“Legend In My Living Room” also showed that when it comes to overall tonal balance it’s not only at level but also that there’s no midrange-centric kind of presentation. This will also depend on the choice of the cartridge (and a few other things that I will leave out of our scope here for the sake of clarity), but it’s worth mentioning that this will also appeal to listeners who actually have some very good digital chains and want the analouge sound, but they don’t want it to be too soft nor too prismatic sounding. Let me elaborate here a bit. I believe that the phrase “everything is secondary to transparency” is true – and this turntable definitely goes into that direction. What was also easy to hear was that the intelligibility of the Lennox’s voice on the last song of the first side (“Cold”) was, especially considering its price-point, really first-rate.
For a more, than slight change of my listening repertoire, I pulled out one of the very best – at least in my books – Armin van Buuren’s albums. The “Imagine” is a really piece of great work, especially if one prefers more of a dance-style music. There’s also a lot of tracks that will offer some dynamic swings and the kind of rhythm that will certainly provide a really full-spectrum sound and show the ability to deliver that fluid sound that should be expected from an analogue source. And on “What If” it showed that there’s a lot to like here. It was in the first time very dynamic with that firm lower end that had both grunt and definition as well. There are some turntable-cartridge combinations that will certainly go further here, but what’s important here was how engaging the whole sound was. It also showed that in more condensed parts when there both dynamics and the ability to provide the insight into what was happening in the soundstage was required, it simply delivered. Also again, the voice of Vera Ostrova on “What If” was presented with palpability and freshness, without sounding too thing or lacking in balance in any way.
And for an even more electronic music, there was time for the Chicane “Far From The Maddening Crowds” album. This one is well regarded and possibly the best known of Nicolas Bracegirdle’s albums with hits like the “Offshore” and “Saltwater” that may come first to mind. Yet it’s the “Leaving Town” track that came to my attention first. And for a good reason. There are that low end impulses that actually are – at some part of the track – different from each other and they put equipment to a test.
One thing of note here: I cannot emphasize how important is to get the system properly set-up as a whole, also in regards to achieving that low end extension that would be palpable and controlled. Here it clearly showed that – on both cartridges – there was a plenty of low-end information. It was also coherent in the sense that the bass flow was actually parallel to the whole song, it was presented as a whole spectacle and not just some frequency ranges by themselves. If I could describe the overall sound here, the word “firm” comes to mind. That firmness was also represented by the way it projected the soundstage, which was this time differently layered that those on the Lennox’s and Armin’s albums.