Tempe Room 3

Three systems that between them cover most of what a real listening room actually looks like. At the top, a Wilson WATT/Puppy driven directly by Linn Klimax with no preamplifier in the chain. Below that, Sonus faber Sonetto on a McIntosh hybrid integrated. And at the entry, the full Lumina range on a Linn Majik DSM. Useful, unglamorous, and probably the most instructive room in the building for working out how much system a given space genuinely needs.

The room itself

Room 3 is where the price-to-performance question gets answered honestly. Nothing in it is a flagship, and every system in it is complete and working. That makes it the room most people should hear first, because it establishes a baseline — what a well-assembled system sounds like at each of three tiers — before the larger rooms show what happens when the constraints come off.

System 1 — Wilson WATT/Puppy on Linn Klimax, direct

The WATT/Puppy is the loudspeaker that made Wilson Audio’s name, and its return to the catalogue put a compact two-box reference design back within reach of a normally proportioned room. Linn drives it, and does so with unusual purity: a Klimax DS network player feeding a Klimax Twin stereo power amplifier, with no preamplifier in the chain at all.

The Klimax DS handles volume in the digital domain at a resolution high enough that the conventional objection to digital volume control does not apply. Fewer boxes, fewer connections, less to get in the way. A Pro-Ject Debut covers vinyl, and Transparent Plus cabling runs throughout. It is a demonstration of how little a serious system actually requires.

System 2 — Sonus faber Sonetto on McIntosh MA252

Sonetto is where Sonus faber’s cabinet craft becomes attainable, and this system pairs the Sonetto VIII and the Sonetto V so the difference between them can be heard back to back rather than argued about. The McIntosh MA252 is the amplifier that surprises people — a hybrid integrated with exposed tubes and no display at all, deliberately stripped of everything McIntosh could remove while keeping the sound intact.

Vinyl comes from the McIntosh MT2 with a Pro-Ject Stereo Box RS phono stage, digital from Linn network players — a Sekrit DS-I and an Akurate DS — with a JL Audio Dominion d110 subwoofer available for the smaller Sonetto V and Kimber Kable throughout. Not a compromise system. A system for a real room.

System 3 — Sonus faber Lumina on Linn Majik DSM

Three members of the Lumina range in one place — the V Amator, the III and the I — which makes this the most useful corner in Tempe for anyone working out how much loudspeaker a given space needs. Lumina is Sonus faber’s entry range, and the Amator designation marks the version that borrows materials and finish work from further up the catalogue.

Driving all three is a Linn Majik DSM: a network player, preamplifier and power amplifier in one chassis, with Space Optimisation correcting for the room. The McIntosh MTI100 adds a turntable, amplifier and phono stage in a single integrated unit — the simplest complete analogue system McIntosh makes. Kimber Kable ties it together.

Three tiers, one room

The value of having all three in one space is that the steps between them become audible rather than notional. The move from Lumina to Sonetto is mostly a move in cabinet and driver quality. The move from Sonetto to WATT/Puppy is a move in what the loudspeaker is designed to reveal, and the direct Linn chain in front of it is a deliberate demonstration that the electronics can be simplified as the loudspeaker gets more serious rather than the reverse.

It is also the room where the two all-in-one ideas — the Linn Majik DSM and the McIntosh MTI100 — can be heard against a more conventional stack, which is a comparison most people never get to make before buying one or the other.

The systems in this room

• Wilson Audio WATT/Puppy loudspeakers
• Linn Klimax DS network music player and Klimax Twin power amplifier
• Pro-Ject Debut turntable and Transparent Plus cabling
• Sonus faber Sonetto VIII and Sonetto V loudspeakers
• McIntosh MA252 hybrid integrated amplifier and MT2 turntable
• Linn Sekrit DS-I and Akurate DS network players, Pro-Ject Stereo Box RS
• JL Audio Dominion d110 subwoofer
• Sonus faber Lumina V Amator, Lumina III and Lumina I loudspeakers
• Linn Majik DSM and McIntosh MTI100 integrated turntable
• Kimber Kable cabling

Hearing it

Room 3 is the room for a first system, for a second system in a smaller space, and for anyone who wants to hear where the real steps in performance fall before deciding how far to climb. It is also the place to hear the WATT/Puppy in its purest configuration before comparing it with the Sasha V in the Tempe Reference Room.

Tempe Room 3 is in the Tempe showroom. Walk in during business hours and ask to hear it, or book ahead if you would like more than one of these systems set up and the time to move between them properly.