Destination Audio System Review

Thus connected, the Destination Audio system began to flex its muscles, and the Vista horn’s sheer ability to pressurize the space with nil an effort was quite an experience. The Hi-Q Supercuts re-release of the 1963 Warner Classics recording of Lorin Maazel conducting the Richard Strauss Also Sprach Zarathustra with the Philharmonia Orchestra was among the most nuanced and evocative among all, and the DA system recreated the immense space and energy of the orchestra inside the confines of my living room.

This is one of the few recordings with blazing brasses so nicely preserved that the sound of them alone was worth the price of the LP. Not only was the scale of the ensemble reproduced in realism, the energy of the performance was carried into the listening space with palpable intensity, and the dual-woofer arrangement loaded the room with highly musical force and body. Readers be forewarned that lesser readings of the music offered the live feel but not the musical evocation.

A live sounding event could touch one’s heart in a very direct way, and the Vista horns accomplished the fabled by pushing the recreated reality into my room unimpeded. The ability of the midrange horn in magnifying the sound of each note of an instrument while retaining the intrinsic tonality and dynamic scale was the stuff of legend and must be heard to be believed.

Even older recordings of the classical piano took on renewed prominence, like the 1995 DG re-release of the 1961 reading of the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 by Wilhelm Kempf alongside the Berlin Philharmonic and Ferdinand Leitner, where the piano was reproduced with uncanny realism in tone and scale. The fortissimos were certifiably sweeping and earthmoving, but the Vista horn conveyed maestro Kempf’s mesmerizing softness and mental focus in his keyboarding in the Adagio. The system’s ability to convey more of the tonal vividness and dynamic scaling than most other speakers in the confines of my home highlighted the proven soloist masters from the rest. The atmosphere created was not so much three-dimensional but enveloping to the listener, and without the nasalization of most other horns. Between the 1^st order cutoff frequency of 430 hertz and the natural roll-off at 6,300, the midrange horn was powerful in its demeanor and wholesome in its presentation.

Readers putting powerful solid-state amplifications to use with the Vista horns are advised to be extra cautious for thunderous transients from accidents in misconnections and operations.

The effects of the massive midrange and bass horns of the Vista were also memorable for both the scale and voluminous mass, given the space, and most visceral when projecting symphony orchestras into the listening space. Reenacting the playing of the 1984 Deutsche Grammophon digital Karajan Beethoven Symphonies production effectively transported the scale and majesty of the ensemble into the listening room, what with the unrelenting, continuous waves of tonally rich and texturally definitive bottom-ends, and landed it right in front of me. The Acapella Triolon Excalibur bass towers that I auditioned at both Aaudio Imports headquarters and later at Dagogo senior reviewer Fred Crowder’s residence, and the Avantgarde Acoustic Basshorn XD that I heard years ago at a show conjured up similar sensations from memory.

Most notable and no less memorable was how single cello and piano was rendered with simultaneous ease and force, resplendent with the richness in a sonority and tonality unique to the Vista, the only large midrange horn to do so in memory.

The Vista horns also effectuated the most natural-sounding demonstration of the Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab GAIN 2 Ultra Analog reissue of the Alan Parsons Project I Robot 45 RPM vinyl set. The success of the reissue lied in the rawness of emotions as only a 45 RPM could properly convey. And the huge Vista midrange horn executed the sounds nay a single shred of artificiality and congestion. In this instance, the remarkable thing about the Vista was that most horns took on a nasality in inadequate listening distances, but the Vista sounded natural even close-up. Again, only the Acapella Triolon Excalibur with its ion plasma tweeter and large, lower midrange horn rivaled.

The Vista’s startling tonality and dynamics were a world apart from that of the Tannoy Westminster Royal SE, and I attribute the observation to the outboard crossover of the DA. I heard similarly vivid tonality many years ago at the Stereophile San Francisco Show from the debuting Tannoy Churchill. The demonstrated model had an outboard crossover which was not featured in the production Wideband model I bought, and the sound was not the same. But quite possibly because of the outboard crossover and the liberty in parts selections it accorded the designer, the Vista was so very easy to drive, whereas the Tannoy Westminster Royal SE, touting an efficiency of 99dB sensitivity at 8 ohms, must really be driven by amplifiers with compelling power and finesse, and the Pass Labs XA100.5 of the previous generation exerted absolute reign. Attendees of the 2014 California Audio Show bore witness to the very system.

The Vista’s bottom-ends were not the disco type with chest pounding brutality. For that, the Legacy Whisper dominated. Rather, in their transmission of the energy of the double basses, cellos, tympani and others, the Vista base horns with their twin 16-inch woofers excelled at releasing the rich tonalities of such instruments albeit a projection of them in realistic scale and volume. The sheer proliferation of such bottom-end provided a realism as smaller speakers couldn’t approach.

The MOFI Gain 2 Ultra Analog 45 rpm disc of Kind of Blue demonstrated the ease and power of the double bass in stunning realism. The festiveness and spontaneity of the instrument came through unabated amidst such wholesome dynamic scaling and contrast that the recording was a tailor fit for the Vista. If acoustic jazz music is all one plays through the DA system, he can arguably put the actual events to shame by comparison, every single time, and be rightfully and unrelentingly giddy about it. Play the system just once for your friends, and they’ll understand why you don’t subscribe to the concerts anymore.

Per Sam, ‘Yes, Vista was designed so that it could be powered by an amplifier with a minimum power of 1.8 Watt. It was supposed to be a full range speaker. The biggest problem appeared with the selection of a woofer. Unfortunately, there are no woofers on the market that could be played without restrictions with 45 tube so I ordered custom made woofers that would play with no restrictions with this amount of power.

CAS8 Attendees’ comments on their experience in the Destination Audio exhibit were also of the lifetime revelatory category, on how the system conveyed emotions of performance and beauty of sound and not necessarily of the loudness war victor variety. In fact, they voted the Destination Audio room for the top honors in the categories of Ultimate Component, Best System Performance, as well as a second place in Best Industrial Design.

But it was only when the $8,950 Krell Industries Vanguard Universal DAC+Preamp (Price correction: $4,500. -Pub.) was put into the system did the DA system began its fan-conversion trick. The Vanguard Universal utilized a single ESS Sabre32 9018 chip, feeding into the Krell Current Mode balanced, fully discrete Class A circuit.

Streaming the Xfinity X1 platform via the Krell Vanguard Universal’s first HDMI input, the latter’s HMDI output fed the Destination Audio 45 monoblocks directly via its variable output. Thus driven as a mere two-channel movie playback, my wife started to sit up. Paraphrasing Vivian, she said it was the first time she could truly appreciate the dialogs and the realism of all the busy happenstances on screen. Putting my profound, immediate dismay aside, it was a wake-up call on the inadequacy of the 5.1 home theater system. Now, she demanded my turning on the entire system whenever a movie was on. It was like watching it for the first time. She is a converted horn fan. What else could bring out the magic of the theater but a large horn system?

The Destination Audio Vista horns were the biggest horns I’ve experienced that were also efficient enough to run on less than two watts to drive the 105 dB sensitive horns to deafening levels. When playing records, I didn’t have to turn the volume on the 76 preamp past 11 o’clock; same as with the digital.

The 76 preamp held considerable sway in the system’s signature. It funneled through a tone so free from electronic artifacts and a dynamic so free-ranging that it called up a fondness of the Harmonix Reimyo CAT-777 tube preamplifier I reviewed over a decade ago. Like the DA 76, the CAT-777 was among the least editorializing among tube preamps with but a sliver of glow of tone to satiate the emerging breed of audiophiles who craved Pass Labs-like objectivity plus a small degree of midrange emphasis and top-end softness.

The utterly compression-free presentation of the Vista horn, in casting sound fields into the listening space, presented a directness of communication that drew even the most uninitiated spectator into its world. If music were a divine reflection of the human spirit, then the DA System would be the sentinel of the art form.

It is an extraordinary feat for any manufacturer to demonstrate Destination Audio’s level of proficiency in the disciplines of horn speakers and single-ended triode amplification development and manufacturing. Having the knowledge and facilities is only half the story; it takes immense drive to carry such visions to concurrent fruitions. For me, Sam Wisniewski stands among the rank of tirelessly hard working, ingenious and entrepreneurial inventors deserving of our admiration.

I once asked Sam for the justification in embarking upon such laborious task as creating the midrange horn from scratch. He said, ‘Maybe it will sound crazy but I think that if you put your whole heart and soul into creating something and building it by hand, not machines, let’s say a loudspeaker, then this speaker will repay with a beautiful sound. Maybe this is from the positive energy that you put into your creation? I do not know. But I know one thing, that products created with passion can be repaid and appreciated by the user down the road. It’s just like with antiques. Craftsmen who made them wanted them to be beautiful. And they look beautiful still to this day. It’s like with U.S. cars from 59, 60 and even 70. They are beautiful even in the modern eyes and they delight people when they appear on the street. Why? I think that is because when the designers produced them, they really wanted their product to be good and beautiful. They were proud of what they were doing, and these cars were made by people with passion.

I’m probably wrong and what I said sounds funny but that’s how I feel.’

Retrospectively, we got to experience the system because of Sam’s desire to create a speaker system that could be driven by his 45 tube-based monoblock amplifiers. Yes, the Vista horns were born out of Sam’s love of the 45 tube first and foremost.

Finding a high-efficiency speaker on the market that could be driven by the 1.8 watt-per-channel output of the 45 monoblocks is not difficult, and the efforts expended in finding one that can fill up a large room and still sound the way Sam wanted was probably what drove him to roll up his sleeves.

It is still a costly proposition to pressurize a large listening space with a speaker system efficient enough to be driven by a high performance 1.8 watt SET, though considerably less so via the Destination Audio method than others, and more hardcore. By any and the most stringent standard, the Destination Audio System served the music in the most salient ways equaled by very few.

Sam spoke of the possibility of moving the manufacturing of Destination Audio products to the states. Let’s cheer him on.

System:

Audio Note AN-Vx 20-strand RCA cables
Audio Note SOGON 42-strand RCA cables
Audio Note AN-SPx 27-strand banana bi-wired speaker cables
Audio Reference Technology Power Distributor
Audio Reference Technology Analyst SE RCA cables
Audio Reference Technology Analyst power cables
Audio Reference Technology Super power cables
MIT-Cables Predator 3 headphone amp AC filter power cables
Audio Note IoI moving coil cartridge
Kuzma CAR-50 moving coil cartridge
Oracle SME 345 tonearm
AMG Reference Turbo tonearm cable
Kyocera PL-910 turntable
Krell Industries Vanguard Universal DAC+Preamp

Destination Audio Comments:

We’d like to thank Constantine and Dagogo for this thoughtful and comprehensive review of our system.

Berthold Auerbach said “music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”

At Destination Audio we’re committed to helping those who are passionate about music to escape from the everyday through the emotion and beauty of the equipment, speakers and systems we create.

Our pieces are made with loving care, attention to every detail and choice in the build process, and a focus on quality in materials and workmanship.  Our speakers and equipment stir the spirit, touch the heart, and move the soul.

We will continue to evolve our product offerings to support listeners achieving the experience they’ve always dreamed of. Up next for us is a more modest version of our Horn speaker called “The Nika”- stay tuned!