Yes, I well remember my first 552 experience, having lived with a 52 for many years prior. The 552 is better in soooo many ways than the 52, and yet they both evoke equal visceral responses.
Reflecting back some 14 years ago, when the 552 first made an appearance in my system-before I actually purchased one...
As the title implies, this mind experiment became reality today. My 'local' dealer (Sound Image, Atlanta) trekked almost 2 hours up I-75 to make this happen. I confess since installing the Mana Soundbase 3s under the DBLs I have taken on a whole new joy of listening to music, spending hours a day in rapture disk after disk after disk. Well poised indeed to inject and inspect the 552.
First impressions upon unboxing them was how HEAVY the head unit is...it is heavier even than its companion 552PS power supply, which itself is hardly svelte. The Burndy cable is somewhat more flexible and hence easier to work with than that of the 52. The brushed finish on the chasses are also rather more elegant than the powder finish of the earlier series products, although upon shelving them this facet becomes lost to the eye leaving only the fascia to behold. Personally I gravitate to the rather more instinctive lay-out of the 52s front panel, but that may be instinct bred from familiarity. Once the 552s transit bolts are removed it has to be handled rather delicately-a task certainly not facilitated by its heft. Anyway, we let the 552/552PS warm up while we ran lots of tunes through the mere 52 (both the 52 and its Supercap were recapped a couple months ago).
It was then time to pull out the 52 and slot in the 552. This took a little longer than anticipated as the rats nest of cables behind the stand resulted in me trying unsuccesfully to mate the 52 Burndy into the 552-physically impossible. During this exercise in futility I managed to stand up briskly glancing my scalp of the very sharp corner of the Mana wall stand. I bled only a little. Eventually the error was recognized and the correct Burndy inserted with relative ease and no additional spillage of blood. The 52s Supercap was then put to service as a dedicated supply for the Prefix (we didn't try powering the Prefix off the 552 head unit- it was already a cable jungle in the back; maybe next time).
We then played a couple tracks of Phoebe Snows first album and realized the 552 was in its warming up stage-each track sounded decidedly better than the preceeding one- (it have been unplugged for quite some time while I wrestled with the wrong Burndy). So we took a wine break (Phoenix Merlot, Sonoma County) for 30 mins or so while things were re-warming up upstairs.
After the bottle was duly laid to rest we returned to the music room and proceeded to put the 552 through is paces, starting off with (why not) the CDS2. Now... thats more like it!!!
The 552 has a consumate sense of ease and sounds so very unforced, uncoloured and absolutely linear. Discontinuities that I had absolutely thought to be room acoustics disappeared leaving behind a tremendously insightful sound, full of inflection, nuance, microdetails and a credible tonality- so much like the real thing rather than just a reproduction. I swear Jennifer Charles (Elysian Fields) was standing between the speakers and whispering temptingly in my ear- I could not only hear her breath, I could feel it too. The track in question ( the title track from Bleed your Cedar) has a very tight plucked double bass in it which took on a new degree of precision and resinous tonality. Although it was somewhat more extended than the 52s, it appeared paradoxically lighter as there was less pervasive boom and a much more defined leading edge. I can see that this (on long term use) would require subtle changes in the Snaxo settings, but there was no time for ultra-tuning in the course of one evening. Disk after disk was played. The excellent XRCD of Tiger Okoshi took on a great delicacy of the brushed cymbal work with little variations in brush pressure being faithfully rendered, and his Milesesque trumpet tone having the brassy bite and microinflections that sounded good enough to eat. Very subtle time variations away from the absolute beat greatly increased the intensity of this piece.
Returning to vinyl was an enriching experience, no doubt fortified by the dedicated Scap on the Prefix. Linda Ronstadts voice became even more beautiful and breathy, and the sweet string arrangements (as noted by Richard) seemed far more consonant with the production. Piano notes had the sharp attack and long delay that made them more than just a 'keyboard'.
And so the show went on... after returning from a dinner break (courtesy of fellow afficionado Mahmood)things were incrementally better again. We finished the session with Billy Joels 'the Stranger' album. The strummed guitar on 'Just the way you are' and the expressive breathy sax break were JUST right, the relatively slow sweeping guitar strum resolved into attack envelopes of each individual string with discrete tuning instead of a quick succession of 'plink, plink, plink'.
By this point the hour was getting late. Richard generously offered to leave the 552 with me through the weekend and even come and pick up it, an offer I had to decline. Yes, I was afraid to keep it inhouse because the temptation would become greater than the voice of reason- I just cannot stretch to a 552 at this point.
Following the departure of Richard and Lawson, the 52 was place in the void left behind. We (Mahmood was still there) then listened long and hard. Yes, it was a comedown. There were many elements of the presentation that I just knew were not happening, there were colorations, some slight smearing, a partial loss of soundstage, a lower standard of unflappable poise.. yet, yet..yet the 52 was still a blast to listen to. Which is exactly what we did until well after midnight, pulling disks with almost the same degree of anticipation and enjoyment as we did when the 552 was resident. The 552 is truly a superlative performer, and probably unmatched by any other contender. But the 52 still has a great degree of the boogie factor although in a rather more uncouth and unkept way, but certainly does not need to be apologized about.
The burning question that I am unable to answer is this....if one is (as myself) at the level of a 52/6x135/Snaxo/Scap/DBLs would one get the 552 first and retain the 6-pack, or would it be preferable (in terms of raw performance) to forego the 6pack in favour of a single passive NAP500. I know for a fact the latter has an edge when it comes to the authority of the very low frequency dynamics, yet there is a certain magic and unforced ease that is very strongly conveyed by the 552/6x135 by merit of activation.
I however am choosing neither of those immediate paths. A NAP300 is on order and will be shortly driving the DBL tweeters. It is not lost on me that 3 pairs of NAP300 are not *that* much more than 1x500. Will I eventually get the 552?... very likely to certainly. But I am not ashamed to admit that I am using the now-obsolete 52!
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