Another area where the Nagra mINTed more was dynamic scale. I couldn't say whether its dynamic range was simply more linear to push compression well beyond my SPL. What I can say is that whenever the music got louder, it got rather more so with the Nagra. By driving a small Volvo C30 with 2.5-liter 5-cylinder 230HP engine and auto transmission with override, I'm very familiar with turbo boost during downshifted takeovers. A similar sense of sudden power escalation gripped me when I first heard the Swiss integrated's virtual turbo kick in without lag.

It also felt like a potent gust threw open big windows to cancel the over-there violence outside the house and bring it inside close and personal. It was a rather visceral 'whoa' moment. Nagra's switching PSU with big power trafo behaved like our Volvo: big engine, small chassis. Transition from regular cruise mode to stiff sporty acceleration was more instantaneous to uncork a bigger dynamic delta.

With the amount of metaphors I've burnt through already, I should be shampooing Jack Nicholsons' nether regions by now if the movie were As good as it gets. Instead I sportingly did warn of a rave. That demands the full kitchen-sink treatment of metaphors. It's important to give this particular performance aspect its proper due. It speaks directly to a certain sneakiness. After all, this is 'just' an integrated. We've seen how forum comments were adamant that the separates are far superior. They conveniently overlook that Nagra's engineers knew exactly what they were up to with their unusual power supply at the heart of this deck. It's a high-revving little thing. It responds harder and faster than lazier traditional linear supplies with more impressive coke-can capacitors do whose paper power doubles in trade and whose size and weight become hollow guarantors of superiority.

Swiss culture values understatement. We'd not expect Nagra's own propaganda to turn this feature into a highlight reel. From where I sit, that becomes my job now particularly since we left CH for Eire. The muzzle of understatement is off, the Irish gift of gab blessed by the Blarney Stone on. What literally drives the INT's sound is an unusually aspirated power supply. Its clearly tweaked reflexes pay dividends in bass intelligibility, voltage swings and general imperiousness to being pressured. I'm sure that you could throw some fiendish load at this deck to make me a liar. That should simply take some very deliberate stupidity. I'd never hook a sheep trailer to our small Volvo. I'd borrow our neighbor's tractor.

I'm back at sneakiness. It takes intelligence to appreciate. Even idiots understand obviousness. Sneakiness is unprepossessing. It lacks instant show-off bennies. That demands a different mind set to appreciate. I call it more sophisticated and self assured. Owning a Classic INT doesn't prove one's high-end street cred. Anyone knows that separates are far superior, that a six-year old design is way old in the tooth and soon due for dentures. So INT owners won't be just anyone. They'll be somebody. To celebrate them, here's another quote from that movie:

Carol Connelly [stunned]: "That's maybe the best compliment of my life."
Melvin Udall: "Well, maybe I overshot a little because I was aiming at just enough to keep you from walking out."

Still here? If you are, don't be surprised if an upshot of the above was remaining unfazed when things got busy. Here that didn't mean loud but layered. Whether in situ or multi-tracked didn't matter. In fact, the latter could add extra dimension whenever the ambient space around certain parts diverged. Perhaps a bass track or oboe solo was recorded off-site then emailed and patched in? These are non-musical elements about a recording's mechanics. They aren't essential to enjoy the music. Far from it! They can simply give those interested and attentive an over-the-shoulder view on production values. That's higher resolution. Despite being tonally developed so the antithesis of threadbare or unnaturally inquisitive, INT had the detail enlargement to show up overlooked mixing/mastering slips. It just wasn't freakish about resolution to highlight faux pas. Such details were available to tune into when my attention wanted. Otherwise they merged into the flow like a spot light just turned down. Turning on virtual spots to inspect aspects of a recording is a purely mental game. It's like listening to an advanced Bach fugue in a heightened state. It keeps track of the recurring massively paralleled so stacked motif. There's no holding on to any occurrence since doing so would miss others. A mind unclutched and aloof is key. Suffice to say that should you enjoy such cerebral games which rely on a certain distance so degree of abstraction, INT complies. By tendency—if such a thing may be said about any inanimate machine—listening with INT in the system simply invites more with-the-flow involvement than analytical digression. Being Swiss, Nagra may be very civilized, composed, understated and… well, neutral but my INT experience was anything but. I'd call it all hot and happily bothered.

Another quote for a final note.