Wrap. To conclude, to the last page I must add the 5's tilt feature again. Even at its max 2dB it's subtle. Yet it registers with less. It's actually hard to put a finger on. Just so it'll prompt a distinct preference. Who cares if we lack the listening acuity to identify 'why' more succinctly? In the downstairs system I fancied +1dB treble lift perhaps because with a potent sub flat to 25Hz, the other frequency extreme easily supports a bit of extra sheen and harmonic fire without getting forward or explicit. Granted, $5'555 for tilt benefits alone would strike me as a bit extreme. It's simply difficult to get so precise and predictable a tilt another way that doesn't involve DSP. My inner marketing guy would thus package this tilt as an add-on bonus to lead with the precision attenuator's extreme range; and whisper clients who for neighborly reasons, tinnitus or other factors do most their playback at low SPL. There's no doubt in my ear that autoformer-based signal cut is less harmful to microdynamics, color and body than deep resistive signal cut. These then would be my two core target audiences: horn freaks and 100dB widebander types; and the background brigade intent on maximizing miniature SPL pleasures.

What icOn followers must get their heads around is Pál's delayed inflation reaction. Apparently our man stuck to untenable pricing for rather too long to set a precedent that finally required 'drastic' corrective measures. This far from implies that the new prices are overwrought. Study the competition and his are still lower. It's the long-time watchers and fence sitters who remember Pál's original positioning who must let go of an unsustainable past given the combined fallout of Covid, Brexit and current global economics. Of the four icOns I had to play with and contrast—my original 4Pro, the new Pure, 5 and MatchMaker—taking five got me most hot. I had no real call for the MatchMaker's functionality even though I did manage to fabricate a suitable sample scenario. The Pure's 'DSD' voicing wasn't entirely in my wheelhouse when a few centimeters over sat the 5's next-level sonics over the 4Pro. I suspect that Pál Nagy surprised himself when after embarking on bolting onto the new icOn 5 more than just deeper more finely grained attenuation and extra socketry, he actually netted still superior performance from altered autoformer parameters and 'cheating' with an ultra-transparent input buffer. That would have been enough 'plus 1' to go from 4 to 5. Being unreasonable as in a scholar and a gentleman, he then couldn't help himself and threw in a precision Quad-style tilt controller.

The judge in the Appeals Court, minor hifi division, will undoubtedly berate him about it. He doesn't believe in saints, only sinners. In this instance he's simply too late. He's just not the sort to punish good deeds. Though he'll probably rib Pál about the Pure, the super-cap power supply and the ball-bearing isolation footers. And he will probably want to know when the icOn range will go full-size chassis, twice the required weight, bead-blasted inch-thick aluminium and Nixie tube displays. The judge is a very practical guy. He knows his audience. For some imaginary offense or another, he sees its members on a daily basis. Should more start taking the fifth now, he'll know whom to blame. In his court there's nothing louder than that gavel.

Kaboom!