One of my goals for day one to find a room that a) sounded great and b) would add a zero onto the price of one of Doug’s sensibly priced systems. I managed to satisfy both criteria in one of House of Stereo’s room. House of Stereo is a Florida-based retailer and this room featured products by Electrocompaniet, Stenheim, and Nordost.
I wish I could type as fast as Marcus Miller can play bass. When I walked in, they were playing an astonishing bass piece by Miller, full of all kinds of snapping and popping, sounding like he was getting paid by the note. The $76,500/pair (all prices in USD) Stenheim Alumine Five SE speakers sounded so open, so very clear, with a tonal balance that sounds amenable to the ear yet extremely neutral. The leading edge of Miller’s bass notes and the feel of his fingers on the strings were remarkable.
The amplification here was by two large, elegant Electrocompaniet AW 800 M Nemo 2 amplifiers, each operating mono instead of stereo, which retail for $45,000/pair. The preamplifier was an Electrocompaniet EC 4.8 MkII, adding another $4900 to our tab.
Something about the sound of the Stenheims driven by the Electrocompaniets made me want to hear Astor Piazzolla destroy the world with “Milonga del Ángel,” the saddest song ever performed. Sure enough, this track shone via this system. I could clearly differentiate the bandoneon’s underpinnings through the violin sections as I heard Piazzolla pouring out humanity’s sorrows. The sense of image and resolution of instruments was superb.
We must go higher. The Electrocompaniet ECM 1 MkII streaming DAC retails for $5700.
A deadmau5 track—“Hypnocurrency”—just rocketed out of the Stenheims. It felt like I was standing next to a large stack in a dance bar. These speakers have a fantastic start-stop sense of dynamics. Completely controlled by the Electrocompaniet amps, the speakers did that light-switch on-off attack trick.
I guess we should add in the Nordost cables to the total system price. We were listening to a boatload of Valhalla 2 speaker cables and assorted power cords and interconnects. I wasn’t able to get a cohesive price of the whole shebang, but I bet it was a whole heap of money.
I’m not going to do the math on the system as a total, but I think I accomplished both of my tasks. This is an expensive system, but my stars, does it sound like it’s worth the money.
Jason Thorpe
Senior Editor, SoundStage!
