Yamaha GT-5000 review
December 30, 2020 § Leave a comment
https://www.whathifi.com/us/reviews/yamaha-gt-5000
It won’t come as a surprise to regular readers to find that that very first LP I placed on the Yamaha GT-5000’s platter was my new favourite recording of Eric Satie’s Gymnopédies as performed by Anne Queffélec (Virgin Classics 522 0502) whose tempi are perfect and whose rubato is glorious. I just love the liberties she takes with the score, which elevates it from just being ‘another virtuoso performance’ into another league completely. (Though as another reviewer was insistent I point out, she was not brave enough to omit the final chord.)
The reason for playing Satie was, of course, that slow (very slow, insanely slow) piano music will immediately reveal if a turntable’s platter is ‘wowing’ (slow speed variations) or ‘fluttering’ (higher speed variations) as it rotates. I can happily report that I heard zero wow and zero flutter when auditioning the GT-5000. I also did not hear any cogging effects which, of course, is precisely the reason Yamaha elected to use a belt drive rather than a direct drive for its GT-5000 in the first place.
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