The big revelation though was the sound quality. It was the sound of nothing getting in the way. And the important part of that was within a few bars, you realised that practically all the products you’ve heard that make that claim (and the products about which you have made that claim) are the sound of ‘almost’ nothing. There is nothing here; it’s like direct injecting the sound of your CD player or DAC into your amplifier, only without the brief shriek of loudspeaker cones dying…
…Stereo separation is first rate, and doesn’t fall into the trap of imposing its own sense of image size to the sound; what’s on the disc is what gets out of the loudspeakers. If it’s a wall of sound recording, it will sound like a wall of sound. If it’s a carefully preserved recording of an unamplified instrument in a live space, that’s what you get. If you move from disc to disc, you hear the change in recording environments, but this isn’t the kind of device that draws your attention to that sound, thus giving you a dose of audiophilia nervosa. You just sit and listen to your music, enrapt…
…Highly recommended? Hell, things like the Townshend Allegri don’t come along that often. If you like music, you will like the Allegri. It’s that simple.
ALAN SIRCOM – HIFI+ September 2014
