There’ve been bills to pay, of course, but in broad terms, this is a turntable that has cost me about £4k. Buying second-hand will always skew value comparisons, especially in this case, given the age and availability of LP12s for surgery, but I reckon you might have to spend five-times as much to have any credible hope of getting a more musical result from a brand neew deck; and there are plenty of turntables at that, and more, that don’t or can’t produce the sheer musicality and joy that these modifications have enabled this LP12 to deliver. That’s definitely ticking a few of the Voice of Sanity™ boxes.
What next?
There are other tonearms in the offing, and various higher-end cartridges that the potential of this deck now makes viable, though gratifyingly, my relatively modest Hana ML has surprised me by just how much it has been able to up its game. Kevin Scott from Definitive Audio has kindly supplied an Ortofon SPU Royal N, which retails somewhere around twice the price of the Hana ML – a more expensive but temperamentally very different beast indeed. I’m keen to find out what it is that he values so highly in this venerable cartridge, now I have the deck to exploit it more fully.
Some of these third-party products may find their way into reviews in due course, thus realising another of my objectives – a turntable to work as a platform for and to do justice to, other analogue components. It’ll be interesting to discover just how much further these better arms and cartridges might take things.
But (and it’s not really a ‘but’ so much as a ‘however’), inveterate tweakers will recognise the symptoms. The urge to fiddle won’t be sated, there’s always another job to be tried. For my LP12, perhaps a replacement plinth would set off the work and bring further sonic benefits: definitely something to consider. But the next obvious step is an upgrade to the power supply and/or motor. The Armageddon is awfully good, but things have moved on and a 45rpm option would be nice. Again, I have something in mind, so maybe if it works out, I’ll be telling you about that, too.
Price and availability:
AcouPlex sub-chassis and arm-board – £950.00 (inc. UK Sales Tax)
Enquiries to:
The AudioWorks Ltd
Cheadle, Cheshire
UK
+44 (0)161 428 7887
larry@theaudioworks.co.uk
