Audiophilepure

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“As one who rarely turns fanboy on products, the AFG is a rare piece of gear that at the end of the review has me losing my ability to remain objective. If you genuinely love analog, you should experience one, whether you write the check or not. However, I suspect if you value the qualities I’ve mentioned here, you will have a very tough time not falling victim to its spell. This one has been here for the better part of a year now, and I pinch myself every time I use it.”

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“Better still, particularly as the midband always trumps the frequency extremes in my little world, the contrasting vocals blended beautifully, Peter’s higher registers and Gordon’s deeper counterpoint. As with the CBS compilation, the stereo spread was wide and precise, if not quite as deep as I have heard from various belt-drives. What the drive topology has to do with these qualities I am at a loss to explain. I can only describe what I heard. And what made me brim with respect, admiration and a lot of love for the HW-40 Anniversary was its masterful reproduction of the majestic title track from Jackie De Shannon’s Put A Little Love In Your Heart [Liberty LP12442].

As with many of the artists on the Best Of ’66… compilation, De Shannon is criminally undervalued. Gorgeous voice, sublime song-writing skills – she composed ‘When You Walk In The Room’ and ‘Bette Davis’ Eyes’ among others. Anyway, the title track is one of those jaw-dropping, everything-including-the-kitchen-sink productions which would stop people dead in their tracks if it were played at hi-fi shows.

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“It was obvious to me that as the listening sessions wore on, the 8 with Apheta 2 in tow was a step or two ahead of the Regas I had hosted before. The ability to keep the beat is present and well, and probably superior to its predecessors. Of all the turntable combinations I have in my collection, the 8 seemed to pull closest in the same direction as the Roksan Xerxes, sounding similar overall in presentation.

While I didn’t feel there was anything to severely criticise with the 8’s performance, no (affordable) turntable I know of yet has been all things to all men. The 8, as with the Xerxes and some other more detail and warts-and-all oriented designs won’t be the best thing for you if you’d rather have a more velvety or laid back (relatively) performance. Several screechier solo violin LPs just sounded less aggressive on an LP12, and if voices could be compared for sexiness over vinyl replay, I would prefer the TD124 with Apheta 2 for playing Shelby Lynne’s Just a Little Lovin.”

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“A wide hole was milled into the bottom side of the platter, where a large TMD (Transrotor Magnet Drive) bearing fits. Jochen Räke once talked about development of this bearing in an interview that he gave our magazine. It is a bearing with a magnetic clutch, consisting of three main parts – a spindle with a base, a low pulley to which torque is transferred from the motor and the upper, high part, which is actually a sub-platter. Around the spindle with a ceramic ball there is a milled space for oil.

The upper part of the bearing consists of two parts, separated from each other by a magnetic field generated by many small neodymium magnets. The idea is to separate these two elements from each other, and thus to reduce the vibrations transmitted by the drive belt from the motor. The belt is placed over the lower part and the platter rests on the top one.

Motor | Alto TMD is a design with a separate motor, placed next to the turntable. One can use such solution only in mass-loaders. Therefore, the motor features a solid, heavy cylinder housing. A small, aluminum spindle is mounted on the motor axis, and puts a rubber drive belt over it. The motor is placed on the side – Transrotor suggests placing it on the left side, but I would suggest to start your test by placing it on the line connecting the motor column and the platter’s axis.”

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“The PS-LX310BT is more than just an excellent ‘my first turntable’ option. For those wanting a fully automatic deck with built-in phono stage, it’s one of the best we’ve heard.Players such as the 2018 Award-winning Rega Planar 1 (£250), might offer a superior sound, but the manually-operated Rega lacks a built-in phono stage or Bluetooth.What the Sony lacks in terms of top-quality sound, it makes up for by being fun, ridiculously user-friendly and resoundingly listenable.”

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“When we first attempted to level the arm, we grossly over rotated the Allen wrench and it made the arm wobble. Somewhere on the internet, I read the arm level adjustment is achieved with microscopic turns. No more than a 16th of a turn on both screws set the level perfectly. I have a bi monthly reminder on my iPhone to check level of plinth, platter and arm with a bullseye level.

Magne makes the super fine tuning of the arm’s level very easy by providing the owner with a simple plastic cylinder that fits over the arm tube. The tube floats elegantly over the 18 minute air holes in the top of the arm. The slightest imbalance and the tube floats and rolls almost imperceptibly to the left or right of the arm. When level, no movement. Ingenious. And super accurate.

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“That’s probably down to its precision yoke housing with 10mm ABEC 3 ball-bearing races. The yoke is mounted to the 23mm-diameter heat-treated, ground and honed steel pillar, with a pair of 17mm ABEC 7 ball bearing races widely spaced to resist tilt.

SME’s partnering cartridge of choice is the highly regarded MC Ortofon Windfeld Ti [HFN Jan ’18]. It too is beautifully engineered using the company’s Selective Laser Melting technology where fine particles of titanium are welded together to create a body core optimised for rigidity and low weight. It is fitted with gold-plated 6N oxygen-free copper coils, coupled to a cantilever tipped by Ortofon’s Replicant 100 diamond. Its low-ish 0.2mV output is certainly suited to the integral Nagra phono stage.

Most will enlist the services of their friendly local SME dealer to set up the Synergy, but if that’s not possible then it’s actually fairly straightforward to get going.