Quietly re-writing what’s possible – and at what price?
By Roy Gregory
History is a funny thing. It can be positive – or it can be negative. Generally speaking, saying that you “have history” with someone, isn’t good. Nor is it a fixed or finite truth, famously being written by the victors – victors who more often than not, airbrush the content as well as deciding on their own starting point. Considering just how central the three-point suspended sub-chassis turntable has been to the development of the UK audio experience, its genesis and evolution is at best murky and at worst obscured by the sort of “nothing to see here” smokescreen that any government would be proud of. Ask a Linn-acolyte and Year Zero is marked by the birth of the LP12 – the AR-XA and Thorens TD150 simply ignored, while the Ariston RD11 has been expunged from the record with all the extreme prejudice normally reserved for a Stalinist apparatchik who got a little too good at their job. Likewise, the expression ‘big three’ means different things to different people: for some it consists of the Linn, Pink Triangle, and Roksan, while those with longer memories or more fundamentalist views might include the Logic DM101 in place of the barely suspended Xerxes. But if you really want to go back to the dawn of time – at least UK ‘triple-time’ – then the third player would really be the Dunlop Systemdek, a turntable whose star had arguably already started to wane when the Logic first appeared. Which is, as is so often the case, slightly ironic, as of all the basic models mentioned above, the Systemdek, with its low-slung, low-frequency suspension was arguably the most mechanically stable and forward looking of all…
That’s what I wrote, back in early 2017, when I reviewed the Systemdek 3D Precision turntable for Hi-Fi+. As an introduction to the company’s latest turntable, the Revolution, it’s perhaps even more apposite. It locates the Dunlop Systemdek in audio history, present beside but different to the ubiquitous LP12 – as well as explaining its subsequent, undeserved anonymity.
Perhaps “anonymity” is too strong a word. After all, and after a few years, the budget Systemdek IIX became the intelligent buyer’s alternative to the Rega 3, an elegantly and cost-effectively engineered, fully suspended deck that, fitted with an RB250, cost £234 – or, less than £250 including an Audio Technica AT95, less than £350 including a Denon DL110 high-output MC cartridge. It’s a deck that, if it’s in decent nick, will generally sell secondhand these days, for more than it cost new; testament to the quality of its design, engineering and build quality. But while the LP12 has gone from strength to strength (and £340 to £41K! – although that does include the dubious pleasure of an Ekos SE tonearm) Systemdek’s recent, flagship ‘tables have struggled for recognition. Well, that might be about to change and history might be about to repeat itself. The latest Systemdek is more affordable than other recent models; it’s beautifully engineered, constructed and, best of all, it sounds every bit as fresh, fun and engaging as a good three-point suspended sub-chassis ‘table should.
