Annie’s Audio Adventures: Is It On or Is It Off?
One Saturday morning, while I was resting from a very busy week teaching grade four, my husband came back from our favourite local high-end audio store with a little box. It’s grey and black with two little light bulbs on the top. He also brought some very cute grey cables that match the colour of our new anniversary present: the Chord CPM 2600 integrated amplifier (much more fun than a diamond ring, if you ask me!).
So, my husband installs the pretty cable and box, and tells me to close my eyes and try to guess whether the little box was on or off. If you know us, you already know that we are very competitive when we play games together, so I was ready to be tricked. We took out some of our favourite testing songs, including Michael Bublé’s Feeling Good, Sarah McLachlan’s Gloomy Sunday and Blackbird, Melissa Etheridge’s You Can Sleep While I Drive, Harry Connick Jr’s Love Me Some You, and of course, Fairfield Four’s These Bones. I closed my eyes to listen better. Well, try as he might, my hubby was unable to fool me! I could tell before the second bar of the song whether the little box was on or off—so I won! Well, I guess he won too, because now I don’t want to listen to our CD player (a 10 year old Parasound) without that little box being on!
You might be wondering what the little box is. The little box is officially called the Grant Fidelity B-283 Tube Conditioner. What it does is run the audio signal from the CD player through the tubes and then back to the amp. What happens during this transfer is like magic: the sound becomes very warm, rich, and round. The stage expands and you really feel like you’re there, easily able to visualise where the instruments are, especially in a piece like Feeling Good that has a big band sound.
Voices are very clear without being too bright, and you can hear Sarah’s breathing in Gloomy Sunday. Bass instruments are very rich and deep (try Love Me Some You’s double bass intro!), and everything else in the middle has its own space where everything blends in beautifully.
Of course, we’ve listened to other CD players since buying our Chord, but I must say that this little box is a great alternative to buying another CD player. So, until I get the Chord CD player to match the amp, this box is definitely staying on! I guess hubby and I will have to play round two of our game if the Chord CD player ever comes to our living room! In the meantime, I’m listening to all our favourite CDs all day!
Product Details
Product Grant Fidelity B-283 Tube Processor.
Price $175.
Grant Fidelity
36-2323 Oakmoor Drive SW
Calgary, AB T2V 4T2
Canada
(403) 251-0466
www.grantfidelity.com