Montegiro is a small German company relatively obscure to American audiences, manufacturing some of the nicest looking and well built turntables on the market. I have a sneaking suspicion that the obscure and lesser known part of that description is about to change.

The Lusso turntable, which is the subject of this review, is the flagship turntable for Montegiro. This turntable was built upon alternate layers of aluminum and black acrylic, in a topsy-turvy cone configuration for the platter plinth, the tonearm and motor assemblies. The cones for the arms and motor are oriented with the wider section to the bottom, while the platter cone is inverted. It makes for a very eye-catching design and, as it turns out, one that works rather well.

The basic configuration consists of the table, motor cone and a DaVinci Nobile tonearm and mounting cone. The top-of-the-line model, the Lusso Komplete, is equipped with four cones and includes a 9-inch SME model 5009 tonearm along with the 10-inch DaVinci Nobile arm. The top-of-the-line configuration is how the unit was supplied to me. On the DaVinci arm I mounted the Koetsu Tiger Eye Platinum cartridge, and on the SME, the Goldnote Tuscany.

This is a big unit overall and it does take up some real estate on your rack. I have it arranged in a pretty compact configuration and still the entire setup takes up a 30” by 20” area with the speed controller sitting beside the table. You can reduce the footprint by placing the controller below the unit if you have a multi rack. None of the cones attach to any other cone so you can arrange the placement in a number of ways. I highly recommend a dedicated stand for the table, one that is well isolated and stout, as this is a heavy ensemble. The entire unit of the Lusso Komplete weighs in at 121pounds but that information is absent in any of the manufacture literature I could find. Suffice it to say that it is just bloody heavy and you might want to have an extra pair of hands to help out.

The table comes with a compact outboard power supply and an outboard speed controller, both match the black acrylic and aluminum look of the table. The platter rests on an innovative, advanced bearing system characterized by a highly precise milled shaft polished at the end to minimize friction with the bearing balls, which are in turn made of a special ceramic designed for compatibility with the bearing mirror. The bearing mirror is made of sapphire and supplied by a company that fabricates precision parts for Swiss watchmakers. The outer part of the bearing system is made of stainless steel; the inner part, a special, customized bronze. The bearing plate is also stainless steel and matched to the bearing shaft. Plate and shaft are attached at the factory by first heating the plate then inserting the cold shaft. After cooling, the fit is so tight there’s no need for screws or other fasteners. As a result, the system operates in remarkable smoothness with very little friction. This is an expensive bearing system to produce but the results speak for themselves.

The motor requires a bit of special mention, also. The Montegiro uses a special 2-phase motor with sliding contact bearings. The motor is operated by a Sinus generator which is optimized with special hand selected components that requires more than double the normal time to produce, according to the manufacturer. I am not sure exactly what that truly means but I gave the motor a couple of spins by hand and it felt particularly smooth, more than any other table I have done that to. In practice, the start-up of the motor is without drama, quickly builds to the proper speed and silently maintains that speed. I am not sure what more you can ask of a motor to do without going into hyperbole over things that really don’t matter all that much to the end user.

It only takes one look at the pictures to tell you this isn’t your ordinary turntable. As Dorothy said to Toto, “We aren’t in Kansas anymore.” It comes in two monstrous travel anvil type cases that measure 2’x2’x2’! It takes a good deal of time to unload and assemble the table but it is rather straightforward and not particularly complex unless you are too stupid, blind or both like me to see that din power cord retracts into the base of the motor unit (In my defense it seats so well that it looks like the receptacle for a power cord, so there). Once you have it all assembled the job of lining up the tonearms with the tables is made relatively easy with protractors and tools supplied by the arm manufacturers. By simply moving the cones themselves you can dial in a very good alignment of arm-to-table, and if there is a need to change anything it is fairly easy to do so. I found the ease of flexibility with the placement of the various cones to be a rather nice feature. If you have a small footprint area or need to work around some other oddities, this flexibility comes in handily. All of the cones come with adjustable spikes which made it really easy to level not only the platter assembly but also the arm cones and motor cone. I have learned that using a simple round bubble level does not give me a true picture and so I also use a small version of the carpenters level placed on the platter. It took me about 15 minutes to level out the Lusso. An important and worthy investment of time.

From a purely aesthetic standpoint this turntable stops people dead in their tracks. Most people I have heard talking about this table described it as the most beautiful table they have ever seen. Everyone who has visited me since I set this up has marveled at the appearance. Most everyone will comment on how great it looks and the first thing they will ask after who makes it, and what is it made of, is “How much?” I have to admit there is something strangely fascinating in watching the air completely evacuating from the human body. There is a bulging eyes thing followed by a noticeable sinking in the face around the cheeks. There is almost always a really cool kind of wheezing thing that goes on and most everyone stumbles around like Fred Sanford saying, “This is the big one Elizabeth. I‘m coming to meet you.” For some reason I just don’t get bored with this reaction. Some strange sociopathic genetic flaw I guess. To most people this has been the reaction, with the exception of people who judge great sound by a Bose Wavelength counter top unit.

So what is a turntable supposed to do anyway to qualify it as being worth the price of admission? In the case of the Montegiro Lusso Komplete it had better looked stunning and drawn a lot of attention. As for the actual performance of the table I would say it is a more a matter of what it should not do. It should not create or transfer any vibration of any kind to the table and platter itself. It should remain so rock steady in its rotation as to not deviate at all from the chosen RPM range. It should add no color or personality to the music but deliver it butt naked, just the way it was born. The only color coming from a turntable should be black, as in pitch black, like a black hole black. Of all the tables I have owned and reviewed this is easily the quietest running table I have auditioned. Usually I can pick up some rumble in the plinth of a table with my handy stethoscope (no jokes about playing doctor here). It may be very, very faint but I can usually get some motor or vibration noise. With the Montegiro Lusso Komplete, there was nothing. Not even a hint of a sound. Zero, zip, zilch nyet, nada! Over a couple of months I must have done this test a dozen times and never could I pick up any table noise unless I put the scope directly on the motor. I have never got to audition the ClearAudio Statement, the Transrotor Tourbillon, Rockport Sirius III, Caliburn and the like but I imagine that this table is every bit as quiet and colorless as any of those tables. This told me I was going to have a pretty damned good time with this table.

When I first set it up, I put the strobe on the platter and it ran a bit on the fast side of 33 1/3. I simply dialed it back via the speed controller until it settled in to a stable 33 1/3 and then I locked it in. A small slotted screw inside the front panel of the control unit makes adjustment of the speed very easy. It is a sensitive adjusting mechanism and requires hair width adjustments and little else. After two months I went back to check it. I put the strobe on and it did not waver at all. It was running precisely where I set it. To me that was a shock and also indicative of the quality of the motor and the control unit. With my Nottingham I generally have to make slight adjustments to the speed every three to four weeks, even if they are only very slight adjustments. One thing that I truly loved about this table was the ability to change speed to 45 rpm with the flip of a switch rather than having to physically move a belt.

So that is two for two so far. No detectable noise or vibration. No speed variance. Ok, so there are other tables for significantly less that will do both of those things. Agreed but this is not about pinching pennies and buying the greatest performance for the dollar. A table in this rare air should hit you with a very visceral impact right in the gut or about 10 inches lower. You are most likely going to spend a great deal of time looking at the thing so it had better have some attractive aesthetic qualities. Should that determine whether a person purchases a specific piece of equipment? No, but it often does impact the choice. As an example of this phenomenon of buying for aesthetics let’s look at it this way. If you offered me two identical operating tube amps and one had the tubes totally concealed and the other had them displayed in a very visible way but cost 25% more than the one with the tubes concealed would I spend the extra for the lovely display of the tubes. Most likely if I had the extra coin. I love the warm glow that the tubes add to the room ambiance. The issue here is that this table and its performance are in the rarified 1% of all turntables manufactured. There are other turntables that may perform as well as the Lusso from companies like Clearaudio, Transrotor, Continuum and SME. Do those other tables give me the same aesthetic pleasure? Some yes and others not so much, it is a personal choice. However, most of the tables that I am referring to start around $40K and go to $150K. The Lusso just evokes that visceral feeling, and it is hard not to look at it and enjoy the nuances of its design.

Ok but how does it sound. Well it doesn’t. That is a good thing because it allows the music to be lifted from the table in a tonally neutral way. Because of this I say that, sonically, the Lusso is as exceptional as its gorgeous looks. Depending on the quality of the recorded information the Lusso will deliver precise, crystalline highs, a rich sweet and smoothly flowing midrange, and a weighty bass that produces an ideal, musically balanced listening experience. Everything emanates from a total lack of background.

That is precisely what a great turntable will do and the Lusso does it in spades.

One really strong point of this table is the transparency. Music from the Lusso just flowed off the table in these waves of fluidity. It picks up details with no sense of strain or being overworked. Just another ho hum work standard for the table. On Chet Baker’s “How Deep Is the Ocean” from his This Is Always, recorded live in Montmarte, Copenhagen in 1974, I heard things in this recording I had not heard before. Many times throughout the song you could hear a wisp of breath escaping as he played certain notes. Ever so slight but they are definitely there to be heard. That is an amazing feat. It would let you hear the slight rustling of paper out in the audience, far off faint voices and the air movement around the entire club, On Stevie Ray Vaughn’s “Tin Pan Alley” from the Couldn’t Stand the Weather album the detail was so deep that the Lusso was able to produce the very, very faint buzz of the snare drum springs on Chris Layton’s drums when they were set off by Tommy Shannon’s lower frequency bass attacks. With Eva Cassidy’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow, from her Songbird LP she simply comes at you as though she is sitting 5 feet away singing only to you. Some of that detail has to be credited to the Koetsu cartridge but this table allows the best cartridges to extract the minutest details out of the record and deliver it to the listener. It is sometimes hard to define the line between getting the most from a recording and going overboard and being rigidly analytical and overly detailed. The description falls under that old adage, “I can’t tell you what it looks like but I will know it when I see it!” This table will take you right to the line but stop just shy of going over it. One thing for sure is that music comes alive on this table. By the same token if the recording is dead, the Lusso will not revive it. That is the way it should be. Only the strong survive and a poorly recorded source should be identified and laid to rest. The Lusso will do that and allow you to weed out records that are no longer in good shape or that were poorly recorded in the first place.

I have yet to find myself getting listener’s fatigue with this table. It was even more startling when I fired up the CD player and played digital versions of some of the vinyl reference recordings I listened to back to back. The quality of the musical delivery from the Lusso completely obliterates any small pops or clicks caused by falling dust particles that manage to make it to the record directly after a cleaning on the VPI 16.5 (a particularly aggravating side effect of living in a desert). I just failed to notice them much. What I did notice was that comparatively speaking, in dedicated listening the Lusso just blew away anything else I have listened to as a front-end source component.

The supplied SME 5009 and the DaVinci Nobile arms are both more than competent. Both have been reviewed extensively and this review is not about the tonearms or the cartridges (both cartridges will be reviewed in standalone reviews). After living with both for a good while I found myself being very partial to the DaVinci. I found it easier to operate and adjust. That is not saying that the SME is not a good arm, quite the contrary. The SME is a great arm and head-to-head with all the other great tonearms out there, it is one of the most highly praised and respected. I just found that the DaVinci handled the Koetsu Tiger Eye so well that I would choose it over the SME. If I was buying this table with a single arm, my first choice would be the DaVinci Nobile.

I asked Heiko Lotzkat of Montegiro why these two arms in particular? Heiko told me: “To answer your question about the tonearm choice Montegiro is the distributor of the DaVinci tonearms in Germany. So it was very easy for us to find the first tonearm for the Lusso. This arm is fantastic and very well manufactured and the sound is brilliant. It is one of the best tonearms in the world. For the second tonearm we were looking for one that was less expensive than the DaVinci and completely different yet well known. The SME is a great compliment to the DaVinci and works very well with the Lusso. One of the issues turntable manufacturers face is availability of arms if they do not manufacture their own. The SME is available in the configurations that Montegiro needed to meet the design criteria for the Lusso as a secondary arm. So we decided to take on the SME as a second arm option and it has proven to be a very outstanding choice. It is possible to prepare the Lusso for nearly every tonearm you can buy in the world today if so desired. If a customer wants to have another arm or he has got an arm and wants to put it on the Lusso it is no problem. You only have to change the base under the tonearm and then you can put another on the top. It is possible for us to manufacture every base for every arm and this is an advantage of the Lusso. The price of the Lusso is depending on the price of the tonearms.”

Is there any area for improvement with this table, you might ask. Yes, there is because nothing is perfect. One niggling little item continually presented itself to me while I had this table: If you are trying to clean around the table, as you must do from time to time, it is easy to move the tonearm cones accidentally. Then you have to retrieve the setup tools and make sure that you get the arm and cartridge back into alignment. This happened more than once, in part due to the cones being on a slick wood surface of my rack. That being said, it was usually a fairly quick fix and in a permanent installation you might want to mark the location or find some other way of anchoring the cones. It did not interfere with my enjoyment of the table and after a couple of instances I became far more careful during cleaning time, which was probably a good thing anyway! The other issue is that it attracted dust, especially if the house has any kind of static issue as mine does. If you are living in an area of relatively normal humidity this might not be an issue at all, but in the desert southwest it is a problem, though not relegated to the Lusso alone but rather any electronic components.

Everyone is different and so is his/her purchasing parameters, but if you are looking for a table that represents one designer’s interpretation of The Best Of The Best, well then this is one table that should qualify for that honor and it deserves an audition. I could live happily the rest of my life with the Montegiro Lusso, and if I was in the market for a turntable of this level I would certainly give it a very thorough audition. Anyway the best things in life are the ones you really have to work for, sacrifice for and struggle to achieve. This is one table that would easily earn that effort from me or most any audiophile who spent any time with this turntable.

The Montegiro Lusso offers a world of flexibility. It has ease of set up, multiple options on arms, looks to die for and on top of all that, it does what a turntable is supposed to do exceptionally well, and that is deliver the music as it was cut on the record and adds nothing of its own along the way. That, my friends, is exactly what you want from a turntable!

The post Montegiro Lusso Komplete Turntable Review appeared first on Dagogo.

Description

Chinese audio company Opera Consonance has been in high-end audio manufacturing business for over 15 years. While not a household name in the U.S., their products are beginning to get more and more notoriety. The company is operated by chief designer and owner Mr. Shi Hui Liu. The Droplet LP 5.0 MKII turntable system (turntable + stand) is a beautiful and comprehensive design with the fit and finish on par with many more established turntables from brands costing twice as much and more. The quality is first rate and the design is visually fetching.

According to the company, the Droplet LP 5.0 MKII turntable’s own matching stand is constructed from two slabs of polished marble separated by triangular sectioned support columns with threaded rods running through the structure. The shape of the stand matches the shape of the turntable and is visually cohesive. This review is conducted without the stand, as the cost of shipping it to me was deemed prohibitive.

The Droplet 5.0MKII does not break any revolutionary ground in design but rather handily uses a more tried and true Mass = Silence approach.

The table is a two-part plinth design. There is the base itself which anchors the table, with a one half inch solid aluminum sub plinth to which is mounted the tonearm and bearing seat. The 67 mm thick acrylic platter spins on a large diameter inverted fixed spindle with polished ceramic ball on a teflon thrust plate. The German manufactured precision high-torque AC motor rests in a separate housing which then sits on a cork base within the wooden section of the plinth, isolated from the bearing and the tonearm. The main bearing and mounting board of the arm are rigidly linked and both are bolted to the thick alloy plate sub plinth which sits via three alloy cylinders onto the wooden part of the plinth. The platter is driven by a nylon thread to minimize transferred motor vibration. The drive belt is miniscule to say the least. If you drop it, you may spend months trying to find it. At first it looks as though it could never withstand the strain to spin the huge platter. Not to worry, it does a fabulous job. The 5.0 MKII comes with a separate speed controller to address stability of platter speed.

I have heard it stated that the Droplet 5.0 MKII is “eye candy” of the first order. I would say that is a very astute description. It really looks like no other table I can think of. Nothing too out of this world but a sensuously sculpted combination of gorgeous and exotic looking wood, black anodized aluminum and steel all topped off by a massive acrylic platter. Eye candy does it no justice. It is just downright sexy. Is it possible for something like a turntable to be sexy? You bet your sweet a** it is. (Oh Lord. –Ed.)

Here is where I am supposed to mention that the 5.0 MKII is not just a turntable but a “System” consisting of the table and stand. While I am sure that it is, I cannot attest to that as I never got the stand, although I would like to see the entire unit together. I would like to have had the stand as this table should really benefit from a dedicated stand. Besides, that would be the perfect place to also place the speed control unit and phono stage! The table alone weighs in somewhere around 75 pounds and with the stand the entire “system” weighs over 175 pounds. I say that qualifies as mass! The stand costs $800 alone, and as I understand it can cost a considerable chunk to drop ship from China. Rachel or Ian at Grant Fidelity, the North American distributors, can give you more specifics on that.

Opera, unlike many manufacturers, does not make claims as to the top secret nature of materials or design parameters. They do not make up techno jargon to explain the shaping of the table. In talking with Ian about the table he was very candid in that the table was designed to look appealing. Wow! Designed to look good and sound good. How refreshingly direct and honest. Great news! It accomplishes both goals.

While there is nothing revolutionary or ground breaking in the design, that does not detract from the execution of a time-tested practice and the utilization of premium parts packaged at a price point that defies industry norms. Great quality, exceptional aesthetics and a price under $5,000 US for the table and if you add in the fabulous stand you are still talking about $5700 total. I know of dedicated turntable stands costing that much! While the American audiophile has come to associate China with cheap quality products, that image is rapidly changing and the Opera Consonance Droplet 5.0 MKII is a great example of the quality units coming from China now. If I were to have guessed as to the country of origin of the Droplet I would have immediately guessed Italy and I would have been immediately wrong! It just has that sexy look that is so often identified with Italian-made items.

Set Up

Be forewarned that this table comes in a very, very large box. Due to the size and the weight it can be quite a chore to wrestle it into your home. Having some assistance is highly recommended. Anyone who reads my reviews is familiar with my son Matthew who often provides the much needed muscle to help Dad get these things in the house. When he leaves in January to go to Ohio to live happily ever after with his soul mate Tiffany and her 3-year-old son Kaden, he will be sorely missed when the big heavy crates show up. I guess I will have to work him twice as hard till he leaves.

Thanks to a very simple and straight forward manual, setup is actually a breeze once you get it all unpacked. One very nice touch is that as soon as you open the box you are greeted by a nice pair of white, cotton gloves. This helps to prevent the transfer of body to the acrylic platter. Be sure and use them! The manual includes large and very clear pictures that make this a turntable even a Caveman could set up. Once the table is located and leveled, via the adjustable cones, you may then loop the drive thread over the motor pulley, mount the tonearm of your choice. For me, this was the Consonance ST600 tonearm. Flip the switch and voila! You are off and running. Now dial in the speed via the control box for both 33 and 45 and you are ready to sit back and enjoy. The table even comes with a cartridge alignment protractor and a strobe disc. Easy to set up and SIMPLE!!!

Opera Consonance ST600 Tonearm

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and if that is true, then the Opera Consonance ST600 is the ultimate form of flattery for the Tri-Planar tonearm. To say that the ST600 borrows some design elements of the Tri-Planar would simply be an understatement of the grossest kind! Not only does this mimic the Tri-Planar in basic design but it even goes the Tri-Plana one better by making the arm tube adjustable. The tonearm employs a uni-pivot dynamic balance design with oil damping. Oil is not exactly the most accurate descriptor of the damping material. It lies somewhere between oil and gel. The arm can be set to either between 10.5” and 12” and has a 16mm overhang and is offset 29 degrees. The arm will handle cartridges in a range from 4 to 16 grams, which means it will handle just about any cartridge on the market today. The counter weighting system utilizes two 50 gram weights and a 2 gram anti-skate weight. The arm base and the headshell are stainless steel and the arm tube is carbon fiber. Just like the Tri-Planar that it pays homage to, it includes a VTL adjustment tower and can be adjusted on the fly. Pictures do not do it justice. This arm is simply beautiful and crafted like a fine piece of jewelry. Set up is relatively straight forward. The arm comes with a mounting jig, although my table was provided with a tonearm mount for the ST600. The tonearm cable is also replaceable and uses a din pin jack to make switching out the stock cable for other higher-end cables a breeze. From the time I began unpacking the arm to having the cartridge installed, it took less than an hour. As a side note of sorts, I ran the tonearm as a 12” arm from the second day I had it. With this tonearm and table setup the 12” mode is vastly superior in my view to the 10.5” mode.

In Use

Once everything is up and running the Droplet 5.0 MKII is a pleasure to use. There is no suspension so it makes cueing the tonearm a relatively uneventful affair. Simply flip the motor switch, which is actually located on the top of the motor unit in easy reach, and the turntable spins up to speed quickly and quietly. Speed stability is reached almost immediately. I tend to turn on my table and let it run for a while before playing any records on it just to be sure it has had time to settle in and stabilize the speed.

Well, who can do a review without finding some little niggling annoyance to harp about? Me? No way. So here is the first little gem. No record clamp! Personally I believe that even the most modest table deserves a puck. A day without a puck is a day without proper flattening of the record, which in turn decreases the enjoyment of my record playing. At this price, throw in a nice record clamp and charge another $100.

I have also heard that there can be clearance problems with some arm-boards. As I understand it, the fitment with SME arms can be extremely tight and some arms like the Dynavector 507 will not work at all. If interested in this table, make sure you speak to the dealer about arm compatibility before you purchase it. Since mine was mated with the ST600 I experienced no issues with clearance whatsoever. In use, the tonearm performed flawlessly. It mated extremely well with a number of cartridges I tried including the Koetsu Azule Platinum, Koetsu Tiger eye Platinum, Koetsu Urushi Vermillion, Dynavector 17D, Goldnote Tuscany and the Benz Micro Ruby. All tracked well, even standing up to the torture tracks of a couple of test records.

Once up and running with my Koetsu Azule cartridge mounted, it was time to get down to the business of playing vinyl. Paula is not much for the ritual of playing vinyl but she found the Consonance not only easy to operate but also very easy on the eyes; especially after I lit the platter with blue LED light from behind. This is something Opera might consider making as an option for the table. With such a large mass of acrylic the idea of offering colored lighting options seems a natural.

In addition to the beauty of the table with its sleek and flowing lines the sound of the Droplet 5.0 MKII is simply outstanding. Over the 6 months I have lived with this table it has all but replaced my Nottingham Analogue rig. I have played not less than 200 records on this table and what is immediately noticeable is the completely silent and black background that it has. I recently reviewed the Montegiro Lusso table and remarked on how totally silent it was, even when listening for noise with a stethoscope. The Droplet is not a Lusso but it is every bit as quiet as one! Considering the $45,000 price difference I would say that is fairly impressive. There is no rumble, no low frequency nastiness, nothing at all. It is actually kind of spooky. You have a better chance of hearing the stylus making contact with the grooves of the record than you do of hearing inherent noise in emanating from the table.

I never stop getting a kick out of hearing new things in a recording. One area of significant improvement in sound seems to be bass guitars. The Beatles’ “Something” from Abbey Road has some of the most melodic bass you will ever find. Paul McCartney’s playing is just superb. With the Droplet 5.0 MKII that bass becomes more tightly focused and there is an added dimension of lyrical musicality in the notes.

Most anything I threw at it seemed to simply be “better”. Micro dynamics were coming out in places I had not noticed before, especially with live cuts. I have amassed a pretty large collection of Art Pepper and Chet Baker recordings, many of which were recorded live. I hear more of the club ambiance. The clanking of glasses, the small talk, footsteps of people moving about and at one point I even caught the sound of someone taking a drag off a cigarette and then exhaling it all very close to the recording mike. It was so clear that I was certain that it was a woman who was the smoker. If that does not make you sit up and take notice then my guess is that nothing will. Yes I am absolutely certain that credit for the incredible detail goes in large part to the Koetsu Platinum Azule cartridge. However I am also certain that if the table did not provide an absolutely black and silent canvas to start with, those details would simply be lost.

Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” from their double album The Wall is another example of fine detail that lies in the grooves of an album I have heard at least 500 times. The subtle way in which the changes in bending of strings by David Gilmour during both solos just jumps off the record, now it also catches you off guard. His gentle harmonic overtones actually reveal the slight sound difference in the string making a light contact with the flesh of his right thumb while he is picking the string. That is some incredible detail. Again that would not be possible to hear this without the sounds emanating from a totally silent table.

These are just a few examples of what the Opera Consonance Droplet 5.0 MKII turntable and ST600 tonearm provide the user. Could it offer more? Yes. As I said earlier a nice record clamp would be good as would a record matt, and while I am at it, a nice acrylic dust cover would be nice. If you are not going to buy the dedicated stand make sure you have a very stout rack and provide some type of isolation for the table.

And In The End…….

The love you take is equal to the love you make! (Apologies to John, Paul, George and Ringo.) Clearly a lot of love went into the design and building of this turntable. This is not a radical re-invention of the turntable but rather a well thought out take on an old tried-and-true design philosophy. It exhibits a lot of pride and an eye for delivering it in a beautiful and artful package. There are more expensive tables. There are less expensive tables. There are a number of solid competitors in this price range that must be taken into account. Clearaudio Master Solution, Nottingham Analogues Hyperspace, Acespace arm combo, Trans Rotor, Final Tool, Avid and many other makes of fine tables in this price range. All of them are gems in their own right and worthy to sit on anyone’s rack. If you consider the Opera Consonance Droplet 5.0 MKII as a system with the integrated and matching stand, then you are talking about a more unique offering. This is a table that sits at the top of my list for a second turntable and would most likely become my main table, relegating the Nottingham Hyperspace to second seat. Yes it is that good! I highly recommend taking a look at it if you are thinking of buying a mid-level turntable that will accept almost any cartridge with ease, provides silent running with extremely stable speed control and aesthetics that will score you big points on the W.A.F.

The post Opera Audio Consonance Droplet 5.0 MkII Turntable With Opera Consonance ST600 Tonearm Review appeared first on Dagogo.

A few months back I was invited to check out a few items from K.T. Audio Imports’ Tom Vu. I was going to have an opportunity to audition the GamuT Phi 7 speaker, GamuT 200i solid-state stereo amplifier and Musical Conductor MK II turntable and matching arm. Sounded like an interesting combo. I had previously had the chance to listen to some of these products in a private listening session provided us at CES by Tom. All were rather intriguing in one way or another. Of course, being of curious mind and inquisitive nature I could not pass up the opportunity to take an extended listen. Unfortunately, due to timing, the allowed audition period was less than ideal for a full in-depth review of any one piece, let alone three different products of differing nature simultaneously. Most of us in the audio press community have real jobs that pay the bills (generally, writing is not a paying gig) and allow us to indulge in this hobby. So having 40 hours a week to devote to listening and reviewing is normally not in the cards. Anything less than 90 days with a piece of equipment will not yield you much in the way of a good in-depth review. This was clearly going to be the case so let’s look at this as an extended audition for initial impressions, and perhaps Tom can arrange a more lengthy review of these three products. I can tell you that all three really deserve in-depth and more detailed reviews that would come from a more reasonable time frame.

So challenge number one was to listen as much as I could in the time that I had outside of work. Not a problem. No need to twist my arm to listen to new gear. Besides I don’t sleep much. Challenge number two was getting the equipment from LA to Vegas. The only way it seemed was for me to drive to LA and retrieve it. So off I went, with Paula in tow, from Vegas to LA. Upon arriving at Tom’s place, loading the amps and the speakers was a breeze. The challenge came in loading a 250lb turntable into a small space. That was lots of fun but Tom and I managed to get it all loaded, and off we went on our trip back to Vegas.

Once home, I went about the art of unpacking and setting up. So right out of the chute it was all very normal and mundane with the speakers and amp. Both were packaged in a double boxing affair but the boxes were heavy, the foam insulation was dense and the speakers and an amp were a breeze to pack and unpack if needed. I would say the packing material was about as UPS friendly as one could expect. That is always comforting to know.

Musical Life Conductor Turntable

The real fun began with getting the turntable out of the SUV and into the house. Again, my son Matt was there to assist. I don’t think I ever take the time to thank him enough for always being willing to help the old man schlep this stuff in and out of the house. There was no shipping container of any kind with the turntable so I am not sure exactly how it would arrive if you chose to buy it. I would imagine it would come on a pallet and in heavy wood crating. This thing is a beast. Be sure that you have a stand that can support upwards of 300 pounds. I have an audio credenza that we tested by standing on it. Since it held two grown men, we were confident that it would handle the table, and fortunately it did.

Placement and dispersion of weight are serious matters to consider with this table. Also choose location of placement wisely and with great thought, as you will not want to move this and set it up again anytime soon. So, once I got everything in the house I decided to spend time listening to each piece as a standalone item inserted into my main system. I did take the speakers and insert them into my second system to allow them to run for as long as I could before doing any actual critical listening. So first up was the Musical Life Conductor MkII turntable.

The Conductor is one impressive piece of rock. Not rock as in accompanied by roll but rather as in stone. The entire turntable, sans platter, is made of slate. The plinth, chassis and two arm boards are all made from select 60mm slate. Slate was chosen for its resonance damping ability. Slate is mainly composed of quartz and muscovite or illite, often along with biotite, chlorite, hematite, and pyrite and, less frequently, apatite, graphite, kaolin, magnetite, tourmaline, or zircon as well as feldspar. Occasionally, as in the purple slates of North Wales, ferrous reduction spheres form around iron nuclei, leaving a light green spotted texture. These spheres are sometimes deformed by a subsequently applied stress field to ovoids, which appear as ellipses when viewed on a cleavage plane of the specimen. For some reason I just thought you might need that info.

Before you poo poo the idea as a gimmick, understand that slate has been used in a number of differing areas for eons. Because it is a good electrical insulator and fireproof, it was used to construct early 20th century electric switchboards and relay controls for large electric motors. It is dense and tough and fine slate is frequently used as a whetstone to hone knives. Due to its thermal stability and chemical inertness, slate has been used for laboratory bench tops and for billiard table tops. In 18th and 19th century schools, slate was extensively used for blackboards and individual writing slates for which slate or chalk pencils were used. In areas where it is available, high-quality slate is used for gravestones and commemorative tablets, and by artists in various genres. All of these uses require durability and the ability to work it to fine tolerances.

It is a truly unique and beautiful material for the use of the base and accompanying pieces. The only downside is it takes a community to move this beast because, all told, it weighs in around three hundred pounds! Can you say hernia accompanied by spinal injury? Some things really are better left to burly moving professionals and this might be one of those things. For people like me with history of spinal injuries, this is definitely not a table to take lightly, get it? Once it is set up though it is a relatively plug-and-play affair. The table came with two of Musical Life’s Conductor SE tonearms on at 10 inches, and the other at 12 inches.

The table utilizes a detached motor that is covered by a top plate that acts as the mounting board for the tonearms. The only issue I ever had with the table, is that if tightened down too tight the top plate actually causes start up troubles with the platter. If the end user finds this to be the case, then simply back off the screws that attach it to the plinth by a quarter turn and all is well. The manufacture does not provide much detail about the table and keep specs pretty close to the vest. It being such a unique affair, I imagine that is fairly normal with all the industrial espionage that goes on. At any rate though, it is all very straightforward and simplistic in setup. The platter is made of solid carbon with eight brass weights and is 40 mm thick. I would estimate the weight of the platter to be 25-30 pounds. Once set up, adjusted and dialed-in, the table’s speed ran true and consistent the entire time I had it. Of course, at these prices you expect that, and the good news is you get it. Once I had the table running I grabbed the stethoscope. As I expected, not a single sound or hint of rumble. Slate is a pretty inert material and not much for conducting vibration. One thing that really needs to be addressed is the feet. Tom provided me with three massive cone feet but they should actually come solidly attached in some way, rather than trying to balance the table on them. Be careful or you will gouge your rack or stand if you are not careful, or worse yet crush your hand under the table should you miscue this step.

Next came the arm mounting. I installed both arms but quite honestly after making sure that both operated correctly most of my listening was done with the 12” arm. Set up was relatively simple and straight forward. The arms are nicely machined and attractive units, and about as nerve wrecking as I have ever encountered. Part of this nervousness was my lack of comfort with an arm held in place by a top mounted magnet connecting to a small ball bearing affair. The arm wands on the two that I had were made of ebony. The counter weighting was easily adjustable, but at one point I bumped the arm and it simply detached from its magnetic bearing and dropped to the platter. Thankfully, I did not have an expensive cartridge on it and the stylus cover was protecting the suspension. It was one of those odd and surreal moments that make you throw up in your mouth. Clearly, caution is to be used when the only form of attaching the arm to the arm base is a small magnet. Other than that one misstep, there seemed to be no problems.

The arms tracked beautifully and seemed to be totally lacking any of the fidgety and finicky accoutrements that many arms have these days. I tried a number of cartridges in the arm and it seemed to deftly handle them all. The only one that seemed to give it any trouble was the 16 gram Goldnote Baldinotti. A wonderful cartridge but it does not suit every arm. The Koetsu Azule and Vermillion both worked extremely well along with the Dynavector 17D3 (yes I know it is an inexpensive cartridge but it is also quite good and showed itself well in this setup, so never judge a product strictly on price). Mounting the cartridge is very straightforward although the instructions for the arm are non-existent. Speaking of that, Tom was able to get me some poorly translated instructions, but this is something that any manufacture wanting to market high-end components in any country but their own needs to invest in a good copy writer and translation software to provide proper instructions. To not do so at these price points is absurd.

The sum total information available from the Musical Life website is included below. I would say minimalism is a core competency for them.

“The Conductor is the state-of-the-art turntable by Musical Life. Only selected materials with highest manufacturing precision are used. The highlights of the Conductor are: substantial mass, smooth running, concealed motor unit, 100mm high POM (Polyoxymethylen) platter and the extremely complex construction of the plinth. This is manufactured from a 100mm high Slate stone and brass in a complex labor-intensive process. Besides the enormous expenditure of time required in manufacturing The Conductor, no machines in existence can work on this material as precisely and cleanly as the human hand. Therefore, more than 60 working hours are necessary to manufacture a Conductor turntable. This expenditure of time might be singular to turntable manufacturing, and serves to illustrate the uniqueness of the Conductor. Perfection hand made in Germany!”

I would agree with them that this is an exemplary turntable and certainly to be considered if you are looking at the ultimate statement of mass as a way to end all external vibration from finding its way to your stylus. Be sure you have a rack that can handle the weight and also be sure you have a lot of friends handy to help you schlep the thing and get it set up. Great sound, ultra chic looks and it is environmentally friendly to boot!

GamuT Phi 7 Loudspeakers

The speakers that came along for the ride were the GamutT Phi 7. A tall slender drink of water these are! Very attractive and rather room-set-up friendly. They came in a beautiful rosewood finish.
This speaker incorporates the knowledge gained during the development and refinement of the L series, and then brings it down to a lower price point. Blessed with four 15 cm (roughly 6.15 inch) inch woofers, one mid range of the same size as the woofers and a 1.5 inch radiating ring tweeter, the speakers are roughly 49.5 inches tall by 7 inches wide and 13 inches dep. They come with a pretty interesting foot arrangement. The stand feet swing out from the unit to give the speaker a four point stand. It is a nifty idea. The narrow baffle is intended to enhance sound dispersion in the upper frequencies. This is a very elegant looking speaker and very WAF friendly. To quote the manufacture, “The tall baffle with the woofers distributed over its height gives an excellent acoustic coupling to the listening room and assures maximum control over resonances generated in the listening room itself.”

They are roughly 89dB in sensitivity and are primed for a 4 ohm load. This should make it a pretty friendly and easily driven speaker for a number of amps and the GamuT i200 that came with the package seemed a pretty good match. I ran them in for a few days without paying much attention to them. After three days I decided to do some measurements. From 20 kHz on down I found some interesting drops along the way. I had heard of another reviewer claiming that between the 4 kHz range and 20 kHz there was approximately a 5-6dB drop. I did not see this in any of the measurements I took. I did notice a slight drop of 2db at around 500Hz and another 1 db drop at around 4kHz but other than that they were pretty flat all the way through and this could have been a room anomaly. I am not sure what caused someone else to see such a difference but I am sure it must have been something really out of the norm. I cannot say the Phi 7s are totally neutral, I am not sure anything is ever totally neutral, but I can say that they were close and extremely pleasing and easy to listen too. The bottom-end rolled off steeply around 45 Hz which I will attribute to the rather slender cabinet dealing with 4 woofers, a midrange and the tweeter. For the bulk of the time I had them I had them well out in the room and away from any reinforcement and in when pulled closer to the back wall there was a bit of a change. The midrange and highs were very smooth inducing absolutely no fatiguing.

Overall the speaker was well integrated and most likely voiced to accommodate the cabinet shape and size. What really struck me about the Phi7 was how utterly natural the high frequencies sounded to my ears. It was well integrated and lacked any hard edge without being overly laid back. That is a tough hat trick to pull off. The speaker overall had a great coherency and continuity. The midrange was tight and up front and not as warm and smooth as I have heard in speakers like the Von Schweikert VR4, but then again these are not in the same price range.

One thing the Phi 7s did in spades was to create a wide and open soundstage and completely disappear from the room. They were also incredibly rhythmic and toe tapping inducing. I expected a bit more in the bottom-end and perhaps I did not get them broken in as well as they could be. I did find that with more than usual toe-in the bass seemed tighter, more musical and slightly deeper. This is a speaker that can comfortably be placed near a wall or a corner without creating booming bass. I tried this by pulling them back and it did enhance the bass but at a slight cost in the sound stage. I think these would be incredibly good with a subwoofer to take you to that 20 Hz mark.

The fit and finish is first rate and as I said the cabinet shape and the quality of the veneer lets it blend in well with most any décor and still deliver very dynamic, highly rhythmic sound. I would like to try these in a home theater setup. That would be something. All in all, I enjoyed my time with the Gamut Phi7. According to the manufacturer, they are designed with home theater application in mind and would most likely serve that utilization rather well. This might be the perfect speaker for the audiophile who has to get their two-channel thrills out of a family-centered theater system.

Gamut D200i Solid State Stereo Amp

The amp that Tom provided with the speakers and turntable was the GamuT D200i. Rated at 200 watts per channel, with a dual mono design that utilizes two power transformers and two pairs of large power supply capacitors, the Gamut D200i brings lots of power and dynamics to your system. Plus, it does that with an elegant design and small foot print. At 17” by 17” and 6” tall this amplifier is not about girth, width or compensation for certain body parts. It is about delivering 200 watts of class A power in a foot print that works well with any rack and a clean and classy look. I will say this: it is heft and weighs roughly 70lbs.

From the front the amp looks somewhat plain but there is a one inch wide cutout on the front panel with a blue LED and the ON/OFF switch set into the recession in the face plate. Again, there is an elegant look and feel. Heat sinks run the entire length along both sides and in the back the setup is straightforward and easy. There are single-ended and XLR inputs, two pairs of WBT outputs, with an IEC power cord receptacle smack dab in the middle, which I rather like. According to GamuT the idea of using 32 transistors makes an amplifier sound more like a choir than a single, clear source. To combat that in the D200i they use a single massive transistor per channel capable of handling up to 500 watts of power. The use of a single transistor allows Gamut to tune them to “sonic perfection”, as they say. The whole point is to combine the fluid softness of tubes, and the sheer power of mos-fets.

This is a titan of an amp. Upon firing up the unit you will hear a series of two clicks or pops. That is normal and it is the way of the amp letting you know it is ready for battle. It does the same thing when you turn it off, albeit a bit quieter. This amp has everything you may want. It has tremendous strength, incredible dynamics and the ability to produce music that simply channels whatever comes through it without adding any of its own personality or sound signature. Not as warm and laid back as tubes, and certainly not harsh and edgy like many other solid-state amps but rather neutral, very neutral! Did I tell you that the D200i is neutral? This is an amp that is capable of moving your foundation when cranked to the hilt (something I no longer do but I can still tell that it will do it). I ran Joe Satriani’s “Flying in a Blue Dream” through it at pretty substantial volumes and the clarity and control were simply great. No distortions or grain, just the music as Joe laid it down on the tracks. At the intro is the sound of a conversation that actually came through an amp during the recording session, and it was decided to leave it in. When I played the same track again at lower volumes you could still hear all the detail of that conversation and the delicacy of the acoustic rhythm guitar.

On some older jazz with Art Pepper and Chet Baker, the sounds of brass were never harsh and never produced that effect that comes from someone scraping their nails down a chalk board. What it did do on these tracks was give you all the delicate detail of brushes on a snare drum, the ever-so-light tapping of the head of a drumstick on a 20-inch ride cymbal and the decay of that sound. A truly stunning delivery to be sure.

I wish I had been allotted more time with this amp to truly flesh it out more but during the time that I did have it and was able to run a few different speakers with it, I found it tireless and never fatiguing. I am not sure exactly how they did it but GamuT has a real solid-state gem on its hands and when the time comes for me to buy another amp, I may well investigate the D200i as the amp. If one is that good how would two be strapped and used as monoblocks?

Overall the time spent with all three components lightly discussed here was a bit too short to really dig into the more long-term performance issues; but I think it is safe to say that the quality and the sound of these components all warrant serious investigation if you are in the market for speakers, amps or turntables and I know Tom Vu has a vast array of pieces from all the manufactures sampled here. Check him out and get familiar with GamuT and that amplifier technology. You will not be sorry that you did!

The post Musical Life Conductor MK II Turntable, GamuT Phi 7 Speaker & D200i Amplifier Review appeared first on Dagogo.

Believe it or not, when people visit our home the first thing they notice isn’t that I am an audio reviewer, but all the paintings. I remember when Ted was up installing all the Synergistic Research gear he asked if we were Francophiles. I was kind of caught off guard because I’ve never even thought about going to France. The reason for the question is obvious though when I start thinking about it. The first things you see when you come in our house are five paintings by a wonderful Russian artist, Liudmila Kondakova. She is our favorite living artist and it just happens that she mostly paints scenes of Paris. Her paintings have amazing detail, incredible colors, and just make you feel like you are standing there looking at the streets and the buildings she has painted.

Also hanging in the same room is an original oil of Market Street in San Francisco by a up and coming young artist. It has rich, warm hues, and a brilliant way with light that is way beyond anything Thomas Kinkade has done. The painting also is very emotionally involving, but in no way does it really look like Market Street in San Francisco. Yes, it captures the feelings and emotion of Market Street at the end of a work day, but very little of the detail.

I’ve shared all this to say that both paintings are legitimate art forms. When it comes to the art of sound reproduction though I’m always looking for both, and I tell you it’s probably not out there. Some of my favorite reviewers have been moving more and more toward the feelings and emotion of musical reproduction, in fact I expect most of you who read my reviews would put me in that camp.

Yet, truth is I’m something of a ‘fence straddler’ at this point. Yes, I love SET amps, but only those that are very fast and quick; yes, I love Lowthers but I love the DX4 Silvers more than the much revered PM2As; and yes, I love very low output, low impedance moving coils used with step up transformers. But, and I mean a really big but here, I love my Clearaudio Wood Anniversary CMB turntable. I love it because with the magnetic/ceramic bearing it is the most transparent source I have yet heard. Another case in point came when I re-tubed my Wavac EC300B, I assumed that I would want all NOS tubes, but as it turned out even the most revered NOS 6L6GC tubes robbed my system of what I can only describe as sounding “alive”. Yes, the NOS 6L6GCs had some very special qualities, but they didn’t sound alive like the inexpensive, coke bottle, Chinese 6L6GCs that come with the amp. Yes, you want the best Western Electrics you can get for front-end and power tubes, but to my surprise the coke bottle 6L6GC is the finishing touch to make my system sound alive. I’ve taken you on this long journey because it is important if you are to understand how different tonearms affect the sound in any given system.

Rabbits Chased if Not Caught So Let’s Start The Review

I’ve owned a lot of tonearms over the years. Some came on the turntable and others were purchased separately. I’ve had arms from AR, B&O, Clearaudio, Dual, Linn, Magnepan, Mapleknoll, Rabco, SME, Transcriptor, and Well Tempered. All of these tonearms and I’ve never even thought about owning a twelve-inch tonearm. All that changed as I made more and more trips over to Pitch Perfect Audio in San Francisco to hear the very best audio system I have ever heard and spin some tunes with Matt. That great system would be the full Shindo system, including Shindo’s twelve-inch arm. When spinning tunes at Matt’s, the other table he uses also has a twelve-inch arm; the EMT tonearm.

With both of these arms, there was an effortlessness to the sound that I really liked, so I begin to look for and request some high quality twelve-inch arms to review. I immediately ran into a problem of finding twelve-inch arms that you didn’t have to wait a long time for, heck a couple of them had waiting list over a year. The first twelve-inch arm I have actually had in to review and listen to in my system was the excellent DaVinciAudio Grand Reference Grandezza. If it were not for the fact that it came with a price tag of $10,200, I would have purchased the review sample for myself.

So, after the Grandezza I set out to find a more affordable twelve-inch tonearm that could give me most of the sound of the DaVinciAudio. VPI has a decade of experience designing and building twelve-inch tonearms, so I requested their newest one for review. VPI says the 12.7 incorporates all its knowledge of tonearm construction so as to produce a state-of-the-art tonearm design.

According to the VPI website the design goals that bring the 12.7 to fruition started with a machined tapered arm tube for minimum standing waves within the arm wand, and maximum rigidity with low mass. They wanted the tonearm to be fully adjustable in all parameters to optimize results from as many cartridges as possible. This is partial accomplished by the use of damping fluid in such a way that the user can adjust the amount of fluid. The 12.7 has such a substantial mounting base that for all practical purposes it becomes part of the turntable armboard. Their website also states that they voiced the 12.7 to be as neutral as possible, while building a pivoted tonearm with vanishingly low tracking distortion that also has exceptional speed and agility.

Description and Setup

The JMW 12.7 Tapered twelve-inch tonearm is a damped unipivot design that uses, as the name implies, a finely machined tapered arm tube. The quality of the workmanship is as fine as I have seen at any price, but not as flashy as some. This tonearm is about playing music not about bling. The counterweight is designed so that almost all of the weight hangs below the tonearm tube and the VTA is set not at the tube but by a dial made into the mounting post. The dial is nicely numbered and makes getting the correct VTA a snap. This setup makes it very simple to adjust the VTA for records of different thickness, a very nice touch. The armlift works perfectly fine, but I do wish it had been damped going up as well as going down. The finger lift is a joy to use once you get used to the way a unipivot tonearm feels on your finger.

Mounted just behind the VTA adjustment cylinder is a little black box that house two extremely high quality RCA jacks. I want to thank Mike Zivkovic at Teresonic for loaning me a pair of their Clarison Gold interconnects that are made with signal conductors made of pure (99.999%) 24-carat gold. These are the finest interconnects I have found at any price and the only interconnects that I use in my system.

As long as you have an armboard that will accommodate a twelve-inch tonearm, setup is pretty straight forward with the instructions. I know at this price point there is an assumption that either the user is pretty experienced with tonearm set up (and I’ve been doing it for over 30 years, but this was only my second unipivot), or that the dealer will set it up. The instructions are surely adequate but some precise photos, and more precision drawings would be helpful, if only to boaster one’s self confidence that they are getting the very best out of the VPI 12.7.

Now that I have complained a little bit about the instructions, let me say that VPI should receive high praise for the tools they included. The alignment jig was ingenious and made setting up the tonearm very easy. Likewise, the tiny metal rod that they provided for helping you adjust the azimuth was brilliantly simple, inexpensive, and effective. One, last praise about the setup is on the fine tuning adjustment for vertical tracking force. After you have moved the counterweight and got it close to the right VTF and the correct azimuth, it would be such a pain to have to move it again to fine tune the VTF, and the good news is you don’t have to. There is a supplied allen wrench that fits in the back of the counter weight and you can turn it just enough to get the VTF just right without messing up the azimuth.

The VPI 12.7 was mounted on my Clearaudio Wood CMB Anniversary turntable. I used it with both the Miyabi Standard and the Benz-Micro Ebony TR moving coil cartridges. The rest of the system consisted of a Shindo Masseto preamp, Wavac EC300B amp, Teresonic Ingenium Silvers speakers with Lowther DX4 Silver drivers. Everything was plugged into an Audience aR6-T and I used the new Audience Au24 powerChords throughout the system.

Listening

With the VPI 12.7’s base installed on my turntable and my Miyabi Standard cartridge installed in the tonearm tube, it was time to listen, and I was excited to get started. I do have some preconceived ideas about the sound of well-designed twelve-inch tonearms, and the 12.7 did not let me down. It allowed my system to sound as smooth, and as relaxed as it did with the $10,200 DaVinciAudio Grand Reference Grandezza tonearm. The musical flow was incredibly natural, instruments and voices were as substantial and full of natural color as I had heard.

Another thing that good twelve-inch arms are capable of is an incredible sense of power, momentum, and scale. This one ability is the main reason I developed an interest in twelve-inch tonearms. It goes a long way in helping recorded music sound more like music. The truth is, with the VPI 12.7 in it, my system had as much scale and sounded just as huge as it did with DaVinciAudio In Unison turntable and Grand Reference Grandezza tonearm, but without the exaggerated bass that the DaVinciAudio duo had.

Until I heard the DaVinciAudio tonearm on my Clearaudio table, I had always thought that the above flow, scale, power, and momentum came at the cost of tonal neutrality. The good news is that the VPI 12.7 is even more tonally neutral than the DaVinciAudio or, for that matter, any tonearm I have ever heard.

There is no doubt that my system with the VPI 12.7 as the tonearm produced the biggest and best soundstage I had ever heard in my listening room. It was wide, deep, and great in vertical recreation as well. Best of all, it was very cohesive, none of that instruments and voices floating around in some reverberant space. No, it was as solid and cohesive soundstage as I have ever heard and had great scale to boot.

As good as it was at allowing my system to produce a great soundstage, with the VPI 12.7 the level of detail and the precision of imaging was not quite as good. I’m not talking about razor-sharp detail, I think all of you who read my reviews know how little tolerance I have for that kind of detail. Still, I have heard more subtle detail and more precise imaging from my system when using the better nine-inch arms, including the Clearaudio Satisfy Carbon Fiber tonearm. The Satisfy may be the most underappreciated tonearm in high-end audio. I don’t want you to think this is major problem, it is one of those things that many audiophile are readily willing to sacrifice for the kind of flow, scale, and soundstage I described above.

The 12.7 tonearm also allowed my system to sound very dynamic. These dynamics produced a powerful sound with a great sense of a very solid foundation to the music. With the 12.7 in my system, it also had very good PRaT to go with that contributes to the wonderful flow of the music the system also has with this tonearm. The 12.7 though did not let my system produce the very last word in micro-dynamics.

In most ways, this tonearm had it all for a very fair price. Without a doubt it is one of the best values in tonearms. It is capable of taking recorded music and with the right system making it sound wonderfully musical in your home, what more could you ask for?

Manufacturer’s Comment:

Very good review, he really nailed the fact that most 9″ arms have slightly more retrieval of detail but 12″ arms have flow and scale. Mr. Roberts has ears!!!

We have actually made a 9″, 10″, 11″, and 12″ version of the 12T and had the same results. Is it real or is it more detail than the master tape on the 9″ arms??? We have reel to reel master tapes of some of our favorite records (Solti “Planets”, Ansermet “Scheherazade”, etc.) and I think the 9″ actually gives more detail than what is there, not a terrible thing most of the time, but probably not as true as the 12″ to the original master. Tough to call though so this is where personal listening tastes and system matching really come into play.

Technically the review was flawless, all I can say is good job and thanks for thinking the arm is a great value, we think it is also.

BTW, we find the Classic length arm (10.5″) to be the ideal compromise between detail and scale, you might find that tonearm very interesting to play with.

Mike Randall
VPI Industries, Inc.

The post VPI JMW 12.7 Tapered Twelve-Inch Tonearm Review appeared first on Dagogo.

The name Helius has been associated with quality tonearms for many years; Helius tonearms have always been built from the ground up by a physicist and engineering graduate who also a music lover. The first time I saw Helius’ new Scorpio tonearm was at the 2009 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. It was set up on a Clearaudio turntable and the sound in the room was very nice. When I asked about it, I was told that for some time, Helius had been working on a new version of the Scorpio tonearm, the Scorpio 4.

The Scorpio 4 is their new entry level tonearm, and the forth version of the Scorpio. Although the price limits some of the design features of some of their more expensive arms, the Scorpio is a good example of trickle-down engineering. The one area Helius set out to make as few compromise as possible was with the bearings. They feel their bearing assembly is significantly better than anything else on the market in the same price category. So, let’s see how they did.

Setup & Audition

The function of a tonearm is to control and damp out vibration and energy that the cartridge creates as the stylus vibrates in the vinyl groves. The performance of the arm/cartridge is determined by the inertia of the entire vinyl playback system. Thus, the relationship between the turntable, tonearm, and turntable is extremely important. This makes the setup of a tonearm very critical to the sound of your system.

I am thankful to say that the setup of the Helius Scorpio 4 was very straightforward. The setup directions were easy to follow and Helius provided the basics you need for the setup. The design of the tonearm collar made it easy to get a very secure mount of the tonearm to my Clearaudio Anniversary Wood CMB turntable. The fixed head shell makes it easy to obtain a cartridge-to-tonearm connection that is very stable.

The Scorpio 4 looks nothing like the previous Scorpio tonearms, or for that matter, any of the other Helius tonearms. In fact, I don’t know of any tonearm that it looks like, but on the whole it is a very simple-looking arm, and performs in a very simple way. Now, before you take that as a negative statement please remember that in audio, as most other things in life, I believe in the KISS principle; you know, “Keep It Simple Stupid.” If you look at the two cross section illustrations you will see that, internally, it’s not as simple as it looks, but it is still very simple to setup and use.

It is available in both 9” and 10” versions and uses single-strand silver wire. Mounting geometry is identical to the Aurora and Omega arms making a straight upgrade delightfully easy. A feature borrowed from Helius’ more expensive arms is the incorporation of the cue device into the main pillar.

Geoffrey Owen, designer and owner of Helius Designs, said, “We started by defining what single parameter constituted the most fundamental requirement that could not be sacrificed if performance expectations were to be met. We decided the primary objective should be to sink the unwanted energy through the bearings and out into the turntable plinth. The arm tube assembly of the Scorpio belies a simplicity that does not reflect the quality of the engineering needed to efficiently damp and transfer vibration into the largest possible sink volume.

The Scorpio works by limiting both the amplitude and the duration of resonance events. The efficient coupling of the bearing assembly to the pillar is crucial and involves progressively increasing structural volumes available for damping. The Scorpio bearings therefore, are quite substantial, much more so than any other product in its price range. The energy is then transmitted into an even larger volume in the main pillar of the arm. Although not as large as its big brothers the Omega and Aurora, they are at least twice the size of any product competing in the same category.”

One last thing, the Scorpio 4 is a medium-mass tonearm that is slightly closer to a high- mass tonearm. This needs to be kept in mind when picking cartridges to use with it.

The post Helius Designs Scorpio 4 Tonearm Review appeared first on Dagogo.

Clearaudio is a German company known for superbly engineered products. In regard to tonearms, they have been better known for their refinement of the linear tracking tonearm. Yes, they have made several radial tracking tonearms including the Carbon Fiber Satisfy tonearms that I have used for the last three years, but they never made a radial tracking tonearm at the level of their linear tracking ones. Now they have, it’s called the Universal and it is a beautifully engineered carbon fiber tonearm that sells for $5,000 and looks like it’s worth every penny of it.

I have no idea why there hasn’t been more press and buzz about this tonearm. If you haven’t noticed, a little over three years ago Clearaudio started making major changes with some of their turntables. It started with making the plinth of the turntables out of many layers of “Panzerholz”, a solid bulletproof wood that is used in Germany for limousines and some special armored trucks. They flank the top and bottom of this very special wood with solid aluminum sheets. The result was to produce the first turntables I had heard with real warmth and transparency at the same time.

Then they came out with the ceramic magnetic bearings that completely elevated the level of transparency. Their new turntables also use a high torque DC-motor, a newly developed optical speed control that consists of an infrared sensor, a high precision reflection scale, and a corresponding speed circuit. They also added a stainless steel sub-platter and change the platter from acrylic to a much deader, synthetic material. I mention all this because in my opinion, the house sound has significantly changed at Clearaudio. The new Universal tonearm falls right in the middle of this new, improved, and more musical sound. So let’s take a look and listen.

Description

The Universal tonearm’s packaging does a perfectly good job of protecting the tonearm for shipping, but they didn’t spend mega-bucks on fancy wooding boxes and fancy looking tools. Instead, you get everything you need in a simple, safe package. I personally like Clearaudio’s decision to spend the money on the arm and not to drive the cost up with extravagant packaging.

The Universal tonearm is handcrafted with the highest possible accuracy. It is designed to be flexible enough to use almost any cartridge. The counterweight system is really nicely designed. It has four counterweights to choose from, and once you choose the right one to match your cartridge, there is a very precise fine-tuning mechanism. Clearaudio has also made adjusting of the azimuth very easy and precise.

The tonearm uses very high precision vertical and horizontal ball bearings. It uses the light-weight, but extremely stiff carbon fiber material for the tonearm tube. Unlike the Satisfy Carbon Fiber, tonearm tube on the Universal has three different sections with three different diameters. This tube construction seems to reduce resonance considerably compared to the Satisfy Carbon Fiber or any of the wood tubed arms I have used. This results in a very quiet and solid background. The Universal’s build quality is beautiful, and looks and sounds well-designed.

Setup

Tonearms come in different shapes and different lengths. They are made from different materials, with different bearings, and different degrees of sophistication. There are some that look so simple, and others that look like they were designed by Rube Goldberg. Thus, some tonearms are so complicated to setup that they literally take hours to get right and only seconds to get them out of whack.

It only takes a few minutes to open the Universal’s box, choose the right counter balance, mount the tonearm on the turntable, mount the cartridge, and do the alignment. The Universal tonearm I used did not have the VTA on the fly option. It is available, although I found it very easy to adjust the VTA without it. Truth is, the Universal took me about thirty minutes to set up and a hour or two of listening to finish dialing it in. It is very simple and intuitive to set up and use.

I used the Universal with both the Miyabi Standard, the Benz Micro Ebony TR, and the Allnic Verito “Z” moving coil cartridge (review to come). It was also fitted onto my Clearaudio Wood Anniversary turntable and the Clearaudio Innovation Wood turntable (review to come). The rest of the system consisted of a Shindo Masseto preamp, Audio Note AN-S8 SUT, Wavac EC-300B amp, Teresonic Ingenium Silvers with Lowther DX4 Silver drivers. Everything was plugged into an Audience aR6-T. I used the new Audience Au24 powerChords throughout the system, speaker cables were the Teresonic Clarison and I used their Clarison 24-carat gold interconnects.

Listening

I usually find it very hard to talk about the sound of a tonearm, because they should allow a cartridge to track the LP so it can get the music out of the grove without the tonearm imparting any sound of its own. So the real question is, how did my system sound when I put the Clearaudio Universal into it?

The short answer to that question is beautiful, powerful, and relaxed. It is simply amazing how a tonearm with the exact same geometry, and made out of the same material as my Clearaudio Satisfy tonearm, can allow my system to sound more like it did with the twelve-inch, $11,000 DaVinciAudio Grand Reference Grandezza tonearm. Truth is, the system sounded better with the Clearaudio Universal than with any other tonearm I have used. It was more detailed and more precise while at the same time having just as much or maybe even more of that powerful and relaxed sound that made my system so special with the Grandezza in it.

I think the reason the sound was so good with the Universal tonearm in the system is because of the way it eliminates resonance and its ability to be set up to match well with different cartridges. Regardless of the actual reason for its improving my system, the amount of air and space was much better recreated significantly. The weight to individual instrument and voices was another significant improvement.

With the Universal tonearm, my system sounded very dynamic. These dynamics produced a powerful sound which provided a very solid foundation to the music. With the Universal in my system, the sense of PRaT and the wonderful flow of the music was simply beyond anything I have ever heard. The micro-dynamics were also simply the best I have ever heard. The Universal tonearm also allowed my system to handle space, imaging, and soundstaging better than I have ever heard it before.

I’ve saved the best for last: the bass. I have to admit I was shocked. My system reproduced drums, acoustical and electric basses with incredible impact that provided a foundational solidity that I had not heard in my system. It had this wonderful air and space around and within bass instruments. There was this beautiful, natural, realistic warmth to the bass while still being the most precise and taught bass I have heard in my listening room. This fundamental rightness of the bass was carried all the way up into the upper mid-bass. I heard quick fast attacks followed by beautiful full decay that lets you hear different layers of the timbre of the instruments.

Conclusion

With the Universal Tonearm, Clearaudio has brought us a radial-tracking tonearm that is as good as their reputation for linear-tracking arms. It is beautifully crafted and engineered. It is also the first tonearm I have used on the Anniversary or Innovation turntables that is significantly better than the already highly underrated Clearaudio Carbon Fiber Satisfy tonearm. After trying several tonearms in the price range of the Universal, I found it to be clearly the best on both the Anniversary and the Innovation.

The post Clearaudio Universal Radial Tonearm Review appeared first on Dagogo.

You might ask why I would review a tonearm that has been on the market for quite some time. Well, the answer is simple: It’s a unique product, it fits the needs of certain cartridges, and it’s an outstanding bargain.

Description

Some people are scared to death of handling tonearms, and of course this is especially true of unipivot tonearms. If you fall into that camp the RS Lab’s tonearm has to be the scariest tonearm on the market. Not only is this arm scary as hell to use, it is also somewhat crude- and unusal-looking. For this reason even though the RS-A1 has been around a while it has never become a mainstream tonearm. However, if you’re brave and adventurous enough, I have no doubt that it will give you world-class sound for a bargain price.

The first thing that hits you when you look at the RS-A1 is that it doesn’t have anything remotely resembling a tonearm tube; instead it is a flat piece of aluminum with the sides bent in. The tonearm is also bent right in front of the pivot and comes downhill like a ski jump until it connects to a horizontal rotating headshell with the finger lift in the center, rather than the side, of the headshell.

If you carefully turn the arm over you will see the tonearm wires. They are the thinnest I have ever seen. These little wires are enclosed in a tunnel inside the arm and terminate in two RCA plugs at the bass of the arm. This flat arm sits on a downward facing brass bearing cup. The RS Lab’s unipivot design is basically like most unipivots with the bearing being machined from steel, and coming to a single sharp point that goes into the bearing cup assembly. The counterweight hangs about an inch behind and a little more than an inch below the bearing, thereby putting it in approximately the same plane as the headshell. There is a threaded brass screw that allows the counterweight to adjust the VTF. The base of the arm is pretty heavy and thus provides a solid foundation for the arm. This set up is another thing unique to this tonearm as far as I know; it should not to be mounted to an armboard, but just sits on the plinth.

If not having a tonearm tube, or having the world’s thinnest wires, or just sitting the arm on the plinth, and having the pivot point about an inch and a half above the record aren’t enough to set this arm apart, then there’s the headshell. The RS Lab uses a unique – at least to me – rotating headshell. The specs say the range of movement is six degrees in either direction, but it seems like a lot more in practice. It’s connected to the tonearm through the use of a simple needle bearing.

Design Philosophy

The RS Lab’s tonearm is based on the theory that the tonearm should be the mechanical earth to the vibration system, much like an electrical system in which the ground potential is the potential to which all others references are considered. To pick up the tone signal accurately from the disc, the support part of vibration system, including cartridge body, shell, arm and arm base, should not be moved relative to the vibration system.

The product page from the Sakura Systems website, U.S. importer of RS Labs, says, “most of today’s tonearms come with the offset angle to minimize tracking error. The distortion caused by tracking error can easily be explained geometrically and easy to solve geometrically by giving an offset angle to the arm, but the actual effect of the tracking error on the sound is less serious than that of the strong inside force caused by the offset angle. The inside force changes dramatically by the frequency and amplitude of the signal, and a static canceling system is not effective enough. Overly concerned on tracking error, arms with offset angle and forget the forest by just focusing on the tree. Straight arm has tracking error, but it is far less damaging to the signal than the strong inside force caused by the offset angle. .

Offset angle exists on vertical plane too, made by the angle of cantilever and horizontally flat arm setting, causing extra down force. Our tonearm compensates for this problem with a higher fulcrum setting, giving 16 degrees angle to the arm.”

Furthermore, RS Lab uses a rotary head shell designed to reduce needle talk that is “caused mostly by the cartridge-arm-base resonant chain. The rotary headshell of cuts off this chain of resonance by eliminating the effect of the arm mass to the cartridge.”

Setup & Auditioning

First, you need to ever so slowly and carefully remove the tonearm from its formed foam packaging. Be really careful at this early stage because the tonearm wires are quite fragile and you could easily rip them right off.

Next, you should mount the cartridge in one of the three threaded pairs of mounting holes on the headshell. It can be very frustrating figuring out which holes to use, but in the end I got everything I tried mounted. The instructions suggest that the easiest way to mount a cartridge is to turn the arm and base on its side rather than mounting the cartridge from above with the arm positioned on the plinth, which I found to be a very good advice.

Adjusting the azimuth at the headshell is not that hard but the method differs from that used for most tonearms. Basically, the finger lift should be left in its original position and barely moved enough to get the azimuth right. It is also important to be very careful in dressing the tonearm wires. Yes it’s a bit of a pain, but not an insurmountable problem. If there has ever been a tonearm that cries out for a good device for measuring azimuth, this is it. I used a Fosgate Fosgometer. Setting the rest of the geometry is easier than most tonearms, since you can move the bass around on your plinth to get the right geometry.

Of course the question has to be, does it sound good enough to be worth all this trouble? The answer is yes to some, maybe to many, and no to those who are skittish. Using several very good moving coil cartridges including the Miyabi Standard, the Miyajima Premium BE Mono, and the Allnic Verito Z, the RS Labs tonearm allowed my system to sound very immediate and powerful. It had very good transparency, detail, and PRaT, and a deep soundstage. It does all this without sounding bigger than life or overly fat. Music doesn’t flow quite as effortlessly as it does with the Shindo tonearm, but it doesn’t cost nearly as much as the Shindo. Both arms allow music to sound very smooth and very dynamic at the same time. No, the RS Labs does not sound quite as relaxed as the Shindo, but I don’t know another arm that does for any price. The RS Labs also lets the colors of music come through in a very vivid and beautiful way.

Conclusion

This arm does an amazing job of playing cartridges over a wide range of mass, and it works well with cartridges that need to be well controlled. Thus, it allows a wide range of cartridges to sound near if not their best. It is indeed a bargain for such a great sounding and versatile tonearm. Still, when it comes down to decision time the RS Labs Tonearm is not for the faint of heart. It requires an owner who isn’t afraid to deal with a lot of movement before you get the needle in the grove, but if you can handle that you’ll be very happy with the sound it brings forth from the grooves of those most loved LPs.

The post RS Laboratory RS-A1 Tonearm & RS-3 Rotary Headshell Review appeared first on Dagogo.

Introduction

Ortofon is no newcomer to the audio industry and certainly not to vinyl playback components. In fact, their history dates back as far as 1918 as a company concerned with the development of technology for the synchronization of film and sound. In 195l, they adopted the name Ortofon A/S, a name that is derived from the Greek words “Orto”, meaning “correct,” and “Fon,” meaning “sound.” In the year of my birth, 1959, they released their first of a very long line of phono cartridges, the much revered “SPU” (Stereo Pick Up).

Over the years, Ortofon has been at the forefront of the development of technologies and designs in phono cartridges as well as tonearms. In fact, even the famed designer Hisayoshi Nakatsuka (ZYX), worked at Ortofon for a time where he patented the use of a square magnetic armature for cartridge motor assembly that is prominently used today.

Currently, Ortofon is a leader in the development of technical rubber and its application in acoustics, and micro mechanical assemblies such as bone conductors used in hearing aid technology. This field is obviously also well-suited for the development of cartridge stylus suspensions and assemblies and tonearms. As such, Ortofon continues their tradition in the audio industry as a developer and marketer of record playback equipment in the professional studio and DJ world, as well the consumer market.

Their latest tonearm series premiered this past year, which includes the 12-inch TA-210 and the 9-inch TA-110, the subject of this review.

As I mentioned in the review of the Merrill–Williams R.E.A.L. 101 turntable, I happened upon this tonearm by way of a recommendation from George Merrill. As a result, I arranged for a review of the TA-110 with Ortofon USA and Mr. Merrill pre-installed the tonearm base to the custom tonearm board that was machined specifically for this tonearm’s mount.

Tonearm reviews are a very tricky endeavor. The purpose of the tonearm is to carry the phono cartridge, an energy transducer, and sweep it through an arc, thus enabling the stylus to trace the record groove accurately. The tonearm needs to do so with as little interference as possible. As such, the tonearm must possess a pivot bearing of very low lateral and vertical friction, it must also be of sufficient mass to enable the phono cartridge to exert enough downward force to play the record groove as dictated by the cartridge manufacturer, at the same time not influencing the sound produced by the phono cartridge by introducing mechanical energy of its own. So really, a well-designed tonearm should yield a true and honest playback of the sonic qualities of the phono cartridge, good or bad. This all sounds too easy, doesn’t it? That’s why we have a raft of tonearms being developed and offered all over the world, each of them with their own unique take on what an optimal tonearm should be.

Installation and Set-up

The TA110′s base came to me pre-installed and the mount is a very standard “Linn-style” base which is quite common. It had been quite a while since I had the luxury of installing a tonearm without the cartridge and then installing the cartridge to the separate head shell. I can already hear the audiophile purists out there bemoaning the “broken” connection of the wire and the addition of two contact points in the sensitive tonearm wire, as well as the “loss” of rigidity and “threat” of unwanted vibration due to the bayonet assembly to screw in the headshell; but hey, I’m describing the tonearm here, not the sound! You should probably read on and not pre-judge. The effective mass of the 9” tonearm is a scant 3.5 grams without the headshell. As such, you can optimize the tonearm for mating with the cartridge of your choice by strategically choosing from the veritable army of headshells of varying lengths and masses that are available from Ortofon. The model LH-2000E headshell, weighing in at 15.5 grams, comes standard with the Ortofon TA-110.

Also of note is the fact that the Ortofon TA-110 comes equipped with a very high quality and rather stiff tonearm cable from their line, the 6NX-TSW-1010, which sports an OFC copper coil, and gold-plated RCA’s with the center signal pins plated with Rhodium. The 5-pin DIN connector is also Rhodium plated. This is a nice touch for a modestly-priced, $1,599 MSRP tonearm.

Let’s get this one fact out of the way before I go any further into the tonearm’s description: For you analog junkies with a sharp eye for tonearms, it is no accident that the Ortofon TA-110 bears a very strong resemblance to a tonearm from the JELCO arsenal. JELCO is the largest OEM manufacturer of tonearms in the world. As such, they build customized tonearms for engineering firms that do not have the extensive manufacturing capacity, nor expertise to fully realize their designs end-to-end in-house. In terms of the high-end, ”JELCO-built tonearms that are manufactured as specified by the designers have carried such high-end staple trade names as Graham Engineering (The Robin), Koetsu, Dr. Feickert, Grado Labs, Audioquest, and Ortofon – the list is quite extensive. It is also important to note that the tonearms bearing their resemblance and sold under the OEM name JELCO does not at all make them equals to their customized and patented high-end cousins.

Getting back to installation and set-up, VTA is set by loosening a retaining screw that holds the tonearm vertical tube in place, then sliding the tonearm bearing assembly up and down. This was a very frustrating task for me since for the past 30 years with precious few gaps in those years, I have had the luxury of being able to dial-in the VTA while playing a record and optimizing for varying record thicknesses and doing so along a scale with millimeter markings that ensure that results are repeatable, once set. Such is not the case with the Ortofon TA-110. To be fair, precious few tonearms in today’s market have such capability, regardless of cost consideration. The TA-110 also does not offer any way of adjusting stylus azimuth. I realize of course this is not a feature that is at all common to find in a tonearm of this price range. Absent the azimuth adjustment, optimization is left to the perfection of the geometry of platter and tonearm relationship, as well as the “trueness” of the cartridge cantilever and stylus assembly. Any adjustment would need to be accomplished with shims between the cartridge and headshell. So then, what is special about the Ortofon TA-110?

The Sound

The answer to that question can be summarized with one word: rubber. That’s right, the “special sauce” behind the genius of the Merrill-Williams design has managed to make an appearance into a tonearm.

In the case of the TA-110 tonearm, Ortofon leverages their mighty prowess in R&D in the area of technical rubber for the hearing aid industry and applies it to tonearm technology. Using computer-aided design and their acoustical design engineering principles developed for other industries, Ortofon was able to design and manufacture a rubber insert that when placed precisely where indicated by their modeling, yields a low-mass, highly rigid, and essentially inert tonearm pipe. There is an Ortofon video that is published on their website, as well as on YouTube, that illustrates the dramatic difference between the stock tonearm pipe and their rubber-optimized tonearm pipe (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsRgKX5Tg1U ). This , in theory, makes the Ortofon tonearm non-resonant, and since the rubber is placed along the tube, it also ensures that any resonant energy conveying back from the headshell or cartridge body is suppressed. This is a seemingly simple and elegant solution to a problem that confounds all tonearms in one way, shape, or form.

So then how does all of this translate to the sound of the whole? In a word, invisibly.

That’s right, the Ortofon TA-110 pulls a complete disappearing act. In a sense, it allows for the true personality of the phono cartridge to emerge from the speakers without adding any sonic character of its own. This means that my ZYX Omega-S, Accuphase AC2, and Accuphase AC3, each demonstrated their subtle nuances in the way they reproduce upper-bass, midrange, and depth of field, that is easily masked by lesser tonearm/turntable combinations. It also means that my Technics 305C moving coil was able to portray its unique sense of emotion, warmth, and intoxicatingly expressive midrange from that same tonearm. It also means that the Technics 205Cmk3 phono cartridge was able to rock the house with its explosive dynamics and velvety smooth midrange and highs. Not bad for a $1,599 tonearm!

To Summarize

The tonearm’s job is to carry the cartridge and allow it to track the vinyl accurately without adding any sonic character of its own. In my view, the Ortofon TA-110 does so without breaking a sweat. I personally would love to see Ortofon take this tonearm as its staple design platform and come up with a more fully adjustable version that allows for the all-important azimuth adjustment, and one that facilitates easy and repeatable VTA adjustments. At $1,599, this is certainly a minor quibble. For the vast majority of users, these things are a non-issue. These adjustments are a set-it-and-forget-affair for as long as you use a single cartridge. Teaming up this excellent tonearm with the superb Merrill-Williams turntable makes a compelling and powerful statement in terms of a true turn-key, superb sounding vinyl playback system. Congratulations to Ortofon for developing this elegant solution and translating it to a tonearm that is truly universal in application. The TA-110 is a runaway must-have at this price and a serious contender at several times the price.

The post Ortofon TA-110 Rubber Injected Tonearm Review appeared first on Dagogo.

History

Isamu Ikeda was born in 1929 in the Koto district of Tokyo. His pursuit of a perfect analog sound is a legend, which began in the 1940s. Dissatisfied with the production at a previous audio company in 1964, he decided to form his own company, the now-legendary and world famous Fidelity Research Inc. Its products have been desired and owned by audiophiles and music fans the world over, including the Imperial Household Agency and the Imperial Family.

Ever since the end of WWII, Ikeda-san has been making phonographic equipment. The early moving-coil cartridge out of Japan was one of his developments, and many of the Japanese cartridge-makers apprenticed under him. From the mid-sixties through the early eighties, cartridges like the FR 1 and MC 201 and tonearms like the FR 12, FR 14, FR 64, and FR 66 from Ikeda-san’s company Fidelity Research achieved international acclaim. He pioneered the use of silver wire, featherweight styli, yoke construction, and pioneered higher-efficiency magnets which allow for coils with fewer windings.

Fidelity Research’s first two products, the FR-1 cartridge and FR-64 tonearm were big hits in Japan. When Ikeda-san introduced the FR-7, which featured the world’s first “empty core, four pole structure” and the FR-64S tonearm in 1978, the company became a major business including being a big player in the Tokyo Stock Market. Unfortunately, due to many unfavorable circumstances including the popularity of the CD, Fidelity Research was forced to close in 1985.

Nevertheless, Ikeda San’s enthusiasm continued and in that same year, he established a small audio company, Ikeda Sound Laboratories Company. This new company was a place where he was able to do things that had been impossible under the mass production company that Fidelity Research had become. He came out with the 9-series of cartridges, and the IT-407CR1 and IT-345CR1 tonearms. The 9-series took the empty core technology of the FR-7 and added a groundbreaking new development: the world’s first moving coil cantilever-less cartridge, much like the London Decca moving iron cartridges. The new tonearms were improved over the FR-64 and FR-66 by eliminating more vibration through the use of a combination of aluminum, zinc-bronze, stainless steel and brass to form an extremely rigid and musical tonearm.

Mr. Ikeda is now in his mid-eighties, and has handed the work over to IT Industries. The spirit, technology and craftsmanship continues to live on with the new company. IT has been with Mr. Ikeda all along in the production of his products. I was assured that IT Industries was still making everything by hand in Japan. Now, the wonderful and beautiful Ikeda products are once again available in the United States. We can all say a word of thanks to William Demars of Beauty of Sound located in East Greenbush, New York for importing them to the United States once again.

Description and Setup

The Ikeda 325 is listed as the short tonearm and the 407 is described as the long tonearm. The 407 is a dynamic balanced tonearm, so one balances it and then dials in the prescribed tracking force. Sadly the VTA adjustment is not as easy as it was on the old FR tonearm, yet it is not difficult to loosen the nice large thumb screws and move the arm up and down in small increments. The supplied headshell is very nicely built and easy to work with.

I used the Ikeda 407 on a beautiful brass and burled wood pod that Mr. Demars supplied with the tonearm. A tonearm pod is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that almost everything in the setup is more easily adjustable since you can simply move the pod. The curse is if you bump the pod hard enough to move it, out comes the protractor and you have to get to the right spot again.

The pod was furnished at my request and is not the subject of this review, it was just a learning experience for me. What I should be saying is that setup was easy and mounting different cartridges was a breeze. Like the revered Fidelity Research arms, this tonearm is made for heavy moving coil cartridges and, man, does it make them sing.

Listening

Just in case you don’t know it, there is no perfect arm for every cartridge. The most versatile tonearm I have ever used was the Clearaudio Universal tonearm. It was an incredible arm for the Benz-Micro Ebony TR, the Miyabi cartridges, and several other cartridges I tried with it, but was not the best for some of the heavy, low compliant cartridges or vintage cartridges like the ADC XLM.

Likewise, the Ikeda is great with the high mass, low compliance cartridges that didn’t work as well with the Clearaudio Universal. Its detachable headshell makes it possible to use it with several cartridges you can’t use with tonearms with nondetachable headshells. For example, it worked great with SPUs and EMTs in their own head shells.

Of all the cartridges I tried in the Ikeda tonearm, by far the best match was the Miyajima Shilabe; the combination was simply magical. This may not be the least colored way to listen to music, but you will be hard pressed to find a more emotionally involving and fun way to listen to music. With this combo in my system, the sound was big, dramatic, and very tactile.

The Shilabe cartridge is among the fastest, quickest cartridges I have heard at any price. This mates very well with the slightly warm, damped sound of the Ikeda 407. This combination allows the colors of music to come alive in your listening room, with great drive and scale. The midrange has a beautifully warm, colorful texture with lots of drama.

In regard to bass, the Ikeda let each cartridge I use go very low, and the bass was very fast with no trace of boominess. Again, the Shilabe was the perfect match for the Ikeda tonearm, together they create a bottom-end in my system very much like live music. The bass had both power, slam, and great decay. I especially loved the way upright basses sounded with this combo. The bass was equally good with the EMT TSD15, but with that special drive and power of the EMT.

Whether I used the Shilabe, the EMT, or the Shindo SPU, the sound always had great PraT; which resulted in my being drawn into the music and involving me in the performance. Overall, music was incredibly fun to listen to with the Ikeda tonearm in my system. I think it’s amazing that a tonearm can do such good job of handling the energy of these great moving coils and still have such great macro- and micro-dynamics.

With each cartridge I tried with the Ikeda 407, the midrange was liquid, sweet, yet still sounded plenty detailed, and fast. I think this is probably because of the arm’s ability to handle vibrations, and the quality of the bearings. In light of o f its scary, real-sounding midrange, this has the be the SET amp equivalent of tonearms.

Yes, the Ikeda has its own distinctive sound, and a fun sound it certainly is. I own a Shindo Mersault RF-773 12-inch tonearm and I have had the privilege of reviewing the DaVinciAudio Grand Reference Grandezza 12-inch tonearm. These three long arms are all magnificent. The Grandezza is the best with lighter moving coils, the other two work best with heavier moving coil cartridges. The Shindo arm is limited pretty much to the Shindo SPU cartridge, Ortofons that are SPU A cartridges, or the EMT cartridges that are being made for it. Though all three tonearms sound a little different, they are the three best tonearms I have had the privilege to use. All three had a relaxed musicality that the VPI 12.7, the Tri-Planar, the Clearaudio Universal, and the Helius Omega Silver did not. I feel truly lucky to have been able to hear all these tonearms in my system, but the three 12-inch arms mentioned above are simply wonderfully, emotionally involving.

Let me close by saying thanks once more time to Bill Demars for letting me have the privilege of reviewing this magnificent tonearm when it is so hard to come by. If you truly love listening to vinyl and you can afford it, you owe it to yourself to hear this arm. If you can’t afford it, don’t let it get anywhere near your system or you’ll have real regrets.

Pictured: Ikeda IT-407CR1 in a Garrard 401 turntable with custom slate plinth designed and owned by U.S. Importer William Demars of Beauty Of Sound.

U.S. Importer’s comment:

Many thanks to Jack Roberts for his insightful and thorough review of the Ikeda IT-407CR1 tonearm. Jack’s comments about it’s sound and looks are the hallmarks of this legendary tonearm. The arm-pod is actually made from a phenolic tube, not wood. Phenolic is known for it’s extreme density and anti-resonant character and was chosen for this reason. It was custom-made for me. I have secured the spike cups the surface-base with bees-wax. This prevents the arm-pod from sliding around. Also of note is the arrival of the new Ikeda 9TT moving coil stereo cartridge. It sounds amazing on the Ikeda arm!

Again, sincere gratitude to Constantine and Jack for their years of great work for the audio community.

Bill Demars
Beauty Of Sound

The post Ikeda Sound Labs IT-407CR1 Long Tonearm Review appeared first on Dagogo.

This will be the first of a series of articles which I’ll be writing on tonearms. Part II will be on the all new DaVinci Master Reference Virtu Tonearm, followed by Part III which will be on the Durand Telos Tonearm.

“Rick, you have an “Ebony Fetish.” My friends are referring to the Diospyros kind of fetish. Diospyros Crassiflora is the botanical name for Gaboon Ebony which is a type of black wood endemic to Western Africa, named after the West African state of Gabon.

This ebony fetish story originated several years ago when I first saw the DaVinci Grandezza wooden tonearm. I vividly recall thinking it was the most beautiful tonearm I had ever seen – quite simply, love at first sight. I thought the Grandezza was at the same time, a beautiful amalgam of all that I treasure in a fine piece of craftsmanship — exquisite, elegant, precise and simple. I told myself I must own one of these arms regardless of the price, so I immediately got in touch with Peter Brem and Jolanda Costa of DaVinci Labs of Switzerland, to place an order for a 12” Ebony version through Mehran of SORAsound.com, who is the sole retailer for Da Vinci Lab’s products in North America.

Over the next few months, I found myself drawn again and again to the Grandezza in preference to all the other tonearms I had at the time, regardless of which cartridge was mounted. There seems to be an organic character and musicality to the sound which is distinctly different and absent on armwands made of other materials. The simplistic elegance of the design, and the musicality of the DaVinci Grandezza tonearm motivated me to replace other tonearms I owned, most of which were more complex and mechanistic in comparison, albeit well made and sonically pleasing. Aesthetically, I quietly know better, nothing came close to the Grandezza.

The DaVinci Grandezza Tonearm, now out of production. (Photo used with Permission, courtesy of Soundscapehifi.com & DaVinci Audio Labs).

Over the course of two years, I sold off the Triplanar, the Graham 2.2, the Graham Phantom, the Moerch DP-6, the vintage Audiocraft and SME in favour of tonearms with wooden armwands: the Schröder Reference 12” Ebony, the Reed 2P 12” Ebony, the Rossner and Sohn Si 1.2 12” (with an optional Panzerholtz wooden wand), and the Durand Talea II 10.5. Currently, six out of my seven tonearms have wooden armwands, mostly ebony.

The downside to all these 12” wooden tonearms are their hefty price tags. The DaVinci Grandezza retails at $11,000, the Schroder Reference at $7,500, the Durand Talea II at $8,500, the Reed 2P at $6,500, and the Rossner and Sohn Si 1.2 at $6,200. The new DaVinci Master Reference Virtu and the Durand Telos, which I will be reviewing in parts II and III of this article cost even more, at $14,995 and $16,500 respectively. And because these tonearms are mostly handmade, the wait time on some of them can be exceedingly long. I waited 9 months for my Grandezza, and a year and a half for the Schröder Reference.

When Ming Su, North American Distributor for Verdier and GOTO Horns, told me about the Artemis Labs TA-1 tonearm, he said “I have something which will tickle your fancy: Something designed by Frank Schröder, made by Artemis Labs in California, with a minimal wait time, 12” wooden armwand and with a price tag far cheaper than most of its competitors, at only $4,800!” Now $4,800 still isn’t exactly chump change, but in the rarefied world that top tonearms inhabit, positively affordable. A quick snoop around on Google on the Artemis Labs TA-1 tonearm landed me on Jonathan Weiss’ Oswalds Mill Audio (OMA) homepage rather than on Artemis Labs’ own website. Jonathan’s website houses some of the most beautiful photos of the Artemis Lab TA-1L tonearm taken by Cynthia van Elk photography.

Within the week, Ming put me in touch with Sean Ta, CEO of Artemis Labs, and he quickly obliged my request for a review sample. Under most circumstances I have a preference for 12” arms over 9”; accordingly, I advised Sean that my only condition was that the armwand had to be 12” ebony.

“No Problem”, said Sean, “12” Ebony it shall be, the arm is on its way, it will get to you in two weeks”. For the first time, in a long time, there was minimal waiting time!

The idea behind the TA-1 tonearm came about when dealers and distributors alike were asking Artemis Labs to recommend a tonearm that would complement their famous SA-1 turntable. Sean’s objective was to pair the table with a great sounding tonearm without all the complicated parts but with all the necessary adjustment parameters. He asked Frank Schröder, who designed the SA-1 turntable, to create a tonearm which follows the same design concept. In the analog world, Schröder’s name needs no introduction. His famous Reference tonearm is highly sought-after by analog lovers from around the world. The long wait time is perhaps the best indication of the tonearm’s demand and status.

Fortunately, there is now an alternative, the TA-1 carries a lead time of only 2-3 weeks, or so I’m told.

The Artemis Lab tonearm comes in two versions, the 9” TA-1 and the 12” TA-1L with a price tag of $4,600 and $4,800, respectively. The standard armwand material is made of Kingwood as shown in the above photo, but their ebony version can be custom ordered without an up charge. The wood has been treated to prevent warping or cracking, and to withstand humidity changes. The tonearm also comes standard with Eichman Bullet RCA plugs. XLR connectors can be custom ordered. My review sample came with Neutrick Silver XLR connectors, as the Burmester PH100 phono stage I used in this review accepts XLR inputs.

True to its design ethos, the TA-1tonearm appears clean and simple, and reminds me of the look of the Thomas Schick tonearm. Despite that, all the setup parameters, like Azimuth, VTA, VTF, antiskating and even armtube resonance are adjustable and well hidden within the tonearm. Although the pivot column appears like a unipivot arm, the TA-1 is neither a unipivot arm nor a gimball pivoted arm.

Frank Schröder actually came up with a completely new technology called the “Raised Hyper Ceramic Bearing.” The armwand is connected to the pivot column via two separate ceramic ball bearings, one controlling the horizontal movement and the other the vertical. The two bearings permit vertical and horizontal movement of the armwand, but not multi-direction or diagonal movements. According to Sean, the bearings have an unprecedented low level of friction (< 2mg). The tonearm bearing comes completely assembled and requires no user maintenance or assembly.

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Wilson-Benesch Full Circle Turntable

Pear Turntable

a second Pear Turntable

VPI with Bob Device SUTs

Project

Vertere RG-1 with SG-1 Tonearm

Tri Arts Audio Pebbles Turntable

Technics SP-10 MK2

Margules Torna Turntable

VPI TNT III

Triangle ARTs Turntable

a second Triangle ART

Audio Note

Clear Audio

 

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Copy editor: Dan Rubin

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Hartvig TT black

Turntable design can be as much a fashion statement as that of sports cars and watches. By far, the turntable is the only component next to the loudspeaker that offers its designer considerable freedom in exercising artistic licenses. One extremity of such creative freedom comes in the form of turntables complete in their own five-foot tall, five-hundred-pound superstructure that houses a massive turntable plinth and correspondingly massive power supplies for the motors. For the vast majority of us, physically less colossal designs are more sensible, although they can still remain rather costly. The Hartvig TT, the subject of this review and a product of Denmark, retails for $13,500 and is a prime specimen in the minimalist school of design.

Weighing 29 pounds and taking up less square footage than the Bricasti M1 dual-mono DAC, the belt-drive Hartvig TT features a square block of handcrafted plinth made of a sandwich of MDF and acrylic, which is barely larger than its stacked 2-inch thick platters, with the top being made of acrylic and the bottom one of T6 series aluminum. In addition, the TT’s top acrylic platter is integrated with a stainless steel center shaft that is fastened to the platter itself. Once taken out of the original packaging, the two stacked platters needed to be separated for initial lubrication treatment before being installed together again over the spindle.

The Hartvig’s spindle is a hardened steel shaft with an aluminum base. At the top of the spindle is a precision honed bronze shell on which a tiny, lubricated ceramic ball is to be placed. The stacked platters are then fitted over the ceramic ball and the spindle.

My listening room is on a thin layer of hardwood over concrete floor, so vibration is not an issue and the Hartvig TT functioned accordingly on a Salamander Design audio rack. For readers in apartments or houses with raised wood slab flooring, additional, more elaborate footers and audio racks may be in order to facilitate further isolation of the Hartvig from vibrations. Two adjustable elastic-core feet adorn the front left and right of the turntable while a third, fixed one supports the rear.

A supplied acrylic arm board for mounting over the side of the plinth at rear right is secured with a single hexagonal bolt. This constitutes a variable geometry that can accommodate a slew of tonearms of different lengths. The Hartvig is a belt-drive design and a free-standing brushless, electronically regulated DC motor is relegated to the opposite corner of the arm board.

The review sample came in the standard high gloss black finish, while real wood veneer, wood with inlay and custom pearl paint are available for additional costs.

Three 0.04 lb (17 grams) polished steel and chrome plated Isoclean TT-007 small Tip Toe Base were placed under the Hartvig TT’s elastic-core feet. $60 for a set of four, these little jewel-like footers are the finishing touch of the Hartvig turntable system and I can envision an even more positive listening experience with the larger, 0.26 lb (120 gram) TT-008 ($160 set of four).

For this review, a Japanese, nine-inch, high-mass pivoting tonearm, the $6,900 Ikeda IT-345CR1 and a fully broken-in, $4,400 Ikeda 9TT moving-coil cartridge was also provided. The entire Hartvig TT and Ikeda system was of dealer stock, provided by Kaveh Saffari of Audiologic in Irvine, CA, via special arrangement by Brian Ackerman, the U.S. importer of both Hartvig and Ikeda. To complete the system, Brian shipped a $3,100 Stage III Analord Prime Extreme Resolution phono cable to me.

A Millennium M-LP-Mat and Boston Audio Design “The Mat” were alternated for use in this review.

A Pass Labs XP-25 twin-chassis phono preamp and Xs Preamp handled the feeble signal. A pair of Magnepan 3.7i was used in the auditioning along with a pair of Pass Labs XA200.5 pure class A monoblocks. With the exception of the $3,100 Stage III Analord Prime Extreme Resolution phono cable, this review was conducted with a complete Music Interface Technologies Cables Oracle network cable system. The Oracle MA-X SHD network cables between the Pass Labs XP-25 and Xs Preamp, and the Oracle MA-X for the XA200.8 monoblocks were set to a low impedance setting of 5-50k ohm and at maximum articulation. The Music Interface Technologies Z-Powerbar mitigated the power to the Hartvig, the Pass Labs XP-25 Phono and Xs Preamp via the MIT Cables AC II network power cables. Two columns of stacked Acoustic Science Corporation 14-inch TubeTraps were positioned on the front wall to diffuse the rear reflection of each speaker and another pair of TubeTraps, specifically a 14-inch atop a BassTrap, were put in the corners.

Vinyl music playback can be compromised by residual pressing mold and the very distracting surface noise of clicks and pops. Therefore, the first and foremost requirement for an enjoyable vinyl experience for me came in the form of the German Audiodesksysteme Glass Ultrasonic Vinyl Cleaner. The upright device submerges the down-side of a vinyl in its mixed solution of a proprietary solvent and distilled water and rotates it in cleaning cycles before blow-drying it. The Audiodesksysteme’s method is ingeniously conceived and executed and had thus immediately become indispensable to me for an immaculate listening experience.

Ikeda IT-345CR1

Ikeda IT-345CR1 tonearm, 9TT moving-coil cartridge

Vinylphiles in their fifties and older will likely recognize the Ikeda name, a marquee from the 1980s that was synonymous with innovation, quality and exclusivity. Senior Reviewer Jack Roberts reviewed the Ikeda IT-407CR1 tonearm in 2012 and gave it high marks. The historical detail that Jack put together on the company and its owner is a good read.

The Ikeda IT-345CR1 tonearm is quite a treat to hold in one’s palms. The wand is consisted of a dual pipe structure with the outer pipe made of stainless steel and the inner pipe aluminum. three pieces of O-shaped ring are installed between the outer and inner pipes to dampen vibration. The body and shaft of the tonearm are made of brass.

The tonearm’s connector pin is rhodium-plated and the headshell is chrome-plated aluminum. The headshell’s connector, however, is made of titanium. Azimuth adjustment is provided on the headshell.

The IT-345CR1 is one of those rare metallic apparatus that magnificently withstands time after time of close-up scrutiny-turn-admiration. Vertical and weight adjustments is straightforward though relying largely on feel and visual cue. The upside to this is it is easy to loosen the bottom security bolt and adjust the VTA. The aluminum headshell with solid metallic feel is quite a beauty in itself, too, and straightforward to use. Answering my inquiry, the company claimed the tonearm employs dynamic balance as opposed to static balance, thus a “far superior tracing ability because the inner spring always control the stylus pressure stably and constantly.”

The Ikeda 9TT moving-coil cartridge used in this review is the second top cartridge in the company’s 9 Series, producing 0.16mVrms, flaunting a golden finish of an aluminum alloy body coupled to a neodymium magnet and lightweight, double layered duralumin cantilever. A very promising and potent mix. The upper model to the 9TT is the $8,500 flagship Ikeda KAI in a blue alumite buff finish with titanium top and base, boron cantilever, samarium-cobalt embedded generator, while the $2,800 entry-level 9TS in emerald finish tops the output at 0.35mVrms, also fitted with a double layered duralumin cantilever.

Auditioning

My reference system used to be the $4,800 47 Laboratory Miyabi/47 moving-coil, fitted to the company’s $14,500 47 Laboratory 4724 Koma turntable with the $2,250 Tsurube tonearm. While I had found the system to liberate dynamics and tonality colossally, the Hartvig/Ikeda system approached that dynamic finesse with more nuances.

Via the Pass Labs electronics and the Magnepan, playing the 45 Angel Sonic Series chamber music records such as the Mozart disk of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and Albinoni’s Adagio by Neville Marriner and Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the Hartvig/Ikeda system yielded the most energetic and engaging sound to date. The hallmark of the best analog sound that is the liquid texture of instruments brass and string was also on sweeping display. The soundstaging was solid and spacious, giving the ensemble a substantial presence. I credit this exemplary performance to the Hartvig/Ikeda system’s ability to get out of the way of music.

Another 45 Angel disk, the Smetana “The Moldau” and Sibelius “Finlandia” reading by Herbert von Karajan and the BPO further testified towards the Hartvig/Ikeda’s solid performance. The presentation was the most spectrally extended for a 33 1/3rpm in recent memory. Although I would prefer even less euphony in general, there was remarkable neutrality in the midrange throughout. 33 1/3rpm LPs, on the other hand, carried less of that lushness than the 45rpms, with the Premium Records “Best Audiophile Oldies” being the astounding exception. The Ikeda 9TT delivered a slightly texturally richer performance from the LP than my Esoteric K-03/G-01 did with the same-titled XRCD, spreading the analog contagion to me.

On 33s such as the Deutsche Grammophon Horowitz 1984 recitals or a Living Stereo Rubinstein Chopin, the Hartvig TT/Ikeda stood testimonial to the most enduring aspect of the vinyl format, namely a sound that withstood the passage of decades, one that descended from the pressings of the LPs’ original releases. Being able to conjure up the flagrant tonalities of a physical media cut from some thirty years ago is monumental.

 

Conclusion

The $14k Hartvig TT belt-drive turntable system’s construction and use of materials, such as a MDF and acrylic-sandwiched plinth, a 2-inch acrylic platter over another 2-inch of aluminum platter are exotic and impressive and serves remarkably as the foundation of a high-end system. This construction exoticness and total turntable mass makes the Hartvig notable amongst similarly priced, substantial turntable designs although it’s highly economical footprint does make for a polarized appeal. By the same token, its ability to assume a pure, non-intrusive sonic footprint, however, is remarkable for the size. The $16,750 47 Lab 4724 Koma turntable with the 4725 Tsurube tonearm system is comparable in compactness and performance of the Hartvig with the Ikeda 9TT, thus represents considerable competition.

It is arguable that the true star of this system are the Ikeda CR-345 CR1 tonearm and the 9TT cartridge and the Hartvig provided a platform for them to glisten. The caliber of the Ikeda tonearm and the 9TT cartridge, in particular, is undisputed at the asking prices; one can easily visualize, in particular, the use of the 9TT in more ambitious setups. Employing an aluminum alloy body, the 9TT, in my opinion, produced a more controlled, uniform tonality than those with wood or polymer material. Coupled to a neodymium magnet and lightweight, double layered duralumin cantilever, the 9TT ought to be quite dynamic and even accurate than many.

For Dagogo readers wanting upgrade options later on, Hartvig also supplies a $6,100 battery power supply. Then, there is the 52lb, $28,400 Hartvig TT Signature Gramophone reference table available which can also be fitted with a solid copper platter.

 

Copy editor: Dan Rubin

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The digital revolution of the 1980s that spawned the digital audio compact disc was catalyzed partly by new advancements in transistor miniaturization. Integrated circuits had finally emerged and empowered innovators to fit a laser generating and reading system along with the necessary codec circuits into a small box. The promise of this revolutionary digital audio compact disc medium devoid of surface noise and the wear and tear of vinyl records fascinated the general public. This digital wave eventually ushered in the digital video and everything that made home video what it is today.

Meanwhile, we have come full circle and are now in the midst of a renaissance of the analog record medium. Records are now offered in new releases alongside the CD and digital download formats. Digital audio recording and processing has progressed by leaps and bounds and has become the de facto standard in all music produced presently, whether it is issued in the analog or digital domain. On the hardware side, powerful and intelligent design software and hardware are empowering talented turntable designers to better realize their visions. Parts 1 and 2 of this report, dubbed the Analog Survey, will investigate products by two such talented designers, both based in California: Allen Perkins of Spiral Groove (Berkeley) and Tom Vu of TriangleArt (Anaheim). One phenomenon of the analog renaissance is an abundance of turntables with prices in excess of $20,000. We’ll be investigating two such products, one from each of these companies.

Both California companies operate from laboratories in commercial facilities, not home garages. Spiral Grove uses sophisticated computerized design processes in its Berkeley facility while TriangleArt struts a full in-house manufacturing complex.

The review sample from Spiral Groove is the $18,000 Revolution turntable system with the $6,000 Centroid tonearm. TriangleArt supplied its $39,900 Master Reference turntable plus the $6,800 Osiris MkII tonearm and the $8,000 Apollo Onyx Stonebody moving coil cartridge. We will look at the costlier turntable first, the TriangleArt.

The review system consisted of the MIT Cables Oracle Series of Interconnects and Speaker Interfaces, Pass Laboratories Xs Phono Stage, Xs Preamplifier, XA200.8 solid-state Class A monoblock amplifiers, which alternated with the Bricasti Design M28 Class AB monoblocks. Speakers were the Sound Lab Ultimate 545 electrostats, alternated with the Technical Audio Device (TAD) Evolution One. A troupe of Audio Reference Technology Super power cables was deployed throughout the system.

TriangleArt designs and manufacturers everything in-house at its Anaheim headquarters. Its product lines include six turntables, two cartridges, two tonearms, three power conditioners, a complete cable system, and amplification products. One could enjoy a near-complete TriangleArt system with the Master Reference turntable, the Osiris II tonearm, the Apollo cartridge, the two-chassis Reference Tube Phono Stage ($12,995), the two-chassis Reference Tube Preamplifier ($17,995), the Reference Tube Mono Block Amplifiers ($17,995) and the cable system. Digital players and loudspeakers are the two component categories not produced by the company.

According to chief designer Tom Vu, the 200-pound TriangleArt Master Reference is an exercise in the complete eradication of cartridge feedback and structural resonance. And yet it is second in line to TA’s flagship turntable, the Ultimate LE, a $129,000, 4-foot high behemoth in a floor standing construct of its own that weighs 850 lbs. The Master Reference analog playback system weighs 200 pounds. It incorporates two superstructure systems of isolation in pursuit of the purest form of the phonograph experience, and each system comprises two sizeable structures. It’s all finished in glistening black nickel and chrome.

TriangleArt Ultimate LE

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Listening to high-end vinyl playback means experiencing music recreated collectively by a turntable system and phono stage. Significant changes in the caliber and character of an analog system can very often occur by changing cartridges, as long as is the cartridges are compatible in mass to the tonearm used. To many, this constitutes the most prevalent fun factor of the hobby, and it is unique to the vinyl format, unsurpassed by any other format to this day.

Parts 3 and 4 of this survey will focus on cartridges and tonearms, starting with the 9-inch Audio Note UK Arm Three/II tonearm and IoI (Io “one”) moving-coil cartridge.

Audio Note Arm Three/II

AN-Vx 31-strand variant captive tonearm cables

In the audio industry, Audio Note UK is the world’s foremost purveyor of the application of silver. While Peter Qvortrup, owner of the company, promotes the use of silver in his company’s top cables and electronics, copper cables and electronics utilizing copper wiring populate the less-costly segments of products in the company’s lineup. I reviewed the company’s Ongaku integrated amplifier as well as the DAC5 Special D/A converter, both employing increased use of silver in circuits and transformers. To this day, a collection of the company’s AN-SPx 27 silver speaker cables and its Sogon™ and AN-Vx silver interconnects remain my personal reference.

Of the company’s tonearms, every model is designed and built in-house, hardwired with Audio Note RCA cables for connection with a phono preamp. For example, the Arm One is equipped with AN-A copper RCA interconnects, while Arm Two features AN-V, which has 15 strands of 99.99% pure symmetrical litz silver wire. The Arm Three/II, the subject of this review, boasts the 31-strand variant of the AN-Vx model of the silver RCA cables.

The Arm Three/II’s RCA connectors are the very substantial, heavily silver-plated AN-P. The Arm Two and One are equipped with the AN-GP-AG silver-plated RCA. Considering a one-meter pair of the AN-Vx costs £934.99 (US$1,222 as of October 2018), plus £222.18 or US$290 for the AN-P RCA plugs, for a total of $1,512, the US$1,808.96 Arm Three/II seems a phenomenal deal, if the performance holds up. Having an effective mass of 11.5g, the Arm Three/II is a medium-mass arm, described as a custom fit for the company’s IQ and Io cartridges. Peter advised explicitly against matching it with very high compliance, high mass cartridges, which he believes are more compressed dynamically, and rarer and rarer on the market these days anyway. The turntable used for this review was the Kyocera PL-910, a vintage model in pristine condition manufactured by Micro Seiki in the 1980s.

Peter prefers his tonearms to be of the gimbal type, offering superior stability to unipivots: ‘Unipivots are unstable because the bearing does not support the arm/counter weight in the vertical plane, just look at one when to put it on the record.’ The Arm Three/II comes with two counterweights, one weighing 164 grams and the other 194 grams. The owner’s manual specifies the heavier one for the Audio Note IoII (Io “two”) cartridge, which weighs 18 grams, but I found the heavier counterweight indispensable even for the IoI ($3,689.40). The slow auto-landing feature on this tonearm is one of the most-often overlooked design elements in the industry and a thoughtful inclusion in the Arm Three/II. Methinks most tonearms drop the needle a wee bit quick. There is no azimuth adjustment option.

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