Once a few more days had accrued and the action relocated downstairs to SAG's All-In-One, the other end of the audible range opened up. In Simon's words, his voicing aims to reconstitute "the original soft power of music which we lost but I want to get back". He feels that many modern hifi tunings sacrifice important core values to instead pursue ever higher subjective detail. As such his 100-watt deck works its sonic perspective from the bottom up like a class A Pass Labs. It produces a more massive power-zone response to put fire in the engine room of the rhythm and bass sections. Then it adds a softer treble to emphasize this downward focus which more gently treats overcooked Pop productions. Rather than groomed for ultimate speed, prickly transients and accelerated dynamic twitch, the AIO is more about stately substance and macro impact than micro obsession.

It took no advanced degree in crystal readings to predict, from our two character profiles, that this would make for a very successful rendezvous.

Where the upstairs combination had still over-exposed the top two drivers and their virtues, the downstairs match allowed the carbon-fibre woofers with their big ports to step forward and in line. To my ears this very commendably ended up somewhere in the mythical middle to verify the built-in synergy I'd hoped to report on when I signed up for this in Munich.

A blind audio date had come together just so. A few moons aligned.