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How
do Aria WT100 Amplifiers Sound?
| WT: |
The
first thing that strikes you when you listen to the WT amps is three-dimensional
imaging. The
sound comes out of blackness, grain-free, with a real sense of space.
You really do get a sense of the performers in the
room with you. Singers are clearly in front of the band. Side-to-side
imaging is precise, front-to-back layering is clear.
The second impression
is one of transparency. The sound is consummately transparent and
sweet without any edge or glare. Completely silent between notes --
everything is audible: the damper mechanism of the piano, the buzz
of the bass player's strings on the neck of his instrument, the swish
and sizzle of the drummer's brushes and cymbals. It's a detailed,
unsmeared sound that remains liquid and open. From the bass up through
the mids and highs, the sound is totally coherent.
While not forgiving,
the amplifier is also not unforgiving, its presentation is always
very, very musical |
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| XL: |
When
you step up to the XL amplifiers, the sound becomes strikingly more
real-sounding. This amplifier retains all the incredible virtues
of the WT amp: the detail, the air and the imaging. But what this
amplifier does that lesser amps cannot is present the sound with
the full-bodied richness of live music. Ordinary electronic components
seem to strip some of the weight and fullness from music. But not
the XL amps, which give you a far more powerful presentation of
the bass and midbass.
Instruments will
be considerably fatter-sounding, vocalist's chest tones are more
audible, voices are more buttery-smooth and full. Dynamics are frighteningly
lifelike: when the piano player strikes a note, you hear not only
the note, but the "thump" of the instrument's action;
you can clearly hear the weight and size of large instruments, the
"thud" of the bass player's fingers when he plucks the
strings, while low drum tones resonate in your chest.
It's hard to describe
what happens when a recording is played back with all the low bass
power that you've never heard before, the low bass power that you
know your expensive speakers should be capable of, the rich bass
and midbass that tells you that you are in the presence of musicians.
It's an amazingly involving experience, one so lifelike that it
will continue to entrance you.
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