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November / December 2010:
Playback Designs MPS-5 Review and Award
Circuitous Maximus Award – Evolution Acoustics/Playback Designs/darTZeel/Wave Kinetics
by David Robinson
“Finally, there is my award for system synergy in my listening room during this year. I launched the Circuitous Maximus in 2009, believing that I needed to have a category for superior system synergy when this occurred. Last year I said, “I have a new award that I am going to launch for 2009. This will be the PFO Circuitus Maximus Award. It will only be given when I’ve encountered multi-component systems that exhibit the very highest level of reference-grade synergy. Since that happens only once in a while, some years may see no Circuitus Maximus awarded at all.”
Last year was a bumper crop year for system synergy, and I recognized both mbl and Boulder Amplifiers for their superlative qualities in this regard.
This year saw the same loudspeakers, but with a different chain of electronics and support components: the Playback Designs MPS-5 feeding the darTZeel NHB-18NS Preamplifier. This tandem then sent the signal downstream to the darTZeel NHB-108 Stereo Amplifier, which in turn sent it along to the Evolution Audio MM2 loudspeakers. Isolation feet by Wave Kinetics were used under the MPS-5 (model A10-U8) and the MM2′s (model 2NS), with a noticeable improvement in sound in both places, carefully noted by some rather arduous A/B comparisons, back and forth. (Frankly, if I had more of the A10-U8 isolators, I’d put them under the preamp and amplifier, as well.) Cabling is by Evolution Audio, with PC2 One power cords to the MPS-5, the NHB-18NS preamp, and the NHB-108. The speaker cables are the Evolution Acoustics DRSCs. The only exception on the cabling is the fact that two of the very fine Silent Source power cables were used for the powered woofers on the MM2s.
Both the mbl reference system and the Boulder Amplifier components were extraordinarily synergistic, each in its own way. Both were very tough acts to follow. How would this chain of components do by comparison in 2010?
Jonathan Tinn of Blue Light Audio worked with me to assure optimum measured linearity of frequency response in my listening room. We used several different sonic analyzers to dial in the MM2′s for dynamically flat response in place, cross checking the results, which turned out to be reassuringly stable over time. Listening sessions took place at levels that ranged from volumes in the 80′s of dBs to as high as 105-110 dBs (for short crescendos and dynamic peaks… I do treasure my hearing, after all!) This was impressive, as a revision of the darTZeel NHB-108 from years ago would sometime clip at these levels. The revised model was still 100 Watts per channel, but was definitely stiffer in its performance, and spent the entire year simply doing the job without clipping or cutting out. This is an excellent result all by itself.
The NHB-18NS preamplifier is simply a jewel in every sense of the word. This particular unit has two MC phono inputs installed, providing 63 dB of gain quite flawlessly. The virtues of the Ortofon A-90 on the Continuum Criterion shone, day in and day out. I’ve certainly never heard a better phono amp integrated within a preamp. The line-level input from the MPS-5 SACD feeds were to die for: simply glorious, and setting an obvious standard for preamp transparency and dynamics. It embodies that audiophile dream: the preamp that give you gain without pain. It steps out of the way of the signal, and leaves no flavor on the audio signal that I could qualify. Very, very neutral; very “not there.”
Exceptional.
And the MM2′s… well, in a room of my size, they were as authoritative, and yet as uncolored as anything that has ever been here. The frequency response was definitely below 20Hz someplace; in a larger room, it would be interesting to see how low it would go. Below 16Hz? I suspect so. And the playback was always wonderfully integrated, with no sense of “here’s a driver, and there’s another, and I can pick that one out, too.” I’d simply close my eyes, and listen, and there it would be: Stevie Ray Vaughn, or Duke, or Miles, or Creedence Clearwater, or Reiner and the CSO….
I’ve never heard better here.
This is no quickie conclusion, mind you. Having spent the past year listening to literally hundreds of hours of music through this system, with various sources in place (Walker Audio, Continuum, Playback Systems, and PS Audio), I’d have to say that the Playback Designs/darTZeel/Evolution Acoustics/Wave Kinetics combination is as incredibly synergistic as anything I’ve ever heard. Nothing gets in the way of anything else; everything seems to breathe and live as one, and to do so effortlessly. The quality of the audio reproduction is startling. The transparency of the sound is my current zenith; no hum or background white noise, yes, but also no blurring or romanticizing of any source that I played through the system at all. And I put enormous amounts of music through the pipeline: hundreds of SACDs (that’s no exaggeration, by the way—we have over 3500 SACDs in our reference library here), LPs, HRx .WAV discs, CDs… they all made their way through the playback chain. In no instance was the result anything other than top of the heap.
When you consider that darTZeel and Playback Designs/Evolution Acoustics/Wave Kinetics are different companies, as are Walker Audio, Critical Mass Systems, and Silent Source Audio, the extraordinary degree of fusion that has lived here for a year is truly amazing.
If you are looking for world-class audio reproduction that is intensely synergistic, I suggest that you take a very careful look at the winners of this year’s Circuitous Maximus Award. It is going to be very hard to top the 2010 winning combination. I wouldn’t be surprised if I have to wait a while to find anything nearly as good.
And perhaps quite a while.
This combination of components therefore wins the 2010 Circuitous Maximus Award, with a Ye Olde Editor’s “very highest recommendation!”