STERN & Heisenberg review Positive Feedback
“The Heisenberg and Stern have a serious, we’re-not-playing-around, visual that will stop you in your tracks with their scale, cosmetics—and ambition! Both units are encased in nearly identical aluminum chassis of flawless German metalwork (by German design legend Hartmut Esslinger). The Stern has already been placed in the Smithsonian’s National Gallery of Art. The Stern has got to be one of the largest preamps on the planet. Why so much real estate? I was told the interior is chock-a-block with circuitry. It boasts some amazing specs. There’s more: more tone, more timbre and, most especially, triumphantly, the grandest dynamic peaks I’ve encountered in residential audio. I’m always fiddling with or critiquing tonal balance—it’s rare to find a system that leaves me with no complaint—but with this rig I didn’t want to change a thing. The tone was BIG, with 100% saturation, and striking in its uniformity from top to bottom. The treble was sweet and extended, but never harsh, and certainly not of a quality I associate with solid-state. The mids were clean; the bass full, round and tight. All of uncommon purity. Yay! The tone showed no compromise. The instruments on The Blues and the Abstract Truth grew from ff like you get with other über components, and then pushed beyond that to full fff, where no amp has gone before. Edge-of-the-art for what’s possible in audio reproduction.”
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