres. In this domain ruled by the micro god, the Sonata has more resolution than the cleverly voiced Tripath chips.
Put differently, the RWA house sound has much in common with the Zu Audio aesthetic. As my preview of their new Essence details, that brand has now responded to certain criticisms by implementing ribbon tweeters. What one expects from that move prior to having heard it is along the lines of what the Sonata sound does relative to Vinni Rossi's. Considering the other variables, that's probably the key point to mention on the La Scala speakers.

The other possibly quite big variable is tube rolling. As a triode fancier, my arsenal of pentode and 12-series valve rolling options is presently pathetically limited. Hence it's speculation at best how some 'designer' EL 34s might act, a full set of Full Music 12AU7s or some choice NOS picks. I did have on hand a quartet of EI fat bottles which I enjoyed but Sasa advised that their quality is very much contingent on date of manufacture. His set is "nothing to write about and I prefer the JJs". My set sounded a bit more robust and fleshy but I have no idea as to its vintage. I expect that between Sasa and Hannes a few months down the road, there should be some solid feedback on recommended valve options for those inclined to experiment.


Buyers considering the La Scala/Sonata combo will listen nearly exclusively in class A mode. They might counteract the potent bass response with the port inserts as I did and rest assured that no add-on subwoofer is necessary or desirable in either case. They'll get a very robust, vibrant sound that's solidly grounded down low, sufficiently fast to do the samurai-blade thing on sharp attacks and rather more resolved than the proposal of paper-cone tweeter and EL34s suggests on paper.
This isn't a fat, sloppy, warm comfort sound. This sound revolves around well-above-average dynamics, impactful bass, clear and finely articulated highs and an insightful vocal band. Versus the sonics as described over my ASI Tango Rs, the La Scala speakers shift the somewhat cooler-'n'leaner-for-the-EL34-archetye character deeper into warmth but less so than the RWA gear. This could confound expectations based on output devices.