We had a wonderful visit to Kraków last week. It was certainly a buzzing city with plenty going on. Including the presidential elections, the Jewish cultural festival which included a lot of fabulous music and finding ourselves staying in the same hotel as Hilary Clinton.

One of the outstanding highlights was definitely my second visit to the Home and Auditorium of Jarek Waszczyszyn of Ancient Audio. It is always a pleasure to visit Jarek’s old European Drawing room with its wooden panelling adorned with original ancient instruments and parquet flooring.

Jarek’s youngest daughter kindly prepared a spread of delicious open sandwiches for us which we washed down with refreshing white wine as we settled down to discuss music and audio, both of which Jarek is extremely knowledgeable about.

Jarek has certainly been keeping busy since the last time I saw him in 2008. First on the agenda was a new power conditioner that works on a similar principle to the Power Plant Premier from PS audio. There are several important differences though. Although Jarek’s device also converts AC to DC and then re-creates a purified AC, it only does this for half of the power outlets. These are the outlets that Jarek recommends you connect your digital sources such as CD player or DAC to. In fact he developed the entire device because he wasn’t totally happy with the results he got when he connected his newly developed CD player, the ‘Lektor Air’ directly to the mains at his place. His power conditioner allows the ‘Air’ to perform at its full potential on his mains system. The other outlets do not perform the AC to DC and back conversion. These are the outlets he feels you should connect your amplifiers to. They are ‘purified’ by using what Jarek considers to be the best internal power cabling in the business. Turn on and off of all components is achieved through the First Power Generator and is accomplished by simply pressing the power button on the Lektor Air CD player remote. The turn off of the power amps is delayed by several seconds after the turn off of source components through the First Power Generator, to prevent any thump through the speakers. All power outlets are by Furatech. The Ancient Audio First Power Generator, does not use a fan for cooling.

Next Jarek described the new ‘Lektor Air’ itself. To almost all appearances it is identical to the Lektor Prime except for a pleasing womanly curvature to the top plate holding the transport, allowing you to easily tell the two apart.

The ‘Air’ may look the same as the Prime and it does use the same Philips Pro transport. Inside though, Jarek explained to me, the circuitry is very different. The ‘Air’ will also allow you to connect a computer or other external digital source with an additional module at the back. So, for example, a music server could take advantage of its excellent non-oversampling DAC.

Jarek feels the new Lektor Air equals or perhaps betters his older (pre SE version) Lektor Grand model. This was a three box affair consisting of separate transport and two mono DAC’s. When writing his review of the original Lektor Grand in HiFi news and comparing it to a top multi-box dCS system, Andrew Harrison had the following to say, “”where the dCS would give a neutral, nearly dispassionate rendering, the Ancient Audio player had a more engaging personality … thanks to its sweet, liquid and organic presentation there are few machines that will take you closer to the heart of the music.”

If the ‘Air’ has indeed equalled this performance in a single slim chassis the same size as the ‘Prime’, well that would indeed be a major achievement.

The next part of the system we were about to experience were the ‘Single Six’ mono amplifiers which were given a very favorable review in 6Moons.

Single Six

These single-ended Triode amplifiers are, unusually, based around the 6C33C output tubes. Small compact and relatively cool running, they provide the power, authority, and control of much larger more powerful pentode based tube amps, with the usual SET qualities of transparency and a “reach into” three dimensional soundstage. They are also amongst the most maintenance free tube amps on the market. With a sophisticated form of auto-biasing and built in auto-protection circuitry, their owners have complete peace of mind.

The Single Six can be driven directly from either a Lektor Air or Lektor prime, which both have built-in tube pre-amp stages and volume adjustment from the players remote control.

All of these electronics take up very little space and were housed in a small low AV style rack, similar to this one from Quadraspire:

QAVM

To complete this entire Ancient Audio system we started with Jarek’s Home Monitor V floorstanding speakers:

Home Monitor V

I tend to think of Ancient Audio’s speaker systems as being highly ambitious ultra high-end designs, such as the mighty ‘Wing’ system commissioned by the owner of Kingston Technology (memory chips) to fill a 100 meter square space. These have powerful internal amplifiers for their active bass system crossed over to a wide-band ribbon at 650hz to cover the frequencies from that point upwards and driven by the 300b based Ancient Audio Silver Grand Monos. On my last visit to Jarek’s I heard a prototype of the ‘Little Wing’ also using the ribbon driver; but a much more compact passive design. I remember being very impressed. So when confronted with these relatively conventional looking floostander’s my expectations weren’t nearly as high.

In this case the Eton woofer drivers Jarek uses in these designs were surprisingly fast. Now I’m used to ultra fast drivers, such as the Lowther range, however I didn’t feel any lack of speed and instant dynamic and transient response with these speakers. I’m also used to single large band drivers for handling both the mid and high frequencies, for their coherence coupled with that speed. However the Eton driver sounded like it was blending seamlessly with the Scanspeak tweeter used in this design.

We listened to a wide variety of music. Highlights for me were Paris – Istanbul – Shanghaï Joël Grare from the wonderful French Alpha label. The Chinese percussion simply seemed to hang there in space. All the instruments were naturally reproduced and each instrumental line could be clearly followed whilst the correct perspective was always maintained. Moving to what is more familiar ground for most people, Roger Water’s, Amused to Death, a frequent demonstration disc, could be appreciated fully on both a musical level as well as for its amazing psycho-acoustic effects, which at times create a ‘surround sound’ effect from a stereo source playing through two speakers.

Voices were just there in the room with us, along with the other instruments, as the Kings Singer’s rendition of Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘The Boxer’ wonderfully demonstrated. We heard an incredible Hammond B3 organ record, from I think Tony Monaco, (Jarek please remind me which recording this was).

I am reminded of Andrew Harrison’s quote from his review of the 3 box Lektor Grand CD player, so it may indeed be true that the ‘Air’ achieves the same level of reproduction as the older, much larger Grand. When it comes to ‘natural organic’ sound, the Lektor Prime already has those qualities for me, though I had the feeling that despite its slightly more feminine design, the Air was more muscular and extended in the bass.

At some point Jarek swapped speakers to his stand-mounted Holography II.

Holography II

This is about the same size as the classic Sonus Fabor Electa Amator’s, an old design which Jarek has a lot of admiration for. As its name suggests this speaker has holographic imaging capabilities, to complement its other qualities of speed and dynamics along with timbral accuracy. Ultimate bass extension is limited to some extent. At the same time though it is well controlled, rhythmic and tight.

It’s imaging capabilities are superb, although the Home Monitor V is also excellent in this regard. What is special for me about the Holography II is that it has been designed to sit very low on it’s custom stands. This reminded me of the old Celestion SL600 and SL700 speakers which were always demonstrated on similarly low stands.

The effect of this is to make the speakers effectively disappear visually, because from your listening position your natural horizon is just above the height of the speakers. You rarely regard the speakers themselves while listening to music. Your gaze falls naturally on whatever is in front of you and what you may wish to look at while listening. Combined with their wonderful imaging, this makes for a highly convincing musical experience. The Ancient Audio CD Lektor Air, Single Six Amps and First Generator power conditioner, already being housed on a low, compact ‘AV’ style rack, ensure that the system did not physically impose itself on the room. At the same time its relatively uncompromising recreation of the recorded event, lead me to the conclusion that this would be perfect for someone who needed a system which could be easily accommodated in a small to medium sized room, within an apartment, for example, with incredible musical realism.

We repeated some of the same music already heard on the Home Monitor V as well as some additional music, such as the excellent ‘The Circle Maker’ from John Zorn and issued by his Tzadik label. (Incidentally many items from this label are available for direct download at full CD quality sound from HDTracks).

Jarek knows I love this music and this is one obvious gap in my collection. Fortunately I was able to track it down in Krakow on a stall outside the Tempel Synagogue following a wonderful concert there by the Bester Quartet (formerly known as the Krákow/Crácow Klezmer Band)

Each of the components that made up these Ancient Audio systems are excellent in their own right and will work well with a wide variety of components from other manufacturers. I couldn’t help feeling though, that these systems were greater than the sum of their parts. That they had been voiced to work together and that system synergies were at play. The seasoned audiophile will typically select pieces from different designers to build their systems and there’s nothing wrong with that. It can be a big part of the fun when you are treating HiFi as a hobby. Sometimes though it can lead to a hotchpotch collection of disparate parts that don’t really add up to a fully satisfactory result considering the amount of money spent.

The answer may lie in a one shop solution. This is particularly true for people who are, above all, music lovers and are searching for the highest quality system they can accommodate.

Many small cottage industry designers dream of creating complete systems that meet their criteria of design and music reproduction. Often there are compromises somewhere in these ‘one shop’ solutions. A single company’s strength may be greater in one category of product than others, for example. In other cases the cosmetic quality of the designs or convenience of use may fall behind their sonic achievements.

I find no such obvious compromises in Jarek’s designs, where each component is of the highest possible quality and the look and feel exude luxury and very classy aesthetics.

Jarek’s maniphesto is very clearly stated in the brochure you can download as a pdf from his site, so I will quote it here:

“In my experience as an audiophile and constructor it has often happened that a feeling of a classy sound stayed with me for a very long time. It involved almost unlimited dynamics of “horn” speakers, smoothness and liquidity of 300B triodes, transparency of a ribbon speakers, the thump of bass from a solid state “power plant” amplifier, the 3 dimensional sound stage of Italian masters speakers and the coherency of vinyl. In reality, almost all high-end systems I have auditioned have always had some unique feature, making one kind of musical aspect sound excellent; but leaving others not quite up to the mark. It has always been my goal to make a music system that would easily reflect the music in an unimpeded manner by simply linking all the best features of different sound systems into one.”

A cottage industry company such as Ancient Audio is, of course, up against stiff competition from the more established brands, particularly the very popular companies who create complete systems. Whether you’re simply a music lover or seasoned audiophile you might well find that an Ancient Audio system would be a major step-up in quality from the system you currently own.

Posted by Andrew

August 31st, 2010

I have been the owner of Ancient Audio equipment for over 4 years now. I would suggest that any music lover would be hard pressed to find a better sounding system then one hand built by Jarek Waszczyszyn. It won’t be a system for snoozing too, but if the would-be listener is interested in hearing the fire and colour in music short of being present at the concert hall itself, then this is the equipment to go have. It will never be cheap to buy, but again, I would suggest that it’s true value will be sky high. A system to buy and keep.

If only Jarek would build a phono amp!