Hahn's 1864 Vuillaume retained its fine, complex tone, with appropriately percussive note attacks and bounce. Hilary Hahn's recording, with Marek Janowski and the Oslo Philharmonic, of Shostakovich's richly scored Violin Concerto 1 (Sony Classical SK 89921), showed off the Audio Note's good way with instrumental colors and textures. The sound of the MC's voice as he introduced David was distinctly real: It wasn't just a sound occurring between the speakers rather, I could hear, from the first fraction of a second, that distinct sound of a voice pressuring a microphone. I expected, then, to begin by testing the CD-4.1x on the basis of the abovebut even before I had a chance to get that far, the Audio Note impressed me. And since David and I have picked together in my home on a couple of occasions, I'm also familiar with the sound of his 1946 Martin D-28. One of the first records I played was guitarist David Grier's Live at the Linda (Dreadnaught/Burnside 0701), an album I know pretty wellI sat in the front row at the concert in question. The effect was probably compounded by my using the AN player through AN speakers, the latter being known to me for that selfsame quality. Put another way: When I listened to CDs on the Audio Note player, recorded voices and instruments came closer than usual to loading my room in the manner of live voices and instruments. Vocal cords vibrated with real human warmth, pianos purred, cymbals sizzled, and string instruments comprising thin pieces of lightly varnished wood, whether bowed or plucked, resonated in a manner exactly like that of string instruments comprising thin pieces of lightly varnished wood.

Voices and instruments had substance, color, and texture.

Be that as it may, I know I was also presented with something that usually goes missing in CD playback: the sort of presencethe sonic flesh and bloodthat I seldom get from the medium. Given its unusual pedigree, I can be forgiven for wondering if, throughout the many hours I spent listening to the CD-4.1x, I was presented with higher-than-average levels of certain distortions: Audio Note's own product description would seem to predict such a thing, and JA's measurements may well quantify it. Also: During its first days in my system, the CD-4.1x was unkind to those few CDs in my collection on which solo voices and violins had been recorded at excessive levels: Those things sounded 'hotter' through the Audio Note than through either my Sony SACD player or my computer-audio rigalthough that condition resolved itself over time.

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