After all the necessary adjustments had been made, we moved on to the listening check. The testers soon noticed two prominent characteristics: the spatial imaging always appeared to be relatively close and the dynamic impression rather compact. But in this context compact must not be equated with compressed, no – in fact, the opposite is the case. The SP33 gave a very dynamic, yet always full-bodied and powerful performance and hence is probably not be the right choice for people who lay their focus on a particularly airy sound character. The high-frequency range, too, revealed a slightly reserved tendency, although nothing was missing. What has been curbed here by the Swedes, is made up for by an unusually sophisticated midrange resolution. As a listening example I’d like to mention the cymbals in Dave Brubeck’s famous »Take Five« recording. Sure, over many electronic components they sound delicately resolved, but way too bright and massless. The Primare duo let you feel the weight of the metal and gave the acoustical timbre, dipped into the dark shimmer of the polished brass, a very realistic impression.
Special status confirmed
The surround processing also delivered a conclusive, gapless and highly musical imaging. However, the end of the road comes at 96 kilohertz sampling rate; more finely sampled digital signals go out as they get in. In 99.99 per cent of all cases this should bother nobody, only with a 7.1 configuration using lateral and rear surround speakers the imaging of 5.1 recordings slips forward a bit too far, because the rear speakers keep silent. 192 kilohertz stereo recordings can’t be played back in surround, either. It really couldn’t be any more exotic.
No matter what the testers were throwing at the Viking team, the sound image was with no exception very substantial, almost palpable and comparably massive, but by no means bloated, yet tight and robust. Whether they were looking over Keith Jarrett’s shoulder at his clavier, listening to Ella Fitzgerald’s voice, as she was standing right before them in front of the carpet, or sitting in the centre seat between the musicians of the Big Phat Band in surround, who turned the test cinema into a stage – the whole always retained a stable imaging and a musical flow, which you just couldn’t escape from. Similar story with movie reproduction. The tight and quite full-bodied rendition gave all scenes a suspense-enhancing, almost intimate closeness and palpability that we mostly miss in less complex AV amplifiers. Here, too, the imaging always showed a clear, fine dynamical separation; with action scenes the force of the UFDP power amps was shattering the entire room in a realistic and seemingly effortless way.
