Listening Three - Home Sweet Home

My turntable was non-operational due to some surgery - I am fitting an SME IV tonearm, and what with the phonostage in desintegrated state? - so the listening was to be done with CD only. I used the fine Hawk MP-DAC, which I expected to complement the Gaincard well, with its warmish and lush sound. It did.

After three days of continuous warm-up the 47 Labs amp yielded a very transparent sound that laid bare everything going on in the music, and this without grain, without trace of electronic artifice. The soundstage was exemplary, wide, deep, and open, this to a degree I hadn't experienced before at home.

Tonally it was light, with a fierce but clean treble and a lean bass. A very interesting bass: what it was lacking in weight and warmth it made up with well-defined contours and a remarkable tightness. Compared to this presentation my usual electronics seem to have a terrible overhang. Or should that be hangover?

Still, I did miss some body in the music, some bloom. Likewise, dynamically there wasn't much push, and for instance my antique Dynaco delivers just that: warmth, kick, and a lush bloom. This exemplifies that the Gaincard electrically may behave as a low-power triode amp, but sonically it is completely different. It is just as flawed as a little tube thing, but then again, it can be just as captivating, only in an entirely different fashion.

You see, while lightweight and pastel-hued, the sound had lots of musical interest. The flow of music, vocal inflections, subtle shadings, the complexity of rhythms, ... all were brought out in an impressive way. No, make that in a beguiling way.

After a while I found a method to partly offset the lightness of touch, the lack of grunt: for each and every recording one specific listening level 'clicked', made things sound more correct, more real than other levels. And when this particular level was within reach of the Gaincard, then bliss resulted. When the level needed was too high for the little amp, then all one could do was put back the disc, or move into a smaller room. This happened quite often, so my conclusion is that the Quad ESL can be a good speaker for the Gaincard, but probably so only in rooms smaller than our 4 x 8 meters.

Putting Things Into Context

So far I have not exactly been raving about the Gaincard. What then with all those extatic US reviews??? Let's have a closer look at them: Herb Reichert used the 4706 with Avantgarde Duo horns, Art Dudley (Listener Magazine) with Lowthers. Both highly sensitive designs that can strip wallpaper with only 2 Volts input. A far cry from Nautili or electrostatics indeed. And both reviewers commented on a certain dryness, and lack of a moist atmosphere. Indeed, again. Both found the music recreated through the Gaincard interesting and fun. Dr.Gizmo used Tannoys, and apart from stating that this was the transistor amp he likes most, while still not matching directly-'eated-riodes, he says nothing about the sound. Steven Rochlin gives it 95 points all over the band, but only 75 for sub-bass and 85 for mid-bass. Valerie-Anna-Log comments on a broad and deep soundscape, with plenty of detail and focus. Blair Rogers used Quad 63s, initially did not like it, and after a few weeks said that "if you were looking for tube sound, then look somewhere else, otherwise sit back and and let the 47 weave its delicate spell of silken thread". Ow, he also heard "deep, shuddering bass".

Apparently my own notions about dryness, lack of bass volume, and excellent detail and spaciousness are not far off the mark, and I should not fear being visited by a Ninja hit squad.

Fine. Excellent. Let's continue.

Listening Four - Coming to a Synthesis

At the beginning of the year I learned that the Synthese One, a legendary Belgian high-end loudspeaker from the eighties, was to be revived in an all-new version. And almost by coincidence I found someone who had just acquired a mint pair of the original Ones. With a benign impedance and a 89dB sensitivity these large four-way transmission lines promised to be a good match for the Gaincard. More: the owner of these speakers expressed an interest in the 47Labs amp. So I did something I normally don't: perform part of a listening test in an alien environment. I hope you'll forgive me.

Again plagued by bad luck, none of my host's turntables were spinnable that night and so we reverted to a big Sony DVD player as source, piped directly into the Gaincard. I only spent a few hours there, so the following comments have anecdotal value at the best. The overall sound reminded me a bit of the Cabasse/47 Labs combination, only now sublimely neutral and with a tight and very deep bass. Dynamics were excellent too, and the Synthese speakers (I hope to review the MkIIs soon) proved to be very transparent, with fine width and depth. I still found things a bit dry and bright, but keep in mind that I was in a strange room, one without much damping at that, and with a speaker I'd never consciously heard before. Nevertheless, a fine result was obvious, and the Syntheses clearly mated well with the Gaincard.

In the following days my host played on with this system, augmented now by a Pioneer CL-590/Dynavector DV-505/Shure V-15 vinyl setup (big Japanese direct-drive battleship of the sort Thorsten would approve of). He liked the Gaincard a lot with vinyl, commenting favourably on its precision. Conversely, the revealing nature of the little amp was too much for his poor Sony DVD and Rega Planet CD-player. Still, a decision to buy the 4706 followed soon after.

And the story doesn't end here. I got contacted by another Belgian loudspeaker manufacturer, Koen Vaessen, of $10000 Aquarius fame, and after having listened to the Gaincard on his own designs, again very efficient wide-band speakers, he took up the distribution for the Benelux countries.

Conclusions

I admire the Gaincard, simply for proving that an awful lot of good noises can be made with just a pair of cheap power opamps. It proves something that is highly relevant to audio design. I adore its concept and the package it comes in. However, I do not love it, because to me (and in my system and with cabling that, I admit, did it injustice) the lack of bass and warmth moved it too far away from my tastes. In addition, its scope of application is rather limited: loudspeaker choice is critical, and not all sources are prepared to drive the Gaincard directly, without preamp (I experienced problems with two or three other sources). Then again, when things 'click' the Gaincard really is an effective integrated amplifier, and at no time did I find the twelve-step dual-mono attenuators a nuisance or an inconvenience.

Wrapping it up, 47 may not be the answer to everything (we all actually know that 42 is the real number ;-). But if you have wide-bandwidth speakers of high-efficiency and with a generous bottom end, coupled with a warm yet transparent source, then be my guest, for, when all is said and done, the Gaincard remains something truly special.

And Sead, man, do you have any idea how curious I'm now about the 4712 phonocube? Any idea?

This was a laborious review, and without the help from Sead Lejlic (Konus Audio), Geoff Husband (TNT), Philip Matthews (Hifi Corner), and Henk Catry, it would never have happened. So, thanks guys!