Set up as a zone in a multi-purpose space, the below hifi doesn't overtake all as my other rooms allow theirs to. As a WiFi-allergic renter, my upstairs has no Internet so another FiiO R7 1TB SD card transport serves digits to a COS Engineering D1 DAC/pre. That fronts a Kinki EX-M7 stereo amp. Speakers are sound|kaos Vox3awf on custom stilts. They compensate sitting on this couch on two pillows then half lotus. Ramrod Zen posture otherwise puts my ears well above the small widebanders on their far shorter stock uprights. A Dynaudio 2×9½" sub renders bass assist across the wider 1st octave.

Experienced listeners recognize how close seat distance, head-on toe in and cubits of lateral and rear space around/behind these speakers seriously downplay room reactivity. Rather than an over-there perspective of typical 'farfield' stereo setups, this inverted layout—listener against wall, speakers in free space—is far more immersive. It's not true surround sound but does approximate externalized headfi. If this soundfield were an invisible bubble with the speakers on its centre line, my face now leans into said bubble like a child's nose flattens against the glass of a zoo cage. There's negligible distance loss. It's how close proximity decommissions the need for high SPL. The hardware is allowed to cruise not bruise. Ditto our ears. Hello nearfield smarts not on a typical desktop. That I already do in my home office which we'll still get to. But first, the Swiss monitors with LessLoss Firewalls built directly into their solid Cherry speaker cabs. Homajoun Shajarian then Haktan & Hüsnü play tour guide; amongst others.

And at first, others it was; including Deuter's soundtrack for Osho's Nadabrahma meditation based on a Tibetan technique thus filled with singing bowls, bells and other long-ringing metallic objects. The first 30-min. track contains a very small high-pitched bell. It's recorded at low volume so obscured behind louder lower-pitched foreground sounds. To have it step out and be counted typically means higher sound pressure. I've done the meditation for years. I'm very familiar with this soundtrack. Without thinking whilst the LessLoss was in play, I set Nadabrahma to low playback for aural ambience. Yet clear as proverbial bells, there were the faint silvery pinnnngs dotted throughout the Himalayan temple atmosphere peeling out entirely unobscured. Obviously Stellar's res trumped that of my Virtual leashes. With that first impression booked in passing, proper auditions switched to regular music. Though Stellar's tonality was recognizably copperish like the Polski pipes, its recovery of faint harmonics was superior. That gave spatial cues and timbral completeness more data points to paint with. In one fell swoop, my past propensity for pinging LessLoss' tuning dark had modulated. Whilst its core was still copper-toned to trend into warm density—my very recent review of Lavri Cables' pure silver leash had demonstrated the counter polarity of 6n Ag—the classic tweeter bandwidth of the top three octaves was more informative. For an easy takeaway, let's call that aspect as splitting the gap to premium silver. That was unexpected to quickly book some office time where Virtual's Vermillion Flame speaker leads parallel Duelund tinned copper with Mundorf silver/gold solid-core conductor and silver WBT locking bananas.

The low screen concealing the back of this system here carries the red Virtual Hifi speaker cables which served as A/B comparator.

In this session, Flame's actual gold-infilled silver elements dug still deeper into separation and sorting powers with tightly layered soundstages; still flew higher with dynamic soaring on for example the lead sax then bassoon in Øystein Sevåg's title track to Lacrimosa. Both cables were obviously tuned for textural richness and material weight. As such they roam far removed from anything zippy or incisive. Still, the Lithuanian did its thing slightly more diffusive or soft around Vermillion's more defined edges as tracked by Mundorf's brilliant dipole AMT tweeters of Virtual's Viper monitors.

With this far from my first LessLoss rodeo, I'm quite confident. Since Louis Motek's metallurgy or geometry didn't change, his intensified Entropic Processing in this Stellar model must have polished up the top end. Though the core gestalt remains the LessLoss signature warm embodiment of generous never clipped decays, the previously darker climate in which this was set has acquired extra lumens. This conveys more in-sight and with it, moves a click or two up on the subjective resolution scale. Altering a successful recipe and recognizable sonic signature is risky. In this instance, it's all gain no pain. The extra sight falling in through the virtual skylight as it were doesn't rearrange the furniture to upset the interior decorator. All is as we know and expect; except we appreciate it more because we see better. Who'd object to that?

Where my past LessLoss reviews described an earthy moist more redolent aesthetic somewhat on the energetic backfoot to feel more relaxed than driven, the 2X Stellar doesn't change the feel—it's still rich and elastic—but adds harmonic differentiation and top-down micro resolution that are new.

Moving into the main system across the hallway was next where the entire loom is Exact Express, Kinki Studio's cable subsidiary.