If you have heard of Cello line and love Mark Levinson - this one is for you

It’s both rewarding and disconcerting to regularly discover fabulous albums that have been around for decades yet remained unknown to you until some chance encounter brought them to your attention. The “rewarding” part of that statement is self-evident; the “disconcerting” part is the realization that there must be many other such gems out there that you will never chance upon, but that you would also consider essential.

The same could be said about high-end audio manufacturers. Right at this minute there must be many amazing-sounding products that I’m completely unaware of. There are so many companies and so little time to sample their products that it’s natural that some firms fall off the radar for years—until a chance encounter compels further exploration.

It was just such a chance encounter that led me to this review of the Crescendo preamplifier and Concerto power amplifier from Connecticut-based Viola Audio Laboratories. During a trip to France a couple of years ago to tour Focal and Micromega I visited the home of Micromega’s owner where I heard an extraordinary system of all-Viola electronics driving the Kharma Exquisite Extreme Grand loudspeakers (with Kharma’s massive subwoofer thrown in for good measure). The sound was spectacular in every way. The system’s owner, who was not bound by price constraints, considered many electronics brands before choosing Viola. (The company apparently enjoys a strong reputation in Europe and Asia despite its low North American profile.) At the time, I knew almost nothing about Viola and had never heard its products.

The Crescendo is the second model up in Viola’s four- preamplifier line, and the only one to incorporate a digital- to-analog converter. 
 

Six months later at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show I had another positive encounter with Viola, this time with its Crescendo and Concerto preamplifier/power-amplifier pair. The products’ user interface was unlike any I’d seen before, and the new units, while not inexpensive at $22,000 each, were priced lower than other products in Viola’s line.

At the show I also learned about the background of the company’s founders, Paul Jayson and Tom Colangelo. They had been designers at the original Mark Levinson Audio Systems company in the late 1970s, and had contributed to many of that company’s landmark products. In 1984 when Mark Levinson left to form Cello, Jayson and Colangelo went with him. With Jayson as Engineering Manager and Colangelo as the head of R&D, they comprised the engineering team behind that company’s highly regarded offerings, including the Audio Palette, which remains the best product of its kind every created. Cello folded in 2000, leading Jayson and Colangelo to form their own company, Viola Audio Laboratories. Colangelo passed away in 2007 after 30 years designing high-end audio, 27 of them with Jayson.

 

Overview
The Crescendo and Concerto look and operate unlike any other electronics I’ve seen. The identical chassis have no apparent front- panel knobs or controls, just a small truncated-pyramid-shaped display with nothing more than a few symbols illuminating it. The minimalist look is possible because the system is controlled via an included iTouch and dedicated Wi-Fi network. Power-on and -off, source selection, volume, muting, and other functions are all made through the iTouch. The units are supplied with a pre-configured Wi-Fi router that can be plugged into any AC socket within Wi-Fi range. The Crescendo and Concerto are connected by an Ethernet cable, but get their instructions from the iTouch wirelessly via the router.

Via the iTouch interface you can change the display color (globally or by selecting a different color for each input), apply 10dB of attenuation on select inputs, name the inputs, monitor the heatsink temperature, and access other functions beyond those found on traditional remote controls. In practice, I appreciated that the iTouch liberated me from requiring a line- of-sight between the remote and the equipment rack.

The amplifier delivers 100Wpc into 8 ohms, and commendably, can double that output power into 4 ohms. The dual-mono design extends to the power supply, which employs a choke just after the transformer. This technique, developed many years ago for Cello products, is deployed throughout the Viola line.

What does it sound like

The treble, in particular, had a realism and tangibility that were simply sensational. This was the result of an extreme transparency and clarity that seemed to strip away all sense of anything imposing itself between me and the music. Listening to music through these electronics was like taking one significant step closer to the original performance. 

 

This brings me to another of the Concerto and Crescendo’s great strengths, its rendition of transient information. These electronics are lightning-fast—Spectral and Constellation fast— yet they have no artificial etch that would impart a mechanical or sterile character to the sound. The Viola reproduces transient sounds the way instruments do in life, with sometimes startling attacks and quick decays. Some electronics can sound fast through the treble, but exhibit a kind of discontinuity because the midrange speed doesn’t match that of the top end. The Viola electronics totally avoid this pitfall. In fact, they exhibit a degree of transient coherence, from top to bottom, that is as startling in its sonic achievement as it is in the musical result. Drums fairly jump from the presentation. Even low-level transients sound highly realistic through the Viola. Midway through Joe Pass’ great solo on “Contractor Blues” from the LP 88 Basie Street, the drummer sets the rhythm with gentle rim shots. Through the Viola these are not just undifferentiated transient noises, but instead sound like wood hitting the rim of a snare drum.

This transient performance served piano particularly well, highlighting the fact that the piano is a percussion instrument. The explosive dynamics from, say, Bruce Katz’s instrument on the superbly recorded AudioQuest CD Crescent Crawl or Minoru Nojima’s Hamburg Steinway on Nojima Plays Liszt were nothing short of sensational. Again, this electrifying transient speed was not the result of an artificial hype that quickly grows tiring. Rather, the Viola electronics simply had the speed and wide dynamic envelope of the real thing.

Speed, resolution, and transparency are often accompanied by a tendency toward leanness, lack of body, thinning of tonal colors, and a bottom end that favors precision over visceral weight.