With everything set up and ready to go, we indulged in some acclimatization, listening to a range of records on the v2.0, to get a feel for the system and get the CAR-60 warmed up and singing. In passing, I should also mention that the ‘60 is a seriously under-rated cartridge and one of my personal favourites. Yes, it demands extraordinary attention to set up – especially VTF and VTA – but what truly worthwhile cartridge doesn’t. If you don’t (won’t or can’t) put in the time, you’ll almost certainly end up with a disappointing result. But get this cartridge right and the sense of natural expression and human agency it generates is akin to the legendary Kiseki Lapis Lazuli, coupled to modern standards of linearity and resolution. It may not be the most fashionable pick-up on the planet, but it’s definitely one of the very best.
Once it was time for serious comparisons we settled down to a selection of three records: the Vivaldi Stabat Mater/Nisi Dominus (Bowman, Hogwood and the AAM on L’Oiseau Lyre DSLO 506), Felix Laband’s Bag Of Bones EP (Compost Records CPT 472-1) and the Víkingur Ólafsson Debussy/Rameau (DGG483 8283). The v2.0 was exhibiting all of it’s normal, sure footed organisation, clarity and musical/dynamic confidence, but I’m not sure any of us was ready for what happened when we switched the arm-top onto the patiently waiting v3.0, with its new ‘brain’ but without its GPA battery power supply. The improvement was as obvious as it was shockingly effective. The increase in dynamic range and resolution, the reduction in grain, the improved dimensionality, focus and presence, the distinction between the body of performers/instruments and the enclosed acoustic space, the absence of the mechanical or process related artefacts that separate the reproduced performance from the sense and musical impact of the original event – all were present, all were obvious, but all were also integrated into a magnificently persuasive and natural whole. The v3.0 made the v2.0 sound small, compressed and muted, both in terms of colour and dynamics, which is fairly remarkable given that the v2.0 generally does just that to other record players.
We often spend time on the question of how quantitatively small differences can produce significant musical benefits. There was nothing small about this shift in performance. The increase in dynamic range and resolution was matched by improved temporal security, delivering greater shape to individual notes and phrases, greater musical contrast and impact as a whole. The infectious energy, motive rhythms and complex bass beats on the Felix Leband disc had listeners scrabbling for phones and accessing Discogs. The soaring purity of James Bowman’s counter-tenor had an arresting beauty and presence that kept us listening long past the required point of comparison. But it was the Debussy.Rameau discthat really rammed home the differences. It had all of the poise and authority, the stillness to the silence between notes and the natural decay that is so important to Ólafsson’s playing. The sense of him waiting between phrases, between notes, the anticipation, was spellbinding. The complexity, scale and body of the piano, the subtle cues to its working, the weight, placement and attack of each note was captured with a stability and clarity that let the music simply hang in the air, utterly removed from the constraints of the recording that captured it or the system playing it. In the same way, the sheer impetus, complex internal harmonics and distinctive tonal qualities of the layered bass notes that build, fill and drive the Felix Laband tracks brought the music a compelling intimacy and subtlety that elevated it above its intricate web of beats, adding shape, texture and humanity to the music. But even this couldn’t match the quiet power and intensity, the utter calm and controlled intent of the Ólafsson disc. The playing and performance were magisterial – but so too was the performance of the system…
