I got my 2004 Audio Consulting's Silver Rock AVC passive line-preamp... connected to my Partridge/Allen Bradley 300B mono blocks feeding the Cabasses' and Meridian's digital...
... and listened...
At the very beginning, still remembering when Luxman AT 3000 was in place, the sensation was of a fuller-body, thicker overall sound.
I immediately felt the difference, yet fearful the sound was a bit slower than with AT 3000's... ahem, no! Thickness or...
Better: less bass shy...
These were just the first minutes listening... a sensation.
I began to swap discs... female vocals and lute, electric guitars duo, double bass and acoustic 12 strings and classical.
The more I listened the more I enjoyed the result: the thickness disappeared and the resolution improved... more and more...
What thrilled me was that, when going louder and louder, the volume wasn't absolutely affecting the size of instruments... an acoustic guitar was just louder, not larger.
When I got conscious of the above, I better dig and paid attention to the phenomenon on more disks; furthermore, studio noises were very present and naturally blended with music.
The loudness improved: loud was really loud... but not annoying or hurting... never, also when reaching a truly high climax!
The sense of clarity and naturalness become almost painful... I had some business, and simply had to force me hard to stop listening to more and more and more disks... quite embarrassing;-)
Summing up: clarity, resolution, inter-notes silence, natural imaging and depth and an additive, strong overall beauty feeling... in my opinion, all these aspects are top class...
The Luxman AT 3000 and Fidelity Research AS 1 sure are top contenders... but with the Silver Rock the extremely low noise-floor makes you so easily aware of instruments decay, mixer on and off, guitar amps hums... everything is so lively.
Audio Consulting's previous moniker was Silver Rock... a slightly opinable brand-name...
... but a younger Serge Schmidlin wasn't that wrong!
Silver is silver wire used in coils... Rock... well: it's the rock-solid sensation of rightness... making me pretty sure I nicely spent my money for such a result.
Someone will think - plainly said - why paying considerable amount of money for a passive AVC gizmo... hey, it's only a couple of irons... but... BUT!
The wounding care and skill and materials used in coils and wire are everything to make the difference between a transformer and a great iron, music-wise.
Such a musical device, a good iron, is worth its weight in gold!
Thanking Pierre and Serge.
Stefano Bertoncello