Ongaku First Impressions

[Amfibius]

Congratulations Howie! Looks right at home ... no wonder you are in cloud nine!

[Jerome W]

Howie !
Congrats !
What a beautiful, clean, intoxicating system it must be ! You can be proud.
I'm very happy for you.

[TommyC]

Fantastic review Howie! Good for you for fulfilling part of your dream. The video is quite nice!

Do you plug the Ongaku into the PP2000? Serge mentioned his Shindo amp sounds better straight into the wall. Maybe you can try that too.

[Volks]

Looks good&Sounds good Howie!

[chessman]

Howie, congrats!!

[PHC1]

Howie, the video is cool! I don't know how much difference the Ongaku made but I could have recognized that Strad sonic signature with my eyes closed. The Strads really do impart their sonic signature on any gear but in a good way. I like the burnished tone and the harmonic bloom, sounds very romantic.

I'm eyeballing your room, are you sure you will be OK with Westminsters? They are pretty large! The Strads are 25" wide, the Westminsters are 38"!

[VT Skier]

One of the best systems I have ever heard was an all-Audio Note room in CES a few years ago. Although it's the UK version, not Howie's Konda, the sound was sublime. Definitely not the "audiophile" standard of all details to the Nth degree, but it was beautifully musical.

I know we aren't supposed to post links, but here's a picture of the room from Stereophile's coverage (if this is bad, maybe someone with more computer skills can copy the picture?):

Ongaku Means Ecstasy | Stereophile.com

[Amfibius]

Howie, I have heard a couple of Westministers in my time. I really rate the speaker - it is simply brilliant and I think it would go really well with an Ongaku. Funnily enough, the owner of the Westministers which so impressed me happened to be running them with a vintage pair of Quad solid state amps at the time. I was a bit puzzled, because the same guy owns a pair of Avantgarde Trios with Kondo Kegon's. It sounded fantastic with the Quad SS amps, I can only imagine what it would sound like with Kegons or Ongaku's. He is a member of AA, so hopefully he will stick his head in

[m.tonetti]

Howie, congrats.

[howiebrou]

Originally Posted by jdandy

Howie.......I enjoyed your review. It is clear you have found a component that is thrilling you. I am happy for you. The video is good, too. I'll be purchasing that recording if I can find it.

Here you go Dan.

MA Recordings

On looking up the recording just now I found out that they have released this high resolution version. Gotta add it to my list.

This is the normal cd version. A bit cheaper than $40.00 at $16.00

MA Recordings

howie