This first album was enough to make it clear that the resolution of Rossignol was outstanding and on par with only a handful of the very best loudspeakers I'd heard before. I also recognized that it was at least partly due to these exotic field-coil drivers. I had listened to some well-implemented drivers of their kind before and they had always amazed with their resolution. Importantly, it is usually not the clinical hyper-pure resolution that some designers offer in products featuring supposedly even more-resolving drivers. What you ultimately get from field-coils comes from their designer's skills and experience. They can push them for even higher resolution at the cost of tonal richness in the lower frequencies to sacrifice saturation and naturalness. That's not the path Michael took. Instead he found an ideal balance between phenomenal resolution, transparency and clarity against richness, saturation, flow and coherence. One may say that the field-coil driver covers only the midrange while it is really the extremes that catch most listeners. Yet it is the midrange that delivers most of the musical information and ultimately determines how good an overall performance is. In this particular case and to my ears, the choice of midrange driver makes Rossignol at least in a mid-size room still more engaging than Aidoni. It's not necessarily better since Aidoni delivers still bigger scale, even more momentum and powerful slam at the very bottom while maintaining a very good balance throughout the range. Yet in terms of midrange performance and pure pleasure, I would put Rossignol a small step ahead, a little closer to the ever-chased 'perfect' sound.

To confirm what I already suspected after the first album, I kept playing track after track from records and files which allowed me to state with absolute certainty that Michael Plessmann—a man who takes much time to tune his speakers before ever exposing them to a select group of music lovers for feedback—has succeeded once again. The field-coil drivers elevate Rossignol's performance particularly in the midrange to a new level compared with Robin and Pirol, even with Aidoni to a point. And that's quite an achievement as all who know the latter would agree. Aidoni remains the top model with overall superior performance but even Michael recognized what he achieved with the field-coils as evidenced by his Aidoni ugrade. Next came Muddy Water's Live at the Checkerboard Lounge, a fantastic album with many blues legends and the Rolling Stones musicians performing side by side. Rossignol proved to have a great knack for blues. Excellent PRaT, highly expressive vocals and so many guitars with rich tone and body, each portrayed precisely within a perfect rendition of the event. By that I mean not only the stage itself which wasn't that big to get pretty crowded once the Rolling Stones joined. I also mean the space of the club, its atmosphere, the response from the audience. It all felt so real that I had much fun tapping my feet, snapping my fingers and rocking my head! It's such a simple yet great piece of music. With Rossignol, it came alive.

Listening to Renaud Garcia-Fons' Arcoluz, I 'saw' his large upright and bow move across strings and not only heard but felt the power of his physical performance. That's what a combined eight 12” woofers will do. They push so much air that the transfer of energy feels close to a real concert. I also loved the seemingly perfect balance between strings and wood in a dynamically pulsating performance of natural energy which seemed incredibly involving and lifelike. Let's not forget the faithful and convincing rendition of the instrument's rich natural timbre and texture. Rossignol's resolution allowed me to study every little detail without feeling overwhelming. It's not an analytical tool to inspect recordings with—at least that's not its primary function—but rather to enjoy a performance and get this unique feeling which is shared by all frequent attendees of live concerts: complete immersion and participation rather than witnessing something that happened in another time and place. When I played the opening track from the Dune Part II soundtrack, it proved beyond doubt that when it comes to moody dreamy recordings, Rossignol did as convincing a job as it already had with Metallica and AC/DC. These are truly versatile speakers which combined thunderous very low sounds with the melodious slowly developing story so skilfully told that I didn't need video to see the Arrakis desert. Yet when their job was to transfer the energy, dynamics, power, pace and rhythm of rock, blues or even heavy metal, they impressed just as much. The presentation always felt effortless and relaxed. There was no compression or distortion I could hear, no clipping. I could connect with the performers in a very intimate way without making any effort. I keep repeating my delight with the space these speakers can cast. And so with the opening track of the movie score, I found myself in a huge hot desert. 40°C in Berlin at the time probably helped that illusion. The opening hyper-powerful sound shook the whole room. Right afterwards, Rossingol conveyed the dreamy mood of the rest of the track as convincingly as anything before or after.

Chuck Mangione's Children of Sanchez proved a perfect showcase of dynamic capabilities by delivering perfectly dry fast drumming, expressive vocals and tight punctual bass. Again, it was the energy of the presentation that made the difference and was superior to almost any other loudspeaker I've heard before. Rossignol is a storyteller that follows a musician's lead. The narrator of Mangione's trumpet drove the story forward, smoothly changing pace and mood. He pierced my ears when needed or sounded almost gentle. At all times, intricate detail and the timbre and texture of the brass had clarity and certainty without hesitation or nervousness. When I played one of Victor Wooten's tracks from Show Of Hands 15, it confirmed that any recording with powerful purely recorded electric bass will deliver utmost clarity and precision—power and bite, passion and momentum—at a level most people don't even know is possible no matter what kind of speakers they own or their cost. When I changed pace again, "Come Together" from Musica Nuda's Live a FIP had me realize that I had never before truly heard this double bass. The depth and energy extending to the very lowest notes, the density of wood supporting each string pluck… Rossignol presented it all in a way that was breath-taking. The first vinyl I listened to was the familiar Piano Sketches, one of the wonderful releases of Adam Czerwinski's AC Records. The piano had incredibly deep rich tone completely free of any agitation—powerful yet relaxed, sonorous and vibrant yet precise. It sounded a bit dark but realistically so and combined with amazing clarity. Tonal and dynamic micro contrasts presented flawlessly and distinct. It's how this sound was so naturally rich, intense, convincing and deeply engaging. Jerome Sabbagh's Heart recorded with very precise instrumental placement conveyed as he must have intended since I once discussed his recordings with him and what he wanted to achieve. Saxophone in the left channel, drums in the right, gentle bass in the middle. Again, the texture and timbre of each instrument was very convincing and natural. The flow of the music over the Circle Labs amplifier or even more so the SPEC, was naturally velvety. The dark background helped deliver all the tonal and textural intricacies of this very well-recorded performance with a level of precision and clarity that I had probably never heard before from this album.