![](http://audio-head.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Wilson-Benensch-Thales-2.jpg)
by Rafe Arnott
I like vinyl. I just want to be up front about that. I like it an awful lot. I also like digital, and even CDs. I’m source agnostic, I only really care whether it sounds great or not. I could care less if it’s DSD256, 24/192 or an old mono LP… as long as I enjoy listening to it. I think a lot of people get really wound up about formats, and my only advice to them would be to try and relax – just immerse yourself in the experience of listening to great music.
![](http://audio-head.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Wilson-Benensch-Thales-4.jpg)
Aaudio Imports out of Parker, Colorado seems to get this formula, and were spinning the black discs at their room at AXPONA in Chicago over the weekend with a laidback style that put me in a very good mood. They just happened to also be doing this on one of the sweetest ‘tables I’ve heard of late: the Thales TTT Compact II ($14, 500 USD) with matching Simplicity tonearm ($9,200 USD). They were feeding this combination (with Ikeda KAI moving-coil cartridge $8,500 USD) into some beautiful-sounding, and constructed Ypsilon electronics which included the Phaethon Integrated amplifier ($25,000 USD), VPS-100 Phono ($26,000 USD), and my preferred mode of running low-output cartridges – with a MC26L Step-Up Transformer ($6,200 USD). Loudspeakers were the Wilson Benesch Discovery II ($26,800 USD), with the Torus + Amp infrasonic generator ($12,500 USD) which “transforms timing and integration” according to their literature.
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HB Cable Design had their PowerSlave Marble power distributor in play ($13,500 USD), and Stage III cables were used throughout the system. The thing I kept noticing about the room was how happy, and upbeat everyone in the room became after they’d sat down for a few minutes of listening. It was as if the sound of the music through the system was making them… Happy? Strange, I know, but that’s what can happen when you play enjoyable music through a thoughtfully curated, synergistic system. I couldn’t help but be reminded of Bob Marley as I was relaxing, listening to LPs in the Aaudio Imports room after photographing it: “When music hits you, you feel no pain.”
![](http://audio-head.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Wilson-Benensch-Thales-1.jpg)
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