Audiophilepure

https://www.whathifi.com/us/reviews/sme-model-60

The distinctive bassline that opens The Way You Make Me Feel charges along with gusto – it’s powerful and articulate and brims with textural information. The 60 is sure-footed rather than enthusiastic when it comes to rendering rhythms, but in our system at least, it never comes across as mechanical or sterile. Given an appropriate recording, the SME 60 can still be immensely thrilling, but it has a ruthless nature that quickly shows shortcomings in the production or performance if they’re there.

Over our time with this record player we listen to a large range of music, from Bob Marley And The Wailers’ Catch a Fire to Orff’s Carmina Burana, and never do we lift the Ortofon off the record at the end of a side without admiration of the job SME has done. Sometimes we wish there was a touch more in the way of natural sparkle; an ability to reproduce Marley’s Stir It Up with less of a poker face. Then again, we struggle to think of an alternative that does this while matching the Model 60 across its formidable array of strengths. 

Consonance Wax Engine and Charisma Eco

Sound quality is as you’d expect from recordings of that era, and perhaps a little telephone-line-like. Having said that, there is good weight to the bottom end which the Eco was adept at retrieving. The midrange came across well, where most of the information is, and gave a wholly faithful rendition. The upper reaches; FFJ’s voice is poor at best, shrill (especially as the notes climb skywards) at worst, and because of the appalling vibrato and screechiness, very difficult to track cleanly.

All I can do is commend you to the Eco as one of the few cartridges I have had which has negotiated this disc without upset or mistracking. As much as it can be, FFJ’s voice was focussed, clearly presented, and definitely ‘there’ with bells on. I’m not sure whose poodles she had used as singing teachers, but they did a fantastic job, her ‘yelping’ being faithfully reproduced by my audio system. If you don’t believe me, please, I implore you, check out a recording of FFJ for yourself. 

https://www.hifinews.com/content/pro-ject-audio-automat-a1-turntable-package

Notwithstanding any reservations I (or, for that matter, you) might have about the finesse available from so cost-effective a package, the A1 reproduced this track with precisely the refinement needed to recall the Left Coast sound of Browne’s debut, which predates this album by 50 years. It also features growly, effects-laden guitar work, a combination of textures that revealed the A1’s ability to deal with contrasts. What it lacked in absolute richness, especially of the sort associated with classic MC cartridges, was balanced by that inescapable sense of excitement.

It was the new 45rpm transfer of Joe Jackson’s eclectic, originally-recorded-in-digital Body And Soul [Intervention IR-030] that exposed the aforementioned tonearm travel which assumes a 7in record is on the platter when playing at 45rpm. Amused rather than irritated, I lowered the arm manually and was rewarded with a lushness I simply did not anticipate.