Given its lucid clarity and temporal sophistication it should come as no surprise that the Aurora/Zephyr’s bottom end is as lively as it is informative. The spacing and pitch of bass notes has a natural sense of place and space – space that extends up into the broad midrange and the nicely developed soundstage. There’s a natural perspective and separation within the soundstage, decent width and an unexaggerated dimensionality. Compared to far more expensive turntable, arm and cartridge combinations, there’s a slight leading-edge softness, but it doesn’t disturb the centre of notes, while the fact that they don’t reach the lowest registers with absolute weight and transparency in no way undermines their musical intent or impact. The chopped bass lines on Conscience are reproduced with all their thrust and attitude intact. On Acoustic Hits the low-frequencies change effortlessly from the driven insistence of ‘A Forest’ to the almost jokey, loose-limbed, slinky laziness of ‘The Love Cats’. Smith’s guitar is just as agile, the zany slide of ‘The Love Cats’ sitting comfortably next to the insistently intense rhythm track on ‘Let’s Go To Bed’, the deftly off-beat back-track melody on ‘The Walk’.
Moving on…
But more importantly, while the OL ‘table can sound quick and driven when required, the pace is dictated by the performance and recording. There’s no trace of the clipped, pushy, hectoring insistence that can make a turntable sound superficially impressive (and so often does) but is ultimately wearing, collapsing the music’s emotional and expressive range. Instead, the OL record player is happy to let the music dictate terms and tempo – a key factor when it comes to temporal and musical coherence. It might not be overtly flashy, but you can pay a lot of money to achieve this apparently simple goal. Origin Live has done it on a shoestring – with astonishingly impressive musical results.
If there’s one area in which the OL ‘table really and obviously excels, it’s with vocals. Its unforced, fluid sense of timing and unfettered micro-dynamics breathe expressive life into accents and phrasing, diction and vocal emphasis. Voices are present and intimate. Not spit on the mic’ immediate, but solid, present and dimensional, naturally expressive and communicative. This ‘table delivers lyrics with sense and substance. You get to hear not just what the singer is singing, but why they’re singing it. Who they are is central to the performance too, from Linda Womack’s heartfelt singing on Conscience to the relaxed yet utterly confident, quietly intimate Robert Smith delivery on Acoustic Hits. The clarity with which the ‘table reveals the singer’s identity, the character in their voice and the ‘work’ they put on the lyric make the performance that much more affective and convincing.
