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DeHavilland: Beautiful and Mellow
I confess. There’s a special place in my heart for Kara and
George of deHavilland. Happily, the sound of their GM-70
amps and Mercury preamp deserves equal praise. Beautiful
and mellow on the right music, with a simply lovely core to
the sound, deHavilland electronics were sounding quite fine
with Wilson Benesch ACT speakers, Audio Aero Prima CD
player, Cardas Golden Reference cabling, and Custom
Isolation Products. The Torus sub may have been
connected, but it was being overly polite. Perhaps the Sonic
Fusion speakers paired with deHavilland at T.H.E Show in
January 2006 offered richer sound, but there was plenty to
love here as well. I’d love to return to this set-up with some
decent power conditioning in place.
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Rocky Mountain Audio Fest: deHavilland, Mercury &
Wilson-Benesch
As was the case with the Gershman Black Swans, I’ve not
been a fan of Wilson-Benesch loudspeakers, which, in the
past, have sounded sumptuously detailed and extremely
free of box coloration but overly cool and analytical. Maybe it
was the addition of W-B’s own $9500 Torus Infrasonic
Generator (soon to be reviewed by moi), maybe it was
deHavilland’s $10k GM70 amps and $5k Mercury preamp
(plus Cardas cable), but W-B’s newest entry, the $15k 2.5-
way floor standing A.C.T., had all of the virtues of W-B’s
former entries (little to no box or driver coloration, an
abundance of fine detail) without their flaws. Sweet and
beautiful in balance, supremely open, with a front-to-back
layering that was scarce on the ground at RMAF, it
impressed the heck out of me. I did think the single Torus
should have been a pair for best images (and turned down
just the slightest bit in amplitude); nonetheless, this was one
of the better sounds at RMA
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