AAI Maestoso IC

It should be clear by now that the AAI interconnects has the ability to please the listener with dynamic and tonally rich sound that ticks all the boxes of a demanding audiophile. It is also a great traveling companion. Not only did I travel with it to many other high-end systems, but also I travel with it through my collection of music. Often it was like the first experience for me as I heard the music anew, like the screeching board under the shoes of the double-bass player in Wouldn´t It Be Loverly (Chiara Pancaldi, I Walk a Little Faster, Challenge Records). Female jazz vocals tend to be sensitive to sibilants as they are usually close-miked. Unfortunately it is exactly the very frequency region that many high-end cables tend to accent as this makes them sounding more open, focused, and enticing for a listener. There are other cables that don’t manage to perform well in this region, and the sound, though pleasant and sibilance-free, is smeared and soft. The AAI Maestoso split the difference: the sibilants were natural, as if the singer was in the room with you, and the focus was natural too – that is not overhyped sensation of someone with a microphone between her teeth. At the same, and it was a very seductive feature of the Maestoso, the interconnect as if removed “jitter”. By the jitter I am not talking about the digital jitter per se, rather the pixelization of sound that is often present and that we are unaware of, until it is gone. Suddenly, everything sounds more fluid, naturally smooth, and very dynamic.

After months spent with the AAI Maestoso interconnect in many audio systems (see footnote) I am confident to declare it a top-flight cable that certainly stacks up against any competitor on the planet. Saying so, it does not mean that you must sell your own interconnects right away and acquire the Maestoso. The result is of course system-dependent as usual. For instance, Stealth Audio´s Metacarbon did not performed well when I lived with it for a month in my own system, yet it sounded more complete than the Maestoso in the all-Ayon audio set-up. Another example: I still consider the Ansuz Signalz C2 to be the best match for my system, better than the D2 or the DTC, yet there were recordings, especially purely acoustic ones, where the Maestoso provided a touch more of thereness, a touch more colors, and a touch more dynamic shading.

I, perhaps, would not speculate that the AAI Maestoso is the terminus station, however, it is the proverbial stop before the terminus. Give it a listen, you won’t be disappointed.