Friday night, we drove recklessly through the terrible traffic to the other side of Belgium to meet these 2 lovely people again.
To enjoy music, to enjoy food and drinks, and to enjoy each other's company.
A couple of things changed since our last visit.
There is a second Analog Domain M75P amplifier.
(Jacques' own pics).
And this lovely box sat in the space normally occupied by the MDA 1000:
We started off with some of my albums that I brought along to understand better what these 3 lovely Analog Domain boxes were capable of.
This Analogue Productions SACD is a terrific remaster of some of the most beautiful pieces of female voice accompanied by a piano you will encounter on this planet.
It was recorded in '60, so it has some tape hiss, but magnificent Ella and also pianist Paul Smith sound so real on a good system, so intimate, that this is a good test disc.
Jacques' system gloriously succeeded in conveying the emotion here.
One of my favourite test discs.
Also here, I could hear that this DAC must be amongst the finest.
Detail, depth, presence, it was all there.
We continued with Mumford & Sons' Sigh No More (try track 10, and you'll see, no
feel it!), Madredeus, Gustav Leonhardt on the harpsichord.
It was good!
Memory is a tricky thing, but compared with our visit in November, I thought the system sounded much clearer, there was more insight.
Was it the DAC?
Or the addition of a second M75P?
A not even so wild guess: the DAC was the most important factor.