“…ease and authenticity”
I’d like to wrap things up with my adventure in the PranaFidelity room. In the past I had only seen Steven Norber from a distance, but this was my first time meeting him. Steven is one of those audio celebrities who’s hard to ignore. He projects a unique form of energy, and he must have as lot of it since he came from Colorado by motorcycle. The next time I see him I need to find out what kind of vitamins he’s on.
Many audiophiles know Steven from the gear he designed for Edge Electronics. I believe that his Edge designs are still on the market, or at least it looks that way based on a still-active website. I only had one Edge experience, and that was a a few years back at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, and the product was one of the amplifiers. In this one instance the large Edge amp was outperformed by a paralleled single-ended 300B amp. I should, however, mention that this was on only one recording, of Stan Getz, and the speaker was the original Marten Coltrane, a speaker that tends to sound better with tubes. Other than that, I have never heard any Edge gear.
This time with Steven’s PranaFidelity system I paid very close attention, and I loved what I heard. Although Steven had on hand a Luxman D-08 CD/SACD player ($17,990), I listened to LPs in his room. One thing that means more to me than format is when people play music that I know. Steve happened to have a copy of a genuine audiophile classic, the Charlie Byrd LP on Crystal Clear. I love that album and still consider it one of the Byrd’s best records. Back in the days of my first high-end show, in 1978, the direct-to-disc Byrd LP was famous for featuring one of the most dangerous drum solos on record, a real amp-clipper. It still sounds amazing, and the percussion still sounds mighty dangerous. Steven’s system played the old classic with ease and authenticity. Although he’s is not in the turntable business (at least not yet), he’s now in the speaker business, as well as electronics. The system was fed with a Basis 2200 Signature turntable ($7350), Basis Superarm 9 tonearm ($16,000), and a MY Sonic Labs Ultra Eminent ($6395). On the printed list of equipment a Miyajima Shilabe cartridge was shown, but according to Steven the MY Sonic Labs MC sounded better. Having heard the Miyajima sound so good in Jeff Catalano’s system, I wouldn’t have minded hearing the difference for myself, but I’m sure the issue had more to do with system compatibility than quality of design. Some perfectly great cartridges don’t sound right with my preamp. Most important, the sound was incredible. I would have no trouble owning a PranaFidelity Purma preamp ($9950 with phono), Puma 400Wpc amplifier ($8950), and Vayu/FS speakers ($6950/pair). I know the old Charlie Byrd LP very well, and the guitar sounded especially natural, and so did that famously dangerous drum solo.
Would I give up my tubes for this gear? Hard to say. Give me a chance to compare and Ill let you know.
