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Seems to me the opposite . . . .

Posted by DkB (A) on July 13, 2006 at 01:12:55

In Reply to: goldmunds are fast and exciting? maybe, but obscure lots of real musical details posted by jeme on July 12, 2006 at 20:24:16:

Jeme, Thanks for your interesting counter perspective.

I did hear the huge top-of-the-line $100,000 Goldmund amplifiers a few years ago and found them to have lightning-quick responses. However, they sounded tonally colourless, which means everything in the instrumental mix sounded "gold" tinted, with a smooth metallic golden ring or sheen to it. Attractive to some well-heeled audiophiles but not to me. It sounded more like circuit colouration to me rather than the "dynamic range being squeezed, upper harmonics pushed to the fore, truncating of upper extremes, or transient rise time blunting" you observed.

With the new Telos amp, I did not detect this same "monochromaticising" golden sheen, even in comparison to the Pass XA amplifiers, which are the most vibrant in tone colour that I had heard to date. Through Telos amplification, brass, stringed and woodwind instrumental reproduction was strikingly realistic, a sure sign that their natural dynamic envelopes and overtone structures were being closely preserved, I assume, by the high speed tracking of the Job circuits.

DO your comments refer to older Goldmund designs, or to Goldmund's latest Telos amplifiers? If the latter, I am eager to understand what you heard, so I can listen out for it the next time I hear the Telos amps. At this price, you can be sure I will be critically on the lookout for even minor flaws before buying!

You mentioned that in the Goldmund, "upper harmonics are pushed to the fore" and yet you state later that "the upper extremes are truncated." Aren't these two observations mutually contradictory?Either the treble is accentuated or it is suppressed. Which of these is responsible for the "musical timbre being altered and musical nuances being glossed over?"

You also mention that the Goldmund's "dynamic range is squeezed" and "the rise time of transients get blunted" and yet infer that the Goldmund sounds artificially dynamic. I would like to understand how this occurs?

I did apply the "Jerome Procedure" (sorry, is it patented?) and found timbral differences to be far more pronounced on the Telos amps than on the Pass. An orchestral playing at full strength seemed more like a Kaleidoscope of diverse colours on the Telos than on the XA, where differences in instrumental colours seemed more "whited out". Of course, I will listen again based on your recommendation.

Surprisingly, the Telos did not lack any of the Pass XA's fluid expressive quality, and seemed to have even better timing and flow. THis is bad as I wanted the cheaper Pass XA to sound better than the Telos. The only appeal the Pass XA had was in presenting slightly denser and more solid images, which could be a factor of its warmer tonal quality.

Thanks for your cautionary advice, which I will note during my next Telos listening session.

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