First-time AXPONA exhibitor Sierra Sound was founded in 2020 as a distributor for strictly analog hi-fi equipment. Rather high minded, wouldn’t you say? Personally, I’m all in.
With their minds on a new music direction, Sierra Sound hosted Friday and Saturday “metal nights,” but I was holed up in my room writing, with copious quantities of English breakfast tea and peanut butter. But I greatly enjoyed their room during daylight hours.
Sierra Sound boasted the world debut of the AMG Giro MK II Wood turntable. Also in room was the semi-new to the USA, ViV Lab tonearm; ViV Lab has never enjoyed US distribution, until now.
Press release: “This new AMG model features a cherry wood sub-chassis. The wood layer is a collaboration with Die Möbelmacher, a carpenter specializing in sustainable organic woods from the Franconia region of southern Germany, where the AMG factory is located. The Giro MK II Wood is 20% more massive than the non-wood version and has improved energy damping characteristics due to the additional material layer.”
Sierra Sound’s Michael Fajen fired up the rig containing the aforementioned turntable with the AMG 9W2 tonearm ($13,500), Benz Micro REF-S cartridge ($2500) the ViV Laboratory Rigid Float CB-9″ tonearm ($6500), Sierra Sound NAB-1 tonearm platform ($500), and the Benz Micro SLR Gullwing cartridge ($3500).
Electronics included the Aesthetix Rhea Signature phono stage ($10,000), Aesthetix Pallene line stage ($6500), and Aesthetix Dione power amplifier ($7500). Speakers were the handsome Vandersteen Treo CT loudspeaker, walnut finish ($10,690/pair).
Cables were from Cardas: Cardas Clear Beyond interconnects, speaker cables, and AC cables, and a Cardas Nautilus power strip ($2000). Racks and bases included the HRS E1X turntable isolation base for AMG Giro MK II Wood ($1750), HRS E1X turntable isolation base for the AMG Viella ($1695), and the HRS EXRD-1942-3V Stand system ($10,895).
Fajen played a selection of 1960s jazz that thoroughly warmed my cockles: Count Basie’s “Blues for Norman” featured vivid bass punch. A Roland Kirk track displayed fantastic imaging, with crisp castanets over Elvin Jones’s dry-sounding drums. From Kirk’s Rip, Rig and Panic, the piece delivered mighty, aggressive energy and abundant reverberation from Elvin’s drums and cymbals.
Charles Mingus’s “Reincarnation of a Lovebird” was presented on a large scale, flowing while capturing the nuance and subtlety of the title. The staging was exceptional, leading to a generally transcendent, mini-music festival atmosphere.