Audiophilepure

https://www.hifinews.com/content/roksan-attessa-turntable-package

Don Henley’s vocals on the title track from The Eagles’ Long Road Out Of Eden [Universal 0602517546950] have seldom sounded more vivid and securely placed centre stage, with a level of projection out into the room that was quite uncanny. I’ve heard decks many times the cost of the Attessa make a far worse job of this and I was hugely impressed. Despite its apparent simplicity and relatively budget nature, the arm here clearly follows in the estimable footsteps of its more expensive Roksan stablemates.

The same album also hinted at the deck’s good speed stability – there are some fine keyboard effects throughout the track and it doesn’t take too much to give them a subtle tremor. But through the Attessa they sounded solid, suggesting its drive system is more than capable. This also paid dividends at the low end with a detailed bass, and individual notes easy to pick up on and follow.

https://www.audiophilia.com/reviews/2016/5/25/the-vpi-aries-turntable

The VPI Aries lends much credence to the belief that it is the turntable, not the tonearm or cartridge, that is of supreme importance when it comes to the faithful extraction of an LP’s embedded analogue signal. While the Audioquest PT-6 tonearm and Benz-Micro MC Gold phono cartridge used for this evaluation are both budget overachievers, they are more likely to find their way into a relatively modest analogue front end than one with state-of-the-art aspirations. Yet under the expert guidance of the Aries, the performance of both the PT-6 and MC Gold was elevated to a level which was quite unexpected – leaps and bounds, in fact, ahead of their performance when partnered with lesser turntables. Little wonder that VPI highly recommends the budget Audioquest arm for use on both the Aries and TNT if VPI’s own JMW proves financially prohibitive.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/acoustic-signature-montana-neo-turntable

With the Etna, I heard more of the small, wide, not-particularly-deep West Hollywood 500 seater—I played there once!—than I heard through the A95. King and Taylor were reproduced with more three-dimensionality and solidity. The Etna put me in the first few rows in front of the stage. The comparison demonstrated that the Montana’s designers met their goal of producing a neutral, well-damped cartridge-carrier that lets through varied transducer personalities without limiting them in any way.

Conclusion
Though the arm/’table combo will set you back nearly $50,000, my experience was that every time I put a record on the platter, pressed “on”—even the push buttons delivered precise authority—and lowered the stylus into the lead-in groove, I had no doubt about where the money went, especially because, having set up the turntable myself, I hear the ‘table’s well-hidden, ingeniously designed, skillfully executed guts in every play.

In a way, the Naim Audio Solstice turntable isn’t something that unveils endless amounts of new information off the groove (although the turntable’s overall performance is extremely detailed); it’s how it ties everything together so well and makes that sound natural and entertaining. All the elements that contribute to good sound (dynamic range, good stereo soundstaging, etc) are there and represented well, but the same could be said of almost any decent turntable. The combination of turntable, arm, cartridge and phono stage is well developed, and the individual products work in harmony (as much as it’s possible to check given there are limited swappable options at this time), but so do many well-assembled turntable packages. What the Solstice does so well, however, is render all that academic. Most other decks you experience or enjoy; this one helps you enjoy the music, all else is at best a secondary concern.

The arm in particular is a joy to use, retaining all the easy ‘plonk it on the record and play the thing’ nature of the older arm, but with just enough of a lift/lower to make cueing up a record possible. Looking into the past, some of the limitations addressed at the Aro of its time (I used one in the 1990s; it was great, but a little rolled off top and bottom, it errs on the ‘easy on the ears’ side of things, and it doesn’t take well to complex layered classical music) are either simply not an issue or are reduced to near-total inaudibility. Yes, the Aro’s mid-bass bloom (which gave music its characteristic ‘bounce’) is still around in vestigial terms, but it only serves to make the sound more beat-oriented and exciting,