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My prize to the most interesting and educational room at the show goes to a room with WAVAC 833 power SETs. Visiting this room made me to think a lot and made me to draw a lot of very valuable to me conclusions.

I heard a lot about those amps. Recently some reviewers drooled about them stressing some typical mental propaganda: the 833 tubes, the unique 3 stages circuitry, unique PS, absents of any capacitors in the signal pass and the similar sort of things. I kind of was looking forward to hear it …

The amps were presented by presumably the US distributor of WAVAC or perhaps he was just a dealer, I do not know. He used them with small floor stranding speakers from Belgium’s Venture Audio. I know nothing about them. They sounded like ported speakers with low sensitively and very contemporary-like drivers but all together they still sounded OK…. for the goals of a salesperson. As I understand THM Audio hosted the room, which is Ohio-based international audio-pimping establishment.

The guy who ran the show in the room was certainly not in his plate. I do not know what he does for living: sells Nissans in his Ohio or sells real estate for mobile homes but he was as far from real audio as it theoretically possible. Perhaps he is a professional audio sale-person but then it puts him way behind the car-sale personnel of the marketing managers of the Vegas “Chicken Ranch”.

Anyhow, he made his verbal presentation about the playback and eventually shut up and started his CD player. The music that he played (hi-fi duet between the tweeter and subwoofer) was very affinity with his job description: to buy a box of something Japan and sell the box to the Ohio’s Magnetars of the similar white trash. I was tolerantly sitting and waiting when his sonic torture will be over and asked it he can play any more civilized music then a screaming teenager with destroyed soprano trying to over-scream a badly played upper bass. He replied that this is the music that he is playing and he refused to play any of my CDs.

After listing a few more cuts that sounded to me as Hollywood sound effects I asked a few more time if he wiling to play other music, giving that there was no one in the room who listened his playback. He was very annoyed and eventually agreed to play my CD. I pulled one of quite complex and demanding opera peaces that I had with me (the closing of the first act of “Cosi Fan Titte”) and gave it to him. He played it for 2 minutes (during which I heard some VERY unique things) and when the six singers where ready to introduce the main thyme of the closing  (that I actually expected) he stopped the CD player. I asked what happened and he said that he thought that it was the end of the song. .. :-(

After this he put in CD played more of his “female vocal”. I asked another 25 times to play any classical music or his choosing. He said that he does not carry any classical music. I suggested that I might look along with him and perhaps we could accidentally find any. He searched among his CDs and to his surprise he found the Stravinsky/Stravinsky “Firebird”. He played if for another 2 minutes and I mange to listen the amps and to collect another set of unique observations. 

After this I decided that it would be better to leave the room because he was becoming more and more annoyed and I knew that I would not keep myself shat up for any longer and was about to inform his that he behaves in the best tradition of audio sales-idiot and his behavior is very indicative to what type of customers he accustomed to deal with. I left and then I stopped by in his room 3 or 4 more times for a few seconds just to check out some things that I was interested to confirm. I never played anything in his room or made any attempts. However, knowing myself and knowing my ability to know “what” and “how” to listen while I am listening I get quite clear picture what the WAVAC 833 dose with sound. In fact it was necessary almost 30 seconds to “get” this amplifier. This is quite a compliment to WAVAC as usually it take for me 5-10 seconds to make a conclusion. (The people who personally know me know that I am not kidding with this estimate)

So, how the WAVAC sound? In short: it was the best worst amplifier I even heard in my life. Also, the WAVAC sound opened a Pandora box for a lot of conclusions and I full of appreciation to WAVAC that it helps me to do it. If you want further explanations then read on. The next post will elaborate on the WAVAC sonic advantages and misery.

The Cat
To be continue….

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