Bed in. In our upstairs system, Sven's 300wpc P1 replaced a 60wpc class A/B Crayon CFA-1.2. So it also saw a Soundaware D300Ref SD card transport with .aiff files outputting I²S into a Denafrips discrete R2R Terminator DAC. Then a Pál Nagy autoformer passive with 40Hz/4th-order outputs sends high-passed signal to the amp, low-passed signal to a Zu Submission sub. Speakers are solid cherry sound|kaos Vox 3a with built-in LessLoss noise filters. Silver cables are by Crystal and Allnic, power delivery is passive Furutech with NanoCrystal² Formula, resonance attenuation is Hifistay with their Mythology X-Frame rack and matching isolator footers beneath speaker stands and subwoofer.
Just in for their own review were five LessLoss Firewall 640X passive inline AC filters. On the tweak scale, this bed felt properly made to welcome the P1. And, timing seemed to conspire to have the P1 meet its W8 speaker mate for a Swiss threesome. To see how things work in Boenicke's Basel HQ, click on the right image for a virtual 3D tour.
As to Sven's sweet tweak science, I asked whether he knew what Volker Bajorat tunes his speaker resonators to – the resonant frequency of a driver's basket or its cone perhaps? "I don't know what they are trimmed to, certainly not the environment they're used in since they're always the exact same length. According to Volker, it has to be done withing 1-2 microns."
About Volker's trimming of the PCB inside the P1, "rounding off edges and therefore getting rid of any 90° angles is not the tricky part although well audible already. The tricky part is to again trim the dimensions of a board—its width and length—to absolutely exact resonator proportions. For this purpose I have my PCB produced 1/10th mm too large, then Volker sands it off until it sounds right to him. Also, we don't believe in damping as you would only want to damp something undesirable. If you get the right resonant frequencies, we like to have them as free as possible. So I use old-style bakelite boards without solder-stop lacquer but heavily gold-plated circuit traces."
In the German hifi underground of early digital, Volker Bajorat of Cologne's Clockwork Audio had become famous for first his Sony CD player modifications, then mods to many other machines. Aside from what he does now for his own brand, today he's also part of Boenicke's resident arsenal of tweak maestros like the late Jack Bybee, like Holger Stein of Steinmusic, Kazuo Kiuchi of Combak Corp., Serge Schmidlin of Audio Consulting, Louis Motek of LessLoss and Derrick Ethell of Scotland's Black Ravioli.
How about the P1's insides?
