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A new company
comes to our country with a long, if not well-known, history offering an
impressive full analogue set!
When I first saw the complete Scheu turntable, I didn't know what to
assume. The construction is very simple in all levels, especially in the
case of the tonearm, yet it is very clever and effective (as the
listening tests proved).
On top of
that, the complete turntable costs only 2.628 euros (in year 2002),
which makes it affordable to everyone. "How good can it be?" I wondered,
and I believe you will agree with me when you look closely at the
pictures.
You will see
that the platter is acrylic (with high manufacturing standards) and the
tonearm is a simple, metallic H that sits on a simple spike...
ACQUAINTANCE
Before we go
into more details about construction and sound quality, let's take a
look at who Scheu Analogue is and what the company is trying to achieve
with the Premier model and the accompanying tonearm and cartridge.
The company
is basically two people, Thomas Scheu and Dr. Christian Feickert. Thomas
Scheu designs the turntables and tonearms and the well-known Swiss
company Benz-Micro makes the handcrafted cartridges according to Scheu
Analogue specifications. The specific cartridge is modified and is a
stepped-up Glider, and according to the manufacturer offers a much
higher sound quality. You need to know also that Thomas Scheu has been
designing high end platters for over 20 years!
In describing the system, we will start with the turntable. The base is
made of precision-cut pieces of acrylic that are easy to assemble making
for a very sturdy, heavy turntable on which stands the equally sturdy
platter. The base is filled with leadshot and the whole assembly becomes
very sturdy. The base is suitable for virtually any tonearm as the
tonearm base is universal and can also be custom-made.
The turntable
can also be ordered with two tonearm bases. The inverted bearing is made
of steel that is pre-turned, hardened and grinded and on the upper part
contains an aluminum-oxide ceramic ball with teflon mirror. Friction is
virtually eliminated, therefore there is no deterioration of the bearing
with the passage of time. All parts of the base and spindle go through
quality control before they leave the factory.
The
collectorless DC motor is housed inside a sturdy decoupled round unit
made of aluminum and magnesium. The motor is PLL stabilised and the two
speeds (33 and 45) are adjustable by two potentiometers. The power
switch is on the motor housing unit and the drive is achieved by a a
simple plastic thread. The turntable reaches the desired speed very
quickly, considering the large mass of the platter.
The tonearm
is also a very simple design. Made from one piece of aluminum, it is
laser-cut and folded to form a H. It is a uni-pivot design with the
contact point being a simple nitrogen -hardened bearing for
friction-free operation. The cartridge weight is easily adjustable using
a bronze weight. HTA and anti-skating are equally easily adjusted with
bronze weights, and the same applies to azimuth adjustment.
The copper
cables that carry the signal from the cartridge are held inside the
H-form tonearm by pieces of styrofoam that also decouple the tonearm for
possible micro-vibrations during reading of the record groove. VTA is
also easily adjustable.
All this
shows that we have a very simply-designed and well-thought tonearm that
is well-manufactured and provides ease of adjustment.
The cartridge
that accompanies the package is the MC Scheu - high output (1.6mV) with
copper cabling. (There is also a low output version (0.35mV) with silver
cabling.) The stylus is Fritz-Gyger-S. |
It looks like
a Benz-Micro Glider - as we mentioned earlier it is custom-made by
Benz-Micro to Scheu Analogue specifications - and it is very close to
sounding like the more expensive Ruby. Be extremely careful here because
mounting this delicate cartridge on the tonearm is a very risky
operation, right?
PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
The nature of
the design of this particular turntable requires that you listen to this
system as a whole and not in the context of different cartridges or
tonearms, since this way you can find out about the designer's
philosophy. And why not? If the system works as a complete package and
you like the way it sounds, this can only be a good thing. Besides, the
particular turntable has a drilled hole for its own tonearm and it was
not possible to test it with a different tonearm.
Well, the Premier is a big turntable, literally and figuratively. A good
way to describe its sound is pure energy. What you listen through it has
a live feel to it.
The bass is
strong, fluid, punchy and enormously sturdy, the mids are lyrical,
natural in timbre and three-dimensional and the highs are lively,
transparent and with the right amount of body. Pitch stability is
impressive but extra attention must be paid to the plastic thread that
may cause wow if the tension is too high. When it is fine-tuned,
something that is relatively easy to do, the platter spins perfectly.
More to the
point, Rubinstein's piano had the right amount of body and presence and
natural timbre, while the noise level was low even though it is a record
that I have played numerous times. This shows that the system is
"forgiving" to minor problems on the record surface.
The music of
The Classic Jazz Ensemble was rendered monitor-style, while the
soundstage between the speakers was so big and transparent that you
could walk through the players and feel the air between them.
The fast
drums on the Spyrogyra record sounded exactly like it should without
being overblown and artificially exaggerated in the low frequencies,
while the mids and highs were as transparent and fine as they should. As
for rhythm, this system was one of the best in this comparative test.
The strings on the Tacet recording sounded as metallic and woody as they
should with absence of grain and other undesirable artifacts. This shows
that this is indeed a high class combo.
In the
Exnugar recording the bass was humongous, the singer's voice was huge
and three-dimensional and the guitar strings hit me right through the
heart. Like being there!
BEST BUY?
Listening to the complete Scheu system, all of us wondered why should
anyone want to buy a more expensive turntable if the only thing he cares
about is listening to music in the most pleasurable way.
True, some of
the turntables in this comparative test (unfortunately a lot more costly
than this combo) offer more, to a degree, than this. Still, when
comparing the thrills and exaltation we felt listening to this turntable
to other far more expensive designs, the differences are really minor.
Therefore,
the Scheu is an extremely competitive design. If this is not a best
buy, I don't know what else is. All you have to do is listen to it
and you will understand
Thanasis
Moraitis
Highlighted blurb
...all of us
wondered why should anyone want to buy a more expensive turntable if the
only thing he cares about is listening to music in the most pleasurable
way.
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Scheu Analog