THE AUDIO ASYLUM FORUM TYPE "PLACETTE" IN THE SEARCH BOX

« PAGE 2

Placette Audio Preamplifier: Transparency, Transparency, Transparency

I heard details in Jacintha's "Danny Boy" [Groove Note GRV2001-2] that are obscured or missing on other systems. For example, when the singer swallows. On some systems you're scarcely aware she's swallowed at all; on others, you hear her swallow and that's it; through the Placette you can tell that her mouth is getting dry. (I leave the question of the musical relevance of this sort of thing to others; the point is, it's in the recording.) Tonally, it's difficult to catch out most really good solid-state units these days, and the Placette is no exception. Perhaps by temperament I am resistant to reviewing electronic components by dividing up the frequency spectrum; this seems to me essentially false to the way we listen to music. If a specific frequency area calls attention to itself, even in the most alluring way, it tends to prove irritating over the long run. The Placette has some of the most refined delicate, and utterly silken reproduction of high frequencies that has ever graced any system of mine. On Andrew Lawrence-Kings harps and psaltery on Bitter Ballads [Harmonia Mundi USA 907204], every note is clear , distinct, and easily differentiated, while details of ambience are immediately available and audible. At the other end of the spectrum, bass is truly subterranean, as solid as you please (go to the "Landscape" movement of Vaughan Williams'' Seventh [Naxos 8.550737]). The midrange is present, neutral, and - again - transparent. But such divisions are, finally, anti-music; suffice it to say that the top-to-bottom sonic character of the Placette is seamless, as it should be.

There is also a remarkable stability under dynamic conditions: When the going gets loud, the Placette really hangs in there with that difficult-to-define sense of both control and ease. There's a spectacular new recording of the Mahler First from Telarc [CD-80545] in which Yoel Levi drives the Atlanta Symphony to truly fearsome climaxes that the Placette takes in stride. Nothing ever feels strained or pushed. Soundstaging and imaging are stable; I sense no artifacts that I can attribute to the unit itself, which is another way of saying that the characteristics of the presentation vary with changes in recording and other equipment. Indeed, I find it difficult to come up with anything that I can even describe. No grain, no glare, no peaks, valleys, bumps, or grinds up and down the spectrum. Put on a bland source, get a bland sound; put on a colorful source - Levine's MET Straus disc [DG 447 762-2], for example - and colors are splashed all over your walls; play St. John's Christmas album [Chandos CHAN 8485] and, in "Jesus Christ the Apple Tree," you hear the austere purity of a boys' and men's choir which appears to be two rows deep and set slightly back; switch to any Anonymous Four disc and four separate voices in exemplary blend away, changes in recording venue immediately audible. And Dusty Springfield singing "The Look of Love" in Mike Hobbs' superb DAD Casino Royale transfer [Classic 24/96 /dad 1033] is right there in the room. When the sax comes in, look out - it's with a leap!

Is the Placette for everyone? Probably not. One friend tried it and just did not like the way the volume control worked; another felt the unit was way too plain - for his $4,000, he wanted something that looked and felt a whole lot sexier. There is no other component that day-in, day-out gets more use than a preamplifier. If you've got one, then - rather like the steering wheel in your automobile - you use it every time you operate the system, so you better make sure you like the way it sounds, how it feels to the touch, how intuitively you find the layout of its controls, how convenient its features.

The nice thing is that Placette's marketing strategy gives you time and opportunity to make up your mind. But there is more than just generosity in Hammel's strategy. True missionary that he is, he's betting that the Placette's transparency will make converts of us all. He may be right, because this is one unit that gets more addicting the longer you use it. I know; I've been "evaluating" it for over a year now, and while some other pieces have come and gone, this one somehow seems to remain, far from glamorous, an ugly duckling. But on Ella singing "Do Nothing 'Til You Hear from Me" or the Emerson Quartet in Beethoven's Opus 132, and just see if that duckling doesn't become a swan.
PAUL SEYDOR
THE ABSOLUTE SOUND . ISSUE 125

top of page