Moving on to a Mary Black interpretation of a wonderful song by the late greatly lamented Jesse Winchester, "Lay Down Your Burden" from Black's The Holy Ground album reinforced the ability of this pair to image beautifully. The harmonica on the left of the soundstage sat clearly behind the performer playing a nylon string guitar, with Mary Black in the foreground. Fink's live album Wheels Turn Beneath My Feet has caught out many dearer components in my listening room as a result of its tremendous level of macro and micro drive. Add in deep, driving bass and a voice whose inflections rely on the equipment's ability to retrieve almost subliminal levels of detail and you realize this was asking more of the Aeron and Titus than they could realistically deliver.

The track "Biscuits" is a riot of tonal colours, frenetic drive, deep informative bass and the intonations of a world-weary, satirically grounded vocal. Whilst the track was enjoyable courtesy of the Aeron's drive and the Titus's dynamic agility, I was constantly looking for detail and nuance I knew was there in abundance on my reference system. Hardly a fatal flaw. But it does reinforce the notion that like most things in life, excellent is the enemy of the merely good. I bought Sharon Van Etten's album Epic for one track called "Love More". Every time I play it, I know I haven't wasted my money. Hearing it reminds me of that old cliché 'iron fist in a velvet glove' courtesy of Etten's youthful voice and her serpentine lyrics delivered by a minimalist but threatening arrangement of music.

As the subdued electronic synthesizer opens on the left of the soundstage, Etten's plaintiff but soft voice delivering powerful opening lyrics join it. A few seconds later deep, taut powerful percussion joins in along with an electric guitar adding to the increasing intensity and drama by hovering above the back of the soundstage as if floating in mid air. By the middle of the track you realize a song whose subtle shift in tempo and intensity has been rising, has carried you deep into the music without your awareness. By this time you're hooked and just have to keep listening until the end. This arrives abruptly, leaving you quite cleverly wanting more, much more. The Aeron and Titus conveyed the track's tempo and dynamic shifts easily and what's more, elicited just enough tonal colour and detail as was needed to keep me enthralled in this mini musical drama.

To gauge the level of the built-in DAC's performance, the same three tracks were played by an Esoteric P700 CD transport. Then they were replayed using the P700 running into the Schiit DAC. The Esoteric/Schiit combination surpassed the Aeron's internal DAC by a wide margin, exhibiting more space, far more detail, superior soundstage and greater neutrality. The onboard DAC wouldn't disappoint our theoretical budget buyer and I found it quite enjoyable despite these omissions. As for the phono stage, I didn't have a budget turntable on hand and considered my Linn, Gyrodec or Acoustic Signature Challenger turntables way above the league the Aeron and Titus perform in. I would remedy this with a budget loaner.

Here I borrowed the new Rega P3 fitted with RB330 tonearm and Ortofon 2M black cartridge. I've played with the P3 extensively since its launch and loved the sound which was typical Rega by being cohesive, musical, well controlled and able to dig deep into a groove and extract detail. Since the theme of this review is the joy of owning a gateway system, the Rega's price isn't out of place as a natural upgrade for a novice buyer. LPs chosen were Roger Water's 180-gram vinyl Amused to Death, The Rolling Stone's Let It Bleed and an all-time fave, Traffic's The Low Spark Of High Heel Boys. Real retro stuff, eh? The first track was "The Ballad Of Bill Hubbard" from the Water's album. I always look to hear how clearly the old WW1 soldier's voice on the left of the soundstage is carried into my listening room as an electric guitar wails in the background. No problem on this score but I did hear smoothed-over leading edges of notes and a slight veiling of the voice.