The REAL DEAL
He already owned an astounding hi-fi system, but this Sydney music lover decided to make a whole new Statement with his most recent and remarkable system upgrade.
When we heard that Len Wallis Audio had recently commissioned a unique version of Naim Audio’s Statement amplifier — one which doubled up on the twin power amplifiers of this already uber-high- end design — we wondered what the rest of this system might possibly include. We soon discovered that this was for a longterm client, and LWA’s Charl du Plessis talked us through the relationship so far.
“When I first met the owner around 2010, he had just upgraded to a full Esoteric high-end CD player — the set with separate transport, power supply, clock and twin mono DACs,” says Charl. “He was looking to update to a good high-end amplifier, and our discussions led to the Krell Evo 1 and Evo 2 reference twin mono pre-amps partnered with monoblocs. That was about the best combo that LWA stocked at the time. The existing speakers were changed also to a pair of Quad ESL 2905 electrostatics, and we updated his Kimber cable to AudioQuest WEL Signature — and also his rack to the Finite Elemente reference racks, to which we added the following year the Bocchino Audio Tungsten Mecados as isolation devices under the electronic components. All the power cables were Bocchino Audio pure-copper platinum-plated plugs in combination with Dan A Digital V4 2.5mm core power cable.”
The next set of changes came when the owner purchased a pair of Sound Lab Ultimate speakers. Charl helped set these up for him. “They sounded truly amazing”, he says, and these were later given the benefit of Vicoustic room acoustic panels and a second set of Krell Evo monoblocs for bi-amping. The mains wiring also got an upgrade to inde-
pendent 15 and 20 amp circuits for the complete system, with a Shunyata Hydra reference power distributor feeding the source components.
This remarkable system served up satisfaction for several years… until Naim Audio’s remarkable Statement amplifier took up residence at Len Wallis Audio back in 2015.
“I got the opportunity to set the Statement up at LWA,” Charl tells us. “I could listen, and essentially live with it there — and I was smitten with it. It reminded me how my Nait sounded back in the 1980s… but a million times better! I remember writing letter after letter about the technology to a few of my friends, including the owner. We discussed the design. The components. The circuit. The power supplies. The amazing new transistors. For quite some time.”
And in 2017 the owner decided to go with the Statement — “obviously after considering many other options as well.”
The Super Statement
But this wasn’t to be a ‘standard’ Statement, despite the UK company describing the usual version as “the pinnacle of Naim Audio engineering knowledge and artistry”. Charl planned to double-down on the power amps.
“My thoughts were to maximise the control of the speakers by utilising the four power amps in passive bi-amp configuration. But the pre-amp in standard configuration couldn’t be used with four power amps — it had a pair of XLR balanced outputs, and offered a secondary output only as RCA single-ended.”
Naim came to the table with an open mind, and after considerable testing with Chris Murphy from Naim’s Australia/NZ distributor as the go-between, Naim agreed to change the secondary output to another fully balanced output that could be use in the planned configuration. The only visible change from the outside was a new back plate with these terminals — and the manufacturing could proceed.
But there was more. The owner had always had a mind to add subwoofers to his Sound Lab speakers, but Charl had been reticent to blend these fast panels with conventional cone-style
subwoofers, whatever the level. Another set of international discussions ensued, and Sound Lab’s Roger West agreed to supply special bass panels to operate from 800Hz down, with the main speakers handling upwards to 40kHz.
All this brought the need for new cabling — three pairs of three-metre AudioQuest WEL Signature speaker cable, in addition to WEL Signature XLR interconnects between the Naim pre and power amps, and a longer run from the sources to the Statement. An Aurender streamer has recently been added as a second source, connecting into the Esoteric DAC.
“Every component, and the speaker position in this system, has been refined to the millimetre and by listening to get the best from this location with its acoustic characteristics,” says Charl. “I’ll give you this example of the client experience from the last day of set-up, when we were almost done. He came in to have a look and listen, and I played him a couple of discs. After less than a minute of listening he started smiling, and gave me a high five. By about the third disc he was completely involved in the sound, and even started getting emotional.
“We then also played a couple of tracks from the Aurender server, with the owner commenting that it truly felt like the people were in the room — everything located in the soundstage width, and depth. He believes that with the change in components the system sounds far better than he could have anticipated. He shook my hand and said that he is extremely grateful. That’s when I knew that we’d achieved the goal.”