Turntable Reviews

During a century of development of the phonograph, dozens of different things have been considered crucial to its performance: lack of bearing noise, lack of motor noise, freedom from runout error in the platter, high moment of inertia in same, immunity to all manner of unwanted vibration, and so forth. But now I wonder if the most important factor of all hasn't been overlooked, or at least misunderestimated, throughout much of that time: Could it be that motor torque is more critical than any of us imagined?

There is something refreshingly no-nonsense about the design and construction of this turntable. It looks as if someone just said, Okay, this, that, and the other thing need to be done. Let's do it. And then they did it. In appearance at least, it is about as simple a design as you're likely to find. What sets it apart from other simple designs is that this one is built like a battleship! Everything is heavy-duty (notto mention heavy), from the 10-lb, lead-laminated aluminum platter to the ¼"steel-reinforced subchassis.

The SOTA Sapphire was the first, and the most successful in terms of sales, of the new generation of high-end American turntables. As such, the SOTA can be viewed as leading this country's resurge ence of interest in high-quality turntable production. At the time of the SOTA's introduction in 1981, it was the only high-end turntable manufactured in the US. Since then American-made turntables have appeared from the likes of AR, Mapleknoll, Sonographe, and VPI.

The Oracle Delphi Mk.II ($1250) is both a turntable and work of art. It is a visually stunning product, retaining a level of styling that, in my view, has never been equalled by any other audio component. It also adds enough sonic improvements to the original Delphi that it ranks close to the VPI HW-19, and is superior, in naturalness of sound quality, to the SOTA Star Sapphire.

It's now been eight years since a Rega P3 turntable passed through my listening room. While the new P3-24 superficially resembles the P3 (and virtually every other Rega 'table), the company has made some significant changes, including upgrading to the high-quality, low-voltage (24V), electronically adjusted motor used in the more expensive P5, P7, and P9. As in those models, an electronic circuit trims the phase angle of the P3-24's motor coils, thus substantially reducing motor vibrations. In 1998, during a factory tour, a Rega engineer demonstrated the circuit's effectiveness to me. As he adjusted the circuit board's pot, vibrations from the motor dramatically decreased, until it was difficult to tell if the motor was spinning or not. Back then, this "hand-trimmed" motor technology was available only in the P9. The P3-24 uses a less sophisticated version of the same basic idea.

Simon Yorke is an artist, a machinist, an electronics wiz, and a political idealist. He's also an analog enthusiast who melds aesthetic and technical considerations into eye-catching, densely packed, compact record-playing devices that are ruggedly built and functionally elegant. His turntables' smooth, matte-gray, metallic finishes and efficient lines make them among the most visually pleasing ever made.

Conceptually audacious, elegantly designed, executed with space-age precision, and remarkably compact, Grand Prix Audio's direct-drive Monaco turntable ($19,500) aims to turn the tables on the belt-drive designs that have dominated analog playback for three decades.