SHUNYATA RESEARCH Python Zi-Tron

The contribution of the Python Zi-Tron was apparent yet subtle when it was inserted in the system and when asked at that time I would have been very hesitant to acknowledge its super-effect. As usual, one has to live for couple of hours or days with such an upgrade to fully appreciate it. Immediately after the Python was removed from my amp and replaced by the Cobra I missed desperately the Python. The music was stripped off, shineless, less palpable, less open, less everything. The big and sonorous strrrrrummm! morphed into a small and dry strum! That trailed off much quicker into the background silence. The energy was gone.

The Python Zi-Tron is an illuminating type of hifi – it can dig deep into the farthest corners of a studio to find the tinniest bit of information that can be brought to your ears. Its background is not ‘blacker’, in fact it is very alive with the subtlest ambient clues and microdynamic shifts that were either blended together or simply missing before. The Python does not compress, there are no audible phase errors or whatever – the music leaves loudspeakers the same way it arrived to microphones during it had been recorded.On top of that, the Python Zi-Tron’s revealing nature provided me with a deep insight into the work of a mixing engineer, the sounds generated in consoles were ruthlessly sorted from those coming from live instruments. The Python-induced transformation was easily apparent on complex orchestral music, with instruments sounding fuller and more alive. An almost tangible reduction in background hash provided clean canvas for purer timbres and more harmonic nuances, I was transported closer to the real performance. It is very rewarding for the listener to easily distiguish between left and right kettle drum in a symphonic orchestra including the variations in strokes, or absorb the sound waves generated by vibrating mass of a gong.

The complete text of the Shunyata Research Zi-Tron series cablesis available in SPECIAL EDITION REVIEWS section.