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High-End '99
One trend that did not let up from last year was the unusually great presence of turntables and LPs. Just as you enter the Kempinski Hotel, you find the ballroom to your right, and here, as is tradition, we again found a large number of suppliers of music -- CDs and LPs.
The Blue Danube came all the way from Vienna to show not only part of the 150,000 LPs they stock, but also the Waschbeer ("racoon" or as they say in German "washing bear"), which is a new LP cleaning machine with a small footprint but a very powerful suction pump for the vacuuming. Very cute, but also quite pricey at 1700 DM. The LP selection The Blue Danube carries is of such a size and quality that people actually make special trips to Vienna to search the shop for their favorites. Not that you need much of an excuse to want to make the trip!
The grandfather of all LP cleaners, Keith Monk's, is still around, and I seriously doubt that any of the newcomers actually does a better job of cleaning those precious LPs. Cheap it is not, but it is a real classic.
There were thousands of LPs to be bought from quite a few different suppliers like in-akustik, Speakers Corner Records, Alto High Fidelity, Da Capo, ATR - Audio Trade and another real character always present (and I only have feeble excuses for not having a picture of him), Juerg Kessler of Audiophile Record Service -- ARS for short. He always presents a large selection of interesting CDs, many of which contain real music, not just fodder for audiophiles of the boom-and-pling brigade. I picked up several that I will come back to elsewhere. The original Telefunken LPs have a very high reputation among analog enthusiasts (and rightly so), and Juerg has reissues of quite a few of their most popular ones. I saw a couple walk away with 10 to 15 LPs, and it seemed that this was no unusual event.
I even came across a new association: The Analogue Audio Association. They provide a regular newsletter, sponsor various events and even bring out new LPs themselves. I think groups like this can perform a real service to lovers of good music, and I wish them all possible success. As I made my way through the three floors during the four days I was at the exhibition, I couldn’t help but notice how many exhibitors, even fairly small ones, had turntables in their setups. It is certain that quite a large amount of energy and inventiveness goes into analog products, and a good number of them are quite lovely.
Thorens has for many years been one of the largest players in the turntable market. Just like last year, they showed their thoughtful, inventive and not-over-the-top Ambiance model. It still uses a floating suspension, but it has so many features that it is worth a story of its own. And what a beauty it is with its cherry-wood sides. But what seems even more endearing to me is that Thorens continues to provide quality turntables even at much lower prices -- all the way down to a couple of hundred USD -- in this way allowing audiophiles who are not up paying more to still have a decent go at playing LPs.
Amazon and Möerch have a place close to my heart. Möerch interests me because I've known and respected Hans Henrik Möerch for many years. His products are well made and certainly well thought out without being completely over the top either in complexity or price. In fact, his tonearms are very cleverly designed and provide a considerable value for the money (in my honest opinion, as is said so often on the Internet) with their exchangeable arm tubes and very low point of gravity. The Amazon turntable grew out of a very successful German DIY turntable, but it has been refined not just in terms of looks but also technology. Take, for example, the very smart battery drive option. In essence you run a very quiet DC motor (something quite a few turntable enthusiasts in the know swear by) off a battery that has its own charger. When you turn on the turntable, you cut the connection to the mains, and when you turn the turntable off, you start recharging the battery. And have I told you that the turntable is gorgeous as well? I am not sure the picture does it justice, but oh wouldn't it be lover-ly to have one!
Simon Yorke was one of the designers of the famous Zaratustra turntables from which have grown both the Dutch Pluto that I swooned over last year as well as his own range of transcription turntables. You can't help being impressed by the singular beauty of design that has gone into the Simon Yorke turntables and their associated tonearms. It must also be said that Simon Yorke has an extremely competent representative in Isenberg Audio from Hamburg. Like last year when I heard the early trial cut of Jacintha's Here's to Ben, the music this year also flowed beautifully. As always you can't just separate the parts of a fine-sounding system, which this certainly was. But you can trust me in the observation that the turntables playing this year with the cartridges of Belgian cartridge-meister Jan Allaerts provided an exquisite starting point for the excellent sound in the room. These quite unique turntables have also been chosen by the US Library of Congress, which ought to be an indication of their qualities.
Transrotor is the brand name Jochen Räke has been building up over a good many number of years. Initially based upon a close relationship with and distribution of the Michell turntables from the UK, a market was defined in Germany which was interested in taking the design and looks to quite extreme lengths. Personally I am not so sure that the very extensive use first of chrome and lately of gold plating is of too great an interest for true audiophiles, but I also do suppose you have to be a bit of a philistine if you don't appreciate the beauty of the construction here. It sports two black SME tonearms, which are officially distributed in Germany by Transrotor, with counterweights and other assorted bits in gold. There's also a truly humongous platter in an acrylic material. Transrotor builds these somewhat over-the-top beauties from less than 10,000 DM to over 100,000 DM. Last year I thought we would cap the top at almost 80,000 DM for the Dutch Pluto, but now Transrotor has topped it with the Gravitas.
Clearaudio has made a real name for itself, and Peter Suchy seems tireless in his pursuit of high-end sound. For years he has been making cartridges. He has taken over the production and now refined what used to be the Souther tangental tonearm and has gone on to produce some extremely gorgeous turntables, the most impressive and beautiful of which is the Clearaudio Reference, seen above. Aiming to cover all of the LP replay chain, Clearaudio is now also bringing out a series of really serious phono stages with suitably serious power supplies. In demonstration with the impressive horn speakers from Acapella, it was proven that analog is far from dead in terms of quality, and to be quite honest, the Clearaudio Reference did provoke a certain amount of turntable lust in this old audiophile.
This unusual turntable/tonearm combination was playing both in the CD-Möbel/Klimo as well as van den Hul rooms, and unfortunately I can't tell you much more than what you can see. It's called the Giroti Grande (sounds Italian) and looks drop-dead cool. It sounded excellent in both systems, and I just had to show you a picture of it. Of course, Aalt Jouk van den Hul put his name very much on the map of analog audio when he came up with his special needle shape in the late '70s. After having created the ultra-high-contact-area stylus bearing his name, he started developing his own cartridges. Initially he worked with the renowned EMT cartridges, and I can vouch for the experience, having had a VDH-treated cartridge in my system for a time. By now he has moved well ahead with the quite exceptional Grasshopper, Frog and Black Beauty cartridges, which are among the few cartridges defining the very top of the market.
Hans Obels from Viersen is the kind of man to put together some really exciting lines of hi-fi. I have the feeling that he might have a little weakness for Ye Olde England, but being a bit of an anglophile myself, I can't blame him at all. He has added the Transfiguration cartridges to his range as well a series of turntables and tonearms coming from Nottingham Analogue. These include four turntable models: from the entry-level Interspace, to the Spacedeck and Hyperspace, then to the top-of-the-line Anna Log. I do appreciate a good pun, and as you can see above, the chassis of this deck is indeed a real log. In all fairness, I actually believe that Nottingham Analogue brought this to market before the same nom du plume was chosen by the esteemed lady currently reporting for The Abso!ute Sound. This fine turntable was used together with Tim de Paravicini's new 854 amps and the mouthwatering Zingali speakers from Italy, and I can assure you that AC/DC was cooking on vinyl. I believe that the very first high-mass turntable I came across was a Japanese one back in the late '70s. They have become very popular in Germany where a rather large number of companies produce rather expensive versions of these ranging from 15,000 DM to 40,000 DM. Generally they provide a very stable sound with very good to phenomenal bass extension. I'm happy to say that at least two companies make a real effort at producing quality examples at a more moderate 3000 DM to about 10,000 DM.
Take a good look at this beauty. It's called the The Solid One and the company Acoustic-Solid -- and you better believe it is. Weighing in at well over 30kg, it is really high mass, and it's shown here with just one motor, but it can be delivered with three. I had quite a long chat with the designer, and I can assure you that there is no hocus pocus involved here, just down-to-earth engineering.
More reasonably priced high-mass turntables are those of the Acoustic Signature line from Peak High End. I saw a number of very attractive turntables all sharing their special bearing, but I was definitely charmed by the 3000 DM and 30kg Final Tool seen to the right in this photo. |
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