Some months ago, John Burns from Pear Audio was demonstrating us the full range of Dynavector cartridges. To do this, he brought along a Well Tempered Classic turntable fitted with the extraordinary Dynavector DV507 tone-arm. The musical ability of this combination was sufficiently impressive for us to mistake a £400 cartridge for a £1000 one. Mind you, some aspects of the design did seem a little odd (the use of thread for a belt sticks in the mind) but it sounded stunning. Devastating with the XV1S.
We wondered what this amazing arm would do for our Nottingham Dais, after all it could hardly be the bizarre deck that sounded this good. In case you're interested, we tried and the arm sounded rubbish on the Nottingham, a really unhappy combination.
At the time of his visit, Well Tempered Labs had nothing in production. Bill Firebaugh, the interesting guy behind these designs, was, however, working on bringing a new, affordable, deck to market : the Amadeus.
And now the Amadeus is shipping. Built under license in China by a small company called Opera, the pricing is £2200 for the complete deck, including arm. And it's some arm, an amazing silicone damped affair involving a golf ball. The all-acrylic GT is £2750 (shortly to be replaced by an aluminium model) .
John claims it to be an improvement on the one we heard. There is a slightly a more expensive all-acrylic version too. The jury is still out on whether this will be better or simply cooler. The designer claims that it will sound the same, just look more impressive.
Products like this are either brilliant or terrible. With the impressive pedigree, our money was on the former. We had been willing to simply take the leap of faith and order the deck. John being, well . . John, wanted us to hear it first and brought a sample along to demonstrate. In truth, there has been a minor problem with the first shipment, so our deck was going to be delayed anyway.
The Amadeus is quite imposing but, unlike the Nottingham decks, wide and deep rather than tall. Mind you the spindle is 'autochange-ready' height, a development that surely has to make a reappearance in these retro times. The oversized acrylic platter is let into the baseboard, so it is quite slim and slab-like, albeit with two levels of isolation (the separate base-board is part of the deal). The finish looks good and the satin black-paint-on-medite far more attractive than the pictures suggest. The acrylic GT version has the golf-ball painted black. For the cooking version it is unmistakably a white golf-ball. There is the provision for pitch adjustment and the (DC) power supply is the same wall-wart that comes with the Dynavector phono stage. You need to factor in for some leads from the deck to the phono stage. John was using some Mogami microphone cable.
The 10.5" arm can be adjusted for height. Overhang too, if you are determined. The general feeling is that this is not all that critical and our findings with the non-negotiable Naim Aro seem to back this up. In fact with the longer arm, it is arguable that VTA becomes less critical too. The golf ball hangs in a cup of silicone fluid and the amount of damping can be adjusted by raising or lowering this cup. We could spend days fiddling and all John has done is fit a cartridge and listen.
The demonstration sample was set up with a Dynavector XV1-s cartridge, the next level up from the TKR that we use. This makes a difference, but the presentation from the deck was definitely from the same stable as the one that impressed us a few months ago. It is an 'easy' sound. Not un-dynamic, but not in your face either. We didn't really have long enough to take it all in, but the sense that you are simply hearing the record being uncovered, released is probably a better word, is unmistakable. It has a terrific sense of security too. And some serious resolution / unravelling ability. This whole combo of deck and arm costs less than a Keel upgrade for a Linn, about the same as the Origin Live tone-arm we use on the Dais and yet it appears to be in the same ability league as our £5500 combo (which, incidentally, sounds rather good!). It's all rather disturbing.
So now we have our own deck and I need to check myself for rambling into hyperbole. But bloody hell, it's good. The Dynavector TKR could well be suiting it better than the XV1-S. Or maybe it's just that we are on more familiar territory. Either way, we seem to be ahead of the demo we had. Rather like the Superline, with the adjustable loadings, the Amadeus seems very even - handed with cartridges. But the Dynavector TKR seems to be 'the one'.
STOP PRESS
New Aluminium GTA now out No longer has the extra isolation 'slab'. Now four rather more conventional looking support 'turrets'. The anodised finish is far more robust than the acrylic and it looks superb. It also weighs quite a lot. This seems to be more of a step forward is handling and perceived value than sonic ability. Price is still £2750 with the basic version (now crackle finish) at £2200.
Prices quoted are with VAT at 15%
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