Audiophilepure

“Not all these advances made it to market – though they certainly got a lot of use in our personal systems! – but they all helped maximise the music source to enable the design of better pre and power amplifiers. I still often think about Julian, and how he would have regarded the products we have designed since he died. I was a Naim customer for 11 years before I joined the company, so I’m well and truly steeped in the Naim vision. I believe he would have very much approved of the engineering solutions and final performance of the Solstice Special Edition.”

Solstice has got that combination of drive, excitement, foot-tapping energy, dynamic punch. Sure, it’s more even-handed as befits the more 21st Century approach to music replay and also the way Naim sounds today… but it’s also got that ‘put a smile on your face’ love of music that permeated really well thought-through ‘chrome bumper’ Naim products of yore. Which fits the only sadness I feel about the Solstice; those who are no longer around who would have absolutely loved the deck. Listening to the Solstice makes me think about the late Malcolm Steward shoe-horning in a pair of SBL loudspeakers into a room only slightly larger than the boxes in which they were packed, and playing Gregson & Collister and Richard Thompson albums at ‘Def Con 1’ levels on his Pink Linnk’s, Aro’d up LP12.

https://www.soundandvision.com/content/monolith-monoprice-belt-drive-turntable-review

No $250 turntable is going to be perfect, but it’s generally preferable if a product’s limitations are in its ability to give you the whole picture, rather than by adding some distortions or color of its own. The Monolith turntable stays on the right side of this equation, always sounding enjoyable and engaging and never harsh or rough. It brings you a somewhat downsized but clear window on why people like records, and is a perfect gateway into the world of vinyl. If Monoprice can sort out the issues I experienced with the factory speed setting and arm height, it would become an even greater value.

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.