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Product: Audio Analogue
Maestro CD player
Manufacturer: Audio
Analogue - Italy
Approx. price (in Italy): 1,700 US $ /
Euro
Reviewer: Lucio
Cadeddu
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The Maestro is the new
top of the line CD player by Audio Analogue and it belongs to the new
Maestro series which also includes a big integrated amp you
may have seen on our recent Top
Audio & Video reportage from Milan.
Also, you may have
seen the Maestro CD player on our Audio
Analogue factory tour this Summer. So, if you need details about
the player, please refer to that factory tour or browse the Audio
Analogue offical site.
Now, let me briefly summarize some
historical background.
The Maestro CD
player has been released after the Paganini
and, in some sense, it is its natural upgrade. The Paganini
has been designed by the previous Audio Analogue engineers Paoletti &
Pratticò (see our interview
here on TNT-Audio) when they were still working at Audio Analogue. So
there's a lot of their work and design inside the new Maestro
too. Indeed, the newer player differs from the Paganini because of a
redesigned D/A converter, which now makes use of an Analog Devices AD
1855 24 bit/96 kHz DAC, a beefier power stage and a new output
stage.
Plus, the Maestro can even work as a separate 24/96 DAC
converter (a digital input is available) and the connection between
the transport and the DAC has been redesigned so to minimize
jitter.
This work is due to the new duo sweating on the
Audio Analogue design desk: Rampino & Manunta (see our recent
interview here at
TNT-Audio).
As you may guess from the picture below the layout is very sano and so is the design and the craftsmanship. The overall quality of this player is the same of the Paganini, hence very good. I won't repeat what I wrote about the Paganini here, the same ideas and comments apply.
So the aim of this
test is two-fold: first of all I'd like to tell you how the Maestro
performs, independently from the fact it is the Paganini's bigger
brother. Secondly I'd like to compare the two players head to head,
so to shed some light on the sonic differences between them.
Like
I did with the Paganini, even the Maestro has been tested into
different HiFi systems, both as an "integrated" CD player
and a 24/96 separate DAC.
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Again, as the
Paganini, the Maestro sometimes appears a tad shy and the mid range
sounds rather "light", especially in its lower portion.
What you get is, once again, the Audio Analogue "family
feeling", a mixture of grace, velvet touch and lightness that
makes Music sound always sweet and kind.
And finally let's talk
about the bass. Though the bass of the Paganini appeared to be
divided into two portions (above and below 80 Hz) with a different
behaviour, the Maestro bass response is linear and extremely
coherent, though it lacks some weight and body.
For example, the
kick drum, on certain drum records, appears a bit "shifted"
towards the highs, like it was smaller and lighter. Hey, since the
Maestro isn't exactly an inexpensive player at 1,700 $, I'm talking
about subtle differences here so I'm sure you'll forgive me if I
emphasize some aspect.
So, briefly and roughly summarizing, the
overall bass performance of the Maestro is pretty good with respect
to extension, linearity and coherence though it lacks some weight to
realistically reproduce some instrument.
Overall precision and coherence being very good, I can honestly conclude this section admitting the Maestro is a pretty fine player.
Being punchier than
the Paganini, the Maestro does have a real fast pace which reminds me
the performance of the Northstar Model 3
24/96 DAC, incidentally designed by the same duo Rampino &
Manunta.
The Maestro can easily follow any dynamic
variation of the musical program, though it never gives the sensation
it wants to shout or explode, a classy yet lively aplomb is
the keyword for its performance.
So it lacks a bit of extra punch
in the bass and in the mids, a punch which is needed with rock
recordings that sometimes sound too "kind" to my ears. Put
some nasty (read: aggressive) recording into the CD drawer and you
get a somehow smoothened performance which is very good even
with large symphonic works but definitely unwelcomed when playing
Prodigy, Massive Attack, Chemical Bros and stuff like that :-)
Its
natural sense of "pace" makes the piano legato's
just a bit too "fast", even if rather precise and detailed.
You can easily concentrate on the attacks, instead of the decays.
So,
as you can easily guess by yourself, the Maestro is pretty good at
microdynamics, hence subtle variations of energy don't get lost in
the big picture.
What would you expect
from a detailed and precise perfomer? A soundstage with very sharp
"contours" and a bright light that helps looking through
it. The stage is also spacious, especially with respect to depth,
though even width and height are pretty good, perfectly aligned with
the class of the player.
More precisely the virtual image appears
to be located right behind the loudspeakers' plane, sometimes even
too much "behind". On some recording I'd expect a small
"piece" of stage to appear even in front of the 'speakers.
I couldn't miss this
family battle. This is NOT a comparison made by using my "memory",
since the two players have been playing into my listening room
TOGETHER for more than a month. You can easily guess I've had enough
time to try any possible combination: Paganini transport coupled with
the Maestro DAC, Paganini alone, Maestro alone, Maestro transport
coupled with external DACs, Maestro DAC coupled with external
transports. Any comparison I could perform, has been done. So you'd
like to know my findings.
Well, the short version is that the
Maestro sounds better than the Paganini, period.
But since I know
you're curious and always in search of details here they come:
the
frequency response of the Maestro is far more linear, with no
roll-offs or "peaks": coherent like a straight line. Even
the bass, though not particularly powerful, appears to be more
linear. Yes, the Paganini can sound beefier in the bass but it is a
false impression: if you read the listening test of the Paganini
you'll understand what I mean here.
Perhaps the Paganini is
"smarter" and even smoother, while the Maestro has a far
better "swing".
The dynamic performance of the Maestro
is far more convincing, though it isn't exactly explosive, as
remarked above. It is even faster than the Paganini, which is a bit
"slow".
As for imaging, the two player are pretty close,
though the soundstage of the Maestro is slightly brighter and larger.
Re-reading these
notes, it seems there's a very large difference between the two
players. If you have had this feeling, well, think again. I've just
emphasized the differences so that you can understand them better but
don't get me wrong here: the Maestro is a finer player than the
Paganini, but I'm always talking of subtle differences, dudes.
Nothing like day & night, black & white, Ferrari &
McLaren :-)
These tiny differences may appear BIG to our ears but
it is still very difficult to relate them to the price difference
between the two players, the Maestro costing almost twice as much as
the Paganini (1,700 $ versus 1,000).
So, summarizing, in the
quality/price ratio department, the Paganini is a hands down winner
though, because of its peculiar sound, it may be less "universal"
than the Maestro.
The Maestro, being mechanically very similar to the Paganini, benefits from using damping feets like the Vibrapods, for example. Also, a good AC cord is strongly needed, see the Paganini's review for details.
The Maestro transport
is exactly the same as in the Paganini so it has a very fast and good
sound. Since the DAC section of the Maestro is as good as the
transport I see no reason for upgrading with a better DAC. A new,
better transport + DAC combo or integrated CD player would be the
most natural upgrade: leave the Maestro as a stand-alone unit.
The
digital input allows you to hook up another digital source (DAT,
24/96 DVD-Video or anything else). Unfortunately (???) the DVD-Audio
standard seems to go for the 24/192 tag, so those of you who have
already bought a 24/96 DAC hoping the new digital format would be
compatible...now have something pretty useless at home. We had
already told you to WAIT ;-)
The quality of the
craftsmanship is the same as in the Paganini so it is a pretty good
one, tough I'd rate it has just "good" if related to the
price tag of the Maestro.
The same things I disliked (hated,
indeed) during the Paganini test (display, switches etc.) remaining
unchanged, my previous comments apply here.
The transport, while
being the same as in the Paganini, appears a bit reluctant to read
some CD's and probably a different set-up of the correction circuits
and servo's has forced the Maestro to refuse a couple of discs the
Paganini has read without trouble.
Perhaps a simple case of
slightly mismatched regulations, a bit annoying, considering the
price tag of the player, though.
As for sound quality, let me complain again about the bass, a bit on the "light" side and the punch, a bit too "smooth" for hyper-energetic Music.
Perhaps, listening to
the two players during a fast A-B comparison, one wouldn't find the
differences I have described in this article. Let me say that just
long and accurate tests into your listening room can say something on
the sonic differences between two players which have the same
transport and the same internal layout, more or less. Whether these
differences are worth the extra money required it's up to you to
decide: listen and judge by yourself. While money can be easily
"measured" by dollars or Euros, listening pleasure can't,
sorry. So every audiophile has to have his own "scale".
The
bottom line is that, in my humble opinion, the Maestro is a fine
performer that can be successfully used with HiFi systems of the
hi-end kind up to 5,000 $ or so. Plus, thanks to its "easy"
sound it can be matched easily with most systems.
A warm thank you to the Audio Analogue staff for having sent us the Maestro for reviewing.
© Copyright 2000 Lucio Cadeddu - https://www.tnt-audio.com
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