2005-11-16 01:05

2005-10-27 15:23

London Show 2005

47 Laboratory introduced a turntable >>
The two platters are turning in opposite direction to oppose rotational forces, they are levitating by magnetic suspension. The arm allows optimum energy transfer at the cartridge, and reduces acoustic feedback. It's a prototype, so we still have to wait for a few months...
But the new 47 Laboratory cartridge is here: the MC Bee. It's supposed to be a killer for the money (about €1100).
 

Zanden presented it's new CD-transport ($28.000) and non-oversampling DAC ($15.000), also brand new amplifiers that were using Tamura interstage and output transformers. The sound was very refined, however we could still recognise some artifacts typical for CD-playback. Maybe our expectations were too high but I prefer to hear the music sounding more 'live, natural and organic'.

I think in high-end many people are looking for perfection in many very specific aspects (mostly focussing on sound), but forget the total picture of music reproduction. Depending on how you listen, you could be impressed or you're missing any essence.
But even with this in mind I experience huge differences between live sound and most 'high-end' systems:
- Live sound has much denser tones with harmonics that are 'singing', more rythmic. Most systems produce many thin tones, overtones that seem to be out of phase with their basetones (cold, clean, empty) and pulsed (sharp), a bass that's pushing (often overdamped), tones disconnected from each other and from the instrument, out of rythm. Refined but nothing natural or beautiful, 3D but nothing tangible.
- Live music has much more diversity in natural timbres: wood, brass, steel, drumskin, atmosphere, warmth, humidity. There's air, space, quitness, tones appear from a silence and dissapear into a silence (still singing as long as they sustain). With 'high-end' - instead of appearing from a silence - the tones seem to be modulated in a big wall of hifi sound, all sounding simular, blown-up and damped (mechanically cut-off).

One room offered a nice exception, there was nothing beautiful to look at, but it was pretty crowded. They demo'd their affordable 'Funk' turntable on a pair of old Rogers LS3/6 (BBC monitors) with a cheap Technics amplifier and a Pink Triangle pre. It was far from perfect, there wasn't much extension, but what was there (mainly midrange) sounded more honest and enjoyable to me than all those 'high-end' systems.

Visitorsreport (in Dutch) - een bezoekersverslag van op het Htforum

2005-10-27 11:09

some pictures