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More orchestral became Peter Gabriel’s newest Scratch My Back where he rearranged familiar and more obscure pop songs with the London Scratch Orchestra. Particularly commanding is "Après moi" originally performed by Regina Spektor. The Densen combo managed an exciting high-wire act between the apparently mutual exclusives of scale and intimacy. Fleet-footed and fluid they tracked orchestral melodic arcs but also had no issue with sudden explosions either, making a well-stuffed couch the proper antidote to bodily recoil. For the first time in this audition the over-dimensioned trannies were called upon to show good dynamic promise based on substantial power supplies.

When the Dave Matthews Band takes stage on Italy’s Piazza Napoleone di Lucca (DMB Live Europe 09, 3-CD-Box + DVD), a quick standing ovation is in order. I’m a great fan who earlier this year had the great pleasure to sample this extravagant live combo with its mix of Jazz, Rock, Funk and Soul for a bit of comparative context. The Scandinavians scored high to redraw most facets of that spectacle. Shaped by vitality and energetic joy of play, exceptional drummer Carter Beaufort emerged as virtuoso from the speakers as did the occasionally shrill electric violin of the giant Boyd Tinsley—a truly tough test for the cochlea—and the experimental guitar solos of Tim Reynolds. That’s how it had sounded when the band with its roots in the Jazz and Blues mecca of New Orleans hit the stage. The percussion shimmered, the saxophone squawked and the Densen chain recreated it all wonderfully potent, effortless and realistic.

Natural is often assigned to gear whose lower midrange and/or foundation are fulsome since acoustic instruments and voices warm up and fill out a bit. That I didn’t notice here. The Nordic machines don’t add artificial sugar. Their kind of natural seems real rather than greenhouse-bred. In the live concert, certain individual exploits routinely scaled up to wild and occasionally up to 20-minute long jam flings. During playback, electronics must avoid losing perspective. No problem for Densen. Each bass drum impact remained dry and poignant, melodic structures were nuanced out sharply without interfering with the groove’s musical flow. The performers were localized exactly where they stood in person. Importantly, they all played together. Despite Danish accuracy, I did not think their rendering analytical or even vivisectionist.


And true, if you want to blow down the walls of Jericho, you’re facing the wrong town. This doesn’t imply that Moby’s "Lift me up" lacked for fun or Beth Ditto’s Gossip juice and pressure on "Heavy Cross". A common denominator was a fat-stripped agile and dynamic presentation. That the beat perhaps lacked the final degree of power I didn’t necessarily view as a disadvantage. I prefer dry dusty impacts and fast hard attacks over fat lazy ones. That’s just personal taste. In the upper end, the Danes carefully negotiated the knife blade of ultra resolution and integrity. The smallest detail was obvious but never tipped into sharp bite even during borderline productions.

Let’s take an extreme example. Over a rig that lives to relentlessly highlight each and every mastering mistake, the Foo Fighters’ In Your Honour becomes categorically unlistenable. Ugly hissing artefacts as they are sadly common in compromised Pop and Rock productions really sour the experience. Over my Symphonic Line RG14 integrated, this joy killer becomes so sadistic that I can rarely listen to it at least over my main system. The Densen chain didn’t improve the material but the bitter medicine clearly went down better. This was a nifty surprise to have me momentarily wonder whether these electronics weren’t carefully calibrated to handle such sub-optimal material better. Not that I’d really believe that.

Regardless, the trick worked. The upper range which on In Your Honour really grates on one’s nerves seemed slightly softened without suggesting that anything was missing. Ex-Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl and founder and front man of the Foo Fighters sings, hisses and screams with his rocker soul hanging out nekkid such that—I’m adding for emphasis—the listener nearly breaks into a sweat. Yet over the Densen duo nothing defaulted into aural rejects. While this record is far from audiophile, it was big fun regardless. And isn’t that the main rationale for music?


Conclusion: Positively speaking, Densen is selling cheats. That's why anyone who associates their plain cosmetics with plain performance completely misses the boat. Aesthetics and functionality are simply sublimated perfectly to the main task at hand - serving up the tunes with emotion, juice and strong tone colors. Particularly with the B-130 integrated, the considerable headroom of its power supply means dynamic challenges are scaled without missing a beat. That the low bass causes no structural damage is true but to my ears, this region was wonderfully articulate, dry and punchy.
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