“We hoped it’d be a memorable day and we weren’t disappointed,” says Gamut’s CEO and chief designer Benno Baun Melgaard, who recently flew out to Chicago for a special event hosted by high-end dealer Kyomi Audio.
The aim of the event was to showcase a complete Gamut system, with Benno on-hand to set up, demonstrate and answer questions alongside Gamut’s US distributor Michael Vamos.
Kyomi Audio is quite unusual among dealers in that its founder and owner is George Vatchnadze, an internationally renowned concert pianist. ‘Bringing the concert hall to your listening room’ is George’s passion, which he is particularly well qualified to fulfill.
Kyomi’s listening room was reassuringly packed and the eager audience included The Absolute Sound’s Greg Weaver, who reports on his experience over on the magazine’s blog (‘Gamut Product Demo at Kyomi Audio of Chicago’).
The featured system comprised Gamut’s RS7i loudspeakers, M250i monoblock amplifiers and D3i dual mono preamp. Gamut Reference cables connected the system: bi-wired speaker cables, interconnects (XLR and RCA) and power cords.
Since Kyomi Audio operates within George’s multi-level home, the event gave listeners the opportunity to hear the system in an environment similar to one they might actually live in. “And, because both George and Benno had collaborated to refine the room’s setup, the system was completely dialed in,” notes Weaver in his review.
“While I have long been a fan of the relaxed and natural sound Gamut is celebrated for, this is the first time I’ve heard it at its fullest potential – almost certainly because of the combination of the room itself (not a hotel suite), and the time and attention spent on setup. The overall system performance was so effortless and true to life in tonal color, texture, and presentation, that it was disarmingly engaging.”
“What I really loved about this event,” adds Benno, “is that once we got into listening, we barely talked about the system! Which might seem like an odd thing for the system’s designer to say, but the fact that we all got utterly carried away by the music is something I take as a real compliment.”
Weaver agrees. “This remarkably engaging system simply got out of the way, and so effortlessly breathed life into any sources – LPs, optical media, PCM or DSD files – we happened to feed it. Personally, I cannot think of a much more significant achievement for any system. We were utterly and completely drawn into the music – we kept on listening until well past the scheduled end of the event.”