'Perfect Days' is a very good movie. It has many layers, a delicate spirit, I could write about it until the evening - and there is a tiny slice in it that belongs here, for hi-fi, for listening to music.
Do you remember?, in the story set in the present day, the main character always listened to old music, moreover, on cassette, and in the second-hand record store, the seller said that he would buy any number of program cassettes, because it was very fashionable now.
In Japan, of course.
Will the same thing happen to the CD? It is very difficult to predict this right now. What seems to be the case is that file-based listening has completely displaced the silver disc, and player development has practically stopped, even though large CD collections of several thousand have accumulated on the shelves of serious music listeners. Exceptions can be counted almost on one hand.
One of them is the Pro-Ject RS2T.
Pro-Ject is a famous name and has always been famous for their LP players.
RS2T is a completely new device, apparently designed for those who still listen to music on CDs but want something better than before.
Why only transport?, but this is obvious: there are a lot of d/a converters on the market right now, especially because of the new file-listening, they're new, and they sound much, much better than the old DACs. New chips, previously unattainably low distortion values, new solutions, plus the rise of premium Chinese devices are typical of the current period.
CD transport - this is a complicated thing. Mostly because, besides cables, it is one of the biggest hi-fi labyrinths, full of unanswerable questions.
One of these questions is the incomprehensibility of the basic thesis itself: why do two CD transports sounds different from each other at all? Why spend a lot of money on this at all? Aren't the ones and zeros the same?
Wasn't digital technology invented so that it wouldn't be, for example? How, for example, can there be a bass difference between two chassis? So, will the digitally controlled ABS in your car work differently if a different wiring goes to the sensors?
The answers or attempts to answer are almost ridiculous. Spaceships are landing on the surface of Mars, but knowledge is stuck here at the hifi-surface, it seems.
There was a time when the jitter was the main villain, everyone kneaded on it to make it as small as possible. There were decades when fabulous industrial artifacts were created, with half-kilogram plate clamps and sapphire bearings and industrial lasers and price tags over 10k.
There were times when the digital output stage and the coulping solutions and the digital interconnect was the main topic. Nowadays, for example, minimizing analog interference signals is one of the bridgeheads. However, the perceived sound quality did not want to show any clear correlation with these technical things.
If you want a good CD transport today, there's a good chance you'll get lost in the maze. Because there's serious chassis with bad sound, and there's swaying plastic transports with brilliant sound, and the opposite is also true.
From there, my own experiences follow, and the thoughts drawn from them. Err reserved, this is only natural (or should be) in hi-fi.
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The old, well-thought-out, proven chassis performed poorly for me without exception.
The legendary Sony mechanics work perfectly after 25 years, and their lack of musicality is downright alarming.
Philips-based solutions, led by the CD Pro2, which are 'the best CD transports available', gave a strange vagueness, shameless data swallowing in the top range, imitation of ill-conceived analog sound.
That's what got me from those. Even if they used to give you a good car for some. I've heard this even with revolutionary DIYer solutions. As if there were an invisible sphere that they could not break.
Today's players, the few I hosted, have already shed this veil of obsolescence, but in return there were huge problems with tone. In particular, upscaling solutions have brought something strange to the music, even though they measurably 'carry' specific distortions out of a range that is particularly sensitive in digital technology.
In the end, I had two devices that performed perfectly as CD transport for a longer period of time.
One of them is the Heed Thesis Delta, which only has a coaxial output, and is not even optimized for transport-only use, but still, something special rolling-feeling and sound-beauty is what it produces.
The other is Mark Levinson №.512, the 'Lord' who, with the price of ex15k, obviously plays in the upper caste, where the most painful vocal errors can sometimes be heard. Here, the 512 is an aristocratic, big sound with a subtle tone, of course 10 kilos of unnecessary parts that don't play a role when used as transport, so it's a slightly unnecessary luxury, although I might add, this is true for the whole hifi / HighEnd.
So, that's the sound environment / background for me, and that's what the comparison went to the most. Concert experiences, instrument sounds, imagined tones, expected sound ideals, preferences according to individual tastes support the subjective account below.
Which is mostly about the experience, the feeling.
How did Géza Ottlik's character, Gábor Medve, say in the novel Buda?
"What we certainly have, says Medve, is feeling. There is nothing else so certainly. The existence of the world, of other people, is hypothetical, a presumption, an assumption that you can make probable with a sufficient number of trials. You accept it as existing, since you can't do anything else, but it's better not to forget that only the feeling is not hypothetical, surely it is.
However, the feeling is inaccurate before looking for words, trying to find it. It is fundamentally and inherently inaccurate."
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At the heart of the RS2T is the Pro8, a mechanism designed by Stream Unlimited in Austria, controlled by the BlueTiger CD-84 servo.
Top-loaded and mechanically suspended; he underneath the carbon fiber outer layer is surrounded by a solid aluminium housing.
There is no power supply inside, this is important. The external power supply that comes bundled with it is a 3A switching power supply, kind of like a laptop charger, and it's not bad at all. Optionally, a linear power supply can be ordered as a separate device with a toroidal transformer inside.
Sonically, the linear power supply really seems to be better, but unlike the other testers, I don't think the difference is dramatic. And it doesn't make another approach. There won't be a new voice. The frames that make me love this device so much remain exactly the same. The LPSU gives a livelier, buzzier, more hi-fi sound, a bit over-balanced. Nice, most of you will probably like it better. The SMPSU is calmer, perfectly balanced in the middle on systems with sufficient resolution, and gives the almost surprising lifelikeness that makes it clearly better for me.
The listening experiences below were born with the original, accompanying food.
The suspension was apparently made with special care; I imagine that they chose this version after many auditory tests.
Really touched, it's a very fine piece. Small, chunky, quite heavy. Gently opening / descending lid, an ultralight puck. And enormous display with big numbers, brightness adjustable, it can also have black base. It's 2024, so you can display CD metadata: both the album title and the track being played can be read.
The remote control is full metal, demanding, handy - of course I reprogrammed my teachable one to the basic commands.
Reading is fast, everything is nicely quiet. There is coax, symmetrical and I2S exit - the latter, like the Heed Delta, has the 'European' layout, so not detected by the Chinese Gustard DAC, so there is no experience of this. For me, XLR sounded better than coax, which is not surprising.
The quality of the digital interconnect is key; there will be a weak sound with a weak cable, this is also not surprising. He likes the ultra-thin Radnai bare wire just like the other transports; you have to go very high in price to find a better connection.
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Well, finally, the sound.
What is it like?
Well, it's just phenomenal.
I didn't think I'd ever hear anything like that from a 44.1 RedBook conventional player.
Let's consider it in more detail:
The noticeable difference, surprisingly, first appeared not in complex music, but in the single-threaded vocals. This Graindelavoix record, it's a difficult one, there were a couple of years when I thought there was a sound engineering flaw here, that it was so shouty.
Pro-Ject is simply magical here. I don't know how he does it. The layering of the midtone has increased into something incredible. Is there some sort of resolution improvement, or rather error exit?, I don't know. A straight, sustained sound, and hitherto unnoticed inner subtleties appear. You could say horizons. Spacious, infinitely free. There was no trace of sharpness. That is?, it turns out again that we are lame at the hifi, there is absolutely no problem with recording.
Savall disc, on SACD. The normal layer crammed into the crippled-small space must now be played.
Especially good. Suddenly, upon entry, the background becomes full of noises, noises and barely audible background information. So far, I've heard this about SACD the most, but here we're below the 44.1 limit, which is almost incredible.
Piano.
It's practically the first time I've heard exactly what tone that piano is in the night brothel where it was recorded. (Because I think it is.)
The piano-piano difference between the CD transports here is particularly interesting. Because the smaller the difference, the bigger it is. Actually, roughly objectively, the difference is probably minor. But our perception works with strange twists and turns. For large discrepancies, we immediately detect, compare, comment, OK. With such small differences, our brain simply changes scale, much like a microscope, when we turn a more powerful lens instead of 40 and suddenly hear and imagine new sets of data, new sounds. And the experience will be quite powerful.
Harpsichord. The nightmare of digital technology. Because there are frighteningly many sensitive overtones. The analogue tends to beautify, swallow, transmit, simply smooth out the bad parts. Moreover, in even/odd class harmonic distortions, analog is simply in a more fortunate position, that is, more tolerable. LP fans jump right now for me, but I've only heard good harpsichord sounds from digital so far, quite rarely, I have to say. Because digital disturbances, distortions, deviations that cause all kinds of discomfort are not beneficially absorbed, but shine in the sun in their complete nakedness.
Here is 1 sec. below you hear that this is very good. Specifically, the best I've heard so far. However, I have a 'harpsichord-optimized' system. The many strings, we already had. However, their separation is now at its best. And something fabulous with instrumental case resonances.
Every piece of music tells you that the RS-2T is a deeper thing. Airier, lighter, bolder. The background is blacker, the silences are bigger, quieter, an imaginary basic noise level has jumped lower. The sounds of silence may be very important after all. The easily describable hi-fi parameters, e.g. bass volume, top registers, or space have been good so far; This is something more elusive. I am an advocate that good hi-fi is actually a matter of personalization, so it can happen that we look for and produce something more beautiful and better than real instrument sounds. Here with the RS-2T, however, I feel that the balance is not being embellished, but tilting the scales towards the more real. And the point is that it feels like more data is what makes music. Because we simply hear more about the CD. Probably that's not the case, it's that what happens is that certain errors, distortions, strange-tasting nonknows, have somehow been subtracted and simply allow the music itself to 'come out'.
Finally, there's a plate where the RS-2T is particularly fantastic.
A human voice, a monotonous humming, various short readings, accompanied by an electric bass. (article about it here). Yes, acoustic instruments, gamba, piano, so now that would be the real thing, only those are good to test, blah... blah.. and so on, but now, for some reason, it hasn't become.
It's that the humming is so realistic that it could be embroidered on the flag of the BBC school - that's pretty much what we expected, didn't we?, but I didn't expect this artificial bass accompaniment, this one in fact to break up into a thousand more threads, it got deeper, and it happened like string multiplication on the harpsichord - I had never heard anything like that.
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It's the top-loading mechanic, it's not that simple either; it's not just that Pro-Ject makes LP players, that's obviously where the idea comes from.
The situation is more complicated, gradually it turns out that this is almost a metaphysical issue.
Because you have to get up from the armchair, go there, open it with both hands, because you can't do it with one hand, take off a little weight, gently set aside a small weight so that it doesn't fall, roll, hold the disc skillfully, spread it with two fingers, it's not so easy, lift it, put it back in place, put the other CD in gently, put a little weight on it, pay attention to it right in the middle, close the lid carefully, go back to sit down, grab the remote control, finally press the 'Play' button... - well, this is far from ergonomics and speed and efficiency and purposefulness.
But if we strain our brains a little, we will slowly realize that, for example, the most famous and expensive porcelain teacups have such uncluttered ears and are so vulnerable that it is a complete stunt to hold them without breaking them.
And here's the point: this thing is actually civilizing.
It teaches careful, concentrated movements.
It teaches listening.
And the tea is guaranteed to have a different taste. Because it's a ritual like that, it's a rite.
What is a ritual?, well, a thing that sometimes seems complicated and meaningless, but we do it in order for certain things to happen. Here, in the case of the RS-2T, to make the system sound good, to make listening to music itself a great experience.
Rome, the first part of the 1600s.
The house of Signor
Girolamo Frescobaldi. A villa, actually. A spacious room, a masterly carved
clavichord, a harp on a chair; he played professionally on both instruments.
Plenty of notes, music notes and old tablets piled up.
And botanical atlases with colour engravings. Paracelsus’
recommendations for the enrichment of the soil with various elixirs.
Theophrasus’ legendary book, Historia Plantarum, open at the part about the Grass
Growing In The Track Of Dragons. That it is very bitter but it keeps away all sorts
of harmful insects, snakes, alligators and reptilians above and under the
ground.
The Yellow Book is on a separated shelf; it is the ancient gnostic
tractate about the Mysterious Withering Of Flowers.
There is a triangle shape
garden behind the villa. A secret labyrinth full of various sorts and kind of
flowers.
Frescobaldi knew what Renoir put in writing 200 years later,
namely that looking at flowers purifies the eyes. Eyes that look inside or
rather upward and see, visually perceive music.
The short title of the record is Canzoni & Partite; it
does not burden us with Latin botanical technical terms out of the blue. On
entering the garden our soul slowly soothes; the bells of Saint Peter Basilica
are heard only.
The harmony, the build-up of the melody is not recuperation,
rather, introspection-permission, that is, we can hear something created
somewhere rather than being borne. With colours, petals and forms; the consummation
is only like unopened buds turning into flowers.
Canzon Sesta a due Canti e Basso (Potentilla nitida) likes
rocky soil, open spaces and wind, even some small storm does not do any harm,
i.e., the roots of the rhythm are strong, audibly it is not parallel nervure
but branching and getting to the bottom. It prefers spreading right above
ground, the part of the cello is horizontal and the sprawling of the foliage
toward the light is large. The colour of the flute inflorescence is so intense
in the mountains that it is slightly abrasive, Tear-exciting, hence the name
near Ferrara. The feeling of harmony is just surprising.
Why? Because it does
ensue from either the structure or the euphony or the performance. These inner
and invisible colours must know something.
Canzon Terza a due Canti (Cholchicum Hungaricum) is the
materialised unfulfillment; the two flutes are in unison first then they
shift onto another part, they watch each other on one stem incessantly, very
close to each other, admiring each other’s breath, in great love till death.
Trio (Pulsatilla grandis) equally likes windy and leeward places so the flutes
are just finely breathing, the cello gets a whole part, the Renaissance Equality is echoed, the three of them are standing slightly touching each
other, their slow difference delights us, they reflect the colour of the sky.
Crocus reticulatus (Canzon Terza) is sensitive, its habitat
is protected terraces and hidden valleys, the two flutes draw a thin membrane,
the cello stem gently holds the vulnerable leaves. Parallel nervure, tufted
roots, a few centimetres only. The flower is a miracle itself. It seems to be a
simple part but it is not eventually. It tells us something important. In the
language of flowers. Who knows it understands it, who understands it knows it.
Basso Solo (Saponaria pumila), there are several, it may be
a plant after all, first it runs you down albeit the stem is slim, small
shoots, it creeps up everywhere, grows inside rocks, interlaces it with its
musicality like the whole record, the melody is going on, it changes stage by
stage, there are invisible rugged parts at the bottom from which so beautiful
little flowers bloom toward the sky that they are talked about even today, 400
years later; it is the recurring dream of the cover photographers of National
Geographic.
It is so easy of steering and astounding that some of my friends
believed my serious introduction: Listen, I’ll show you the piece of a Sicilian
contemporary composer from 2010, it is not put on a record, it is a demo only …
then they say that it is cool and you can heavily feel today’s era, can’t you?
I am laughing, the bines and claspers burst our musical semi awareness with
winding curiosity open, the melody is going on its way, and some serious
systems heavily present in the background is dawning after several listening to
it like the whole mountain itself.
Bruno Cocset is still young here like a revolutionist. He
hadn’t much more hair but there is some maddening agitation in the way he uses
his fiddlestick.
The base is the beautiful Folia and Passacaglia solo cembalo
variants in the record, the ground level, the frame the garden lies on, the
grass, loads of grass (Muscos sp.) surround and feed the flo wers, repetition turning into
infinity, however, watching closely and carefully, bending down or even lying
on the mown we can see loads of tiny, miniature flowers, decorations of
ornaments, itsy-bitsy quirks thrown back, almost untraceable roulades enchant
me.
Canzon Prima a due Canti (Nigritella rubra) - two flutes,
their interlocking is the inter-waving of the exhaled air, practically, the
amalgamation of breaths, a dialogue where both speak at the same time yet it is
more comprehensible than separately, weird, is it not? Their inflorescence is
very special, complex, they are standing next to each other in the wind, lovers
separated, looking at each other in infinite aspiration, they might make love
where no one can see them, in the tangle of the roots … what we can see above,
that the cello carries the secret messages forth and back, the harmony is
appalling.
The ensemble never set up like this again. The CD is
unavailable now.
The blitzing and astonishing beauty hunts the record which
gently makes something deep inside painful with its mortality and
irreproducibility; we do not want it to end, yet we know that it must finish
and that the beauty of the flowers exchanged itself with a part of our soul.
The tractate of the Yellow Book makes a lengthy analysis of
the phenomenon. It is unfortunate that the last copy got lost in a war of Napoleon,
later it was seen in Indochina in the bequeath of an opium smoker …
But it is
just a legend, nothing else.
25 years have passed.
I do love this record.
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Translated by Kenesei Andrea
_________________________ I am grateful to my friend for whom it took a second to
understand why his pictures are indispensable for Frescobaldi’s music. Images: Raksányi Zsolt.
