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In the
surprisingly long-lingering twilight of vinyl, LP playback is reaching
an excellence that explores the boundaries of the theoretically
possible. The errors of the equipment are being reduced to below those
intrinsic to the vinyl medium itself.
The Eurolab
turntable / Mørch arm combination is a conspicuous instance, all the
more so for being reasonable in price. The turntable comes as a kit, but
the assembly required is of minimal difficulty.
What after all should and can a turntable/arm do? The record must be
turned at a constant speed, unaffected by the variations of stylus drag
as groove modulation varies. No vibration must be transmitted to the
record, and the vibrations within the record arising from the stylus’
tracing of the groove must be removed.
This energy
is substantial: If you listen to a “silent” groove of an undamped record
with one stylus while playing music grooves with another, you will hear
the music in the silent groove through the transmitted vibrations. (You
can hear the music without speakers simply by putting your ear close to
the record as it plays.)
The pick-up
arm must provide a nonresonant support for the cartridge and the energy
the stylus puts into the cartridge must be completely removed – or as
much as possible. Finally, the arm/cartridge combination must have the
correct effective mass for the compliance of the cartridge, so that its
resonant frequency has the correct value.
Historically, people worried also about isolation of the turntable from
the airborne vibrations of the sound itself, to reduce the possibility
of “acoustic feedback,” and about the isolation of the turntable from
structure - borne vibration. But the appearance of external vibration
isolation devices like the Townshend Seismic Sink has solved the latter
problem independently. And the former is best approached by getting the
turntable away from the speakers. Thus the intrinsic behavior of the
turntable / arm combination described in the previous paragraph comes to
the fore.
What then is the “sound” of such an ideal playback system, ideally
sited away from the speakers? To read most reviews, one would think that
the job of playback was creation – of dynamics, of truth to timbre, of
space, of excitement, the list is endless. It is also nonsense. A
perfect system makes records sound like master tapes, to the extent that
the records are cut correctly. And master tapes sound rock-solid stable
and dead – no spurious ringing, resonance, or “liveliness” beyond that
of the music and ambience itself.
Vinyl
playback tends to add to the music, and the less added the better. The
correct sound is actually quite easily recognized, once it is heard and
understood. But not everyone recognizes it; perhaps many don’t even want
it. In the long run, however, hearing the music and only the music is
far more satisfying than the fake “life” of resonant playback (and
nonflat, tweaky cartridges). This truthful sound is what you can extract
from the Eurolab / Mørch combination, with a suitable cartridge.
The Eurolab
turntable deals with the speed stability and motor vibration issues by
using a massive platter driven by an external motor in a separate unit,
with a delicate fiber belt as the drive connection – a cotton thread. It
takes a while for the platter to get up to speed in this set-up. You may
want to get a visual fix on what 33 1/3 rpm looks like and spin the
platter initially at as close to that as you can, to quicken the
process.
The tension
on the thread is important to get the speed stability the system is
capable of. This tension must be adjusted by moving the motor housing
gently. It does not require attention often, and while the set-up
process may sound complicated, you will know right away, in listening
terms, when things are right.
The turntable
has a speed adjustment knob useful for dealing with the numerous
out-of-pitch records. But small motions of the knob make big pitch
changes, so use this carefully (a strobe disc is supplied to check for
canonical speed).
The mass of the platter is so great that the little variations in drag
from the stylus are unable to make substantial changes in platter speed.
The result – great speed stability. Since warps and off - centeredness
of records are, in the majority of cases, far greater sources of audible
speed variations than platter behavior, speed stability can be verified
directly only by having a well-centered, warp-free record.
The
centeredness can be verified only with something like the Nakamichi
TX1000 turntable, which measures and corrects off - centeredness. On
records that are correctly center punched, the Eurolab sounds
speed-stable, indeed. Meanwhile, beware of reviews that address this
topic in listening as opposed to measurement terms, and remember that
few records are center punched correctly.
With the Eurolab, instantaneous speed stability, the absence of flutter
effects, was complete. This counts even when the record itself is
off-center. The recording of music from Wagner’s Tannhäuser on Turnabout
[QTV-S-34642], one of the many Aubort/Nickrenz masterpieces from that
label, had the beautiful purity of real musical sound. (These Aubort/Nickrenz
recordings are real treasures, far more beautiful and natural than the
RCA and Mercury series, to my ears.)
The difficulty with using a massive platter is that it requires a large
bearing to support it, and large bearings tend to be noisy. Eurolab has
solved this problem. The inverted bearing with oil drawn up into it by
capillary action is virtually frictionless: Spin the platter without the
belt and it will keep spinning for minutes, not seconds. And the bearing
is essentially silent. Vinyl is intrinsically a noisy medium, although
the noise tends to be masked by the music. No playback set-up can remove
the pre- and post-echo from the grooves or the vinyl scrape on the
stylus. But the Eurolab is contributing so little noise that it is
effectively not there.
No perceptible noise is added in the frequencies above the deep bass,
and the inevitable residual rumble is at a low level and never intrudes
into the music. In fact, the recorded rumble will be greater in the vast
majority of cases.
A good deal of fuzzy thinking on noise has been published over the
years. If the noise of the record itself is, say, 40 dB down from signal
– very good for an LP – then whether the playback-added noise is 70 or
80 dB down will not matter, provided the playback noise is not
concentrated in narrow bands of maximum hearing sensitivity. (Early
digital artifacts were often concentrated in this way, and could be
heard at extremely low levels as a consequence.)
In this
sense, the Eurolab is not only quiet, it is as quiet as it needs to be.
Whatever noise I could hear was always identifiable as part of the
record itself. Whatever noise the Eurolab was contributing – and
theoretically it must contribute some – was much lower than the noise of
the record and thus insignificant in musical terms. (You can tell the
difference between record noise in “silent” grooves and turntable noise
by trying the lock grooves of different records. Periodic noise is from
the record, as is the noise that is different on different records.
Turntable noise must be embedded in what is left.)
The Eurolab is a nonsuspended design; one needs to exercise some care
about acoustic feedback and structure-borne vibration. On the subject of
acoustic feedback, I hold an intransigent view: Anyone serious about
vinyl playback should have the turntable in a different room from the
speakers. Long interconnect cables from the preamp to the amplifier will
have far less degrading effect on the sound than will the interaction
between sound and vinyl playback. One of the classic experiments in the
past was to make a recording of the output of a record player with no
speakers attached and a recording with speakers playing the material in
the vicinity. The difference was large, even with suspended designs.
Like all
nonsuspended designs – and most suspended ones, too – the Eurolab
benefits from isolation from structure-borne vibration. I had good
results with the Townshend Seismic Sink, as I have had with every
turntable that does not have such vibration isolation devices strongly
built in.
The use of acrylic as a platter material has become common, apparently
on the grounds that acrylic and vinyl have nearly the same mechanical
impedance. Thus, the reasoning goes, pressing a vinyl record onto an
acrylic platter should produce maximum energy transfer from the record
into the platter, minimizing contamination of the sound by vinyl
vibrations.
But I got by
far the best results from the Eurolab using a Torumat combined with the
supplied weighting system. The turntable sounded more than presentable
au natural, but the Torumat removed a subtle upper-midrange ringing,
much to the improvement of the sound. This has been a universal
phenomenon with hard platters, in my experience, acrylic or otherwise .
You can check
the effectiveness of the Torumat damping of vinyl by listening to the
sound produced through the speakers by tapping on the record while it is
playing (or while the stylus is resting on a static record). With no
mat, there is a substantial c l u n k plus c l i c k. With the mat, the
total volume of the sound through the speakers is much reduced, and it
becomes c l u n k with almost no c l i c k. The higher frequency
components have been removed, and little or no energy is left in the
region of maximum hearing sensitivity. |
Some people
say that, with the Torumat, the sound from records is too dark and not
neutral. But to my ears, it is correct, with cleanliness and resolution.
The vinyl resonance is most important in the region of maximum hearing
sensitivity, and the mat removes it. The energy at lower frequencies ,
where the ear is less sensitive, is less important, and is comparatively
harmless in terms of sound smear and so on.
The role of the Mørch DP-6 arm should not be minimized in the overall
sonic excellence of this setup. While the Mørch has been reviewed
(Issues 49, 109, 124), I want to remind you of its virtues. First off,
the DP-6 is nonresonant. The result: no energy storage and no
coloration. Moreover, the Mørch’s system of interchangeable arm tubes of
different effective masses makes possible the ideal choice of
arm/cartridge resonance. This means that you can get the bass right. And
if you do not have a variable mass system, you cannot, at least with any
variety of cartridges. The arm/cartridge resonant frequency must be
right for things to work right in the bass.
The Mørch also allows adjustment of vertical damping. With the right
choices of mass and damping, you can get the best from your cartridge in
a way that few pick-up arms allow.
The nonresonant character of the arm and the excellence of the energy
termination can be checked by tapping the arm with the volume up. Almost
nothing comes out of the speakers, so low is the energy storage. This
kind of test is only suggestive, but listening bears out the suggestion.
Ultra-clean, non-resonant, neutral, uncolored sound is what you get,
with superb resolution and excellent reproduction of space. Reproduction
of space is not an independent thing, technically, however much we hear
it as a separate item. It arises from full resolution of the subtle
ambient cues that enables us to hear space in reality. In vinyl
playback, it is directly associated with low storage of (time-delayed)
energy. And here it is low, indeed.
All this no doubt seems oriented toward technical questions and test
procedures – as it should. Direct evaluation of vinyl playback by
informal listening alone is all too likely to confuse the messenger of
playback with the message of intrinsically flawed vinyl.
Still, the
ultimate test of superb playback is superb sound from records –
otherwise why bother? And here, too, the Eurolab/Mørch was in the upper
echelons. Doris Day on Hooray for Hollywood sounded almost
unprecedentedly well resolved. Julie London in “My Coloring Book”(one of
my candidates for alltime great popular song performances) sounded pure
and luscious, and as pitch-pure as she did, in life, sound. Starker on
Denon (The Most Beautiful Melodiesfor Cello) sounded as perfect as
Starker does sound (it is a digital recording, but so what?).
And as I was writing this review, I put on Paul Desmond Live, one of my
favorites (music like this, unavailable in digital form, is the real
argument for keeping on with vinyl). This is not an audiophile recording
in any sense. It was made by one of the musicians just setting up some
mikes and rolling the tape. But on the Eurolab/Mørch combination, and
played at a realistic volume – even when Desmond played it, the
saxophone is loud – something like the impression of being in the
presence of Desmond emerged. At some point, the music stops and there is
some audience conversation in the distance. I looked up for a moment to
see if some people had come to the door. Realism, indeed.
As it happened, I reviewed the Eurolab “blind” – to the price. I had no
idea how much it cost until I had finished my listening and written most
of the review. I estimated around $5,500 (without arm), and was prepared
to say that it represented excellent value for money and compared
favorably to much more expensive tables.
Imagine then how much more strongly it re commends itself at its actual
price of $2,100! I think real listeners will find this redefines vinyl
playback in the less-than-stratospheric range. I suggest you hear this
set-up no matter how much money you are able to spend (short of the
Rockport, anyway). The system is for sale by e-commerce with a
money-back satisfaction-guarantee from an established and ultrareliable
distributor. You have nothing to lose – and I doubt you’ll send it back.
Outside of
the vacuum hold-down issue, which has arguments on both sides, and the
autocentering of the Nakamichi, now no longer available, the Eurolab /
Mørch combination seems to me to get quite close to the best possible
vinyl playback. Nothing here elicits the reaction “that could be fixed
for more money.” Of course, everything can be pushed further, in
principle, but this relatively inexpensive combination – under $5,000
even with a Seismic Sink thrown in – gets so close to all there is to
get out of records, one might think of the words from Porgy and Bess:
“Who could ask for anything more?”
Paul Seydor Comments
Less than five minutes of auditioning the Eurolab (outfitted with a
Mørch arm and Shure V15 Type V/MR cartridge) in my music room, was
enough to convince me that this was some extraordinary turntable.
Why? Because
mass counts. It is the only means by which resonances intrinsic to vinyl
reproduction , plus vibrations from speakers and other external sources,
stand a chance of being absorbed, deflected, drained away, or prevented
from reaching the stylus / groove interface. The quietest vinyl
reproduction I have personally achieved has been from several Sota
models, all designed by David Fletcher, that have large, heavy platters
with vacuum hold-down and stable, tuned suspensions.
1
The Eurolab Premier is the first turntable I’ve had in my home that
manages to equal all the things I loved about the Sotas. Is this thing
ever quiet, and solid, and stable! As with the Sota vacuums, you feel
that spurious resonances and other nuisance energies have been siphoned
off into a black hole. Images emerge with palpable dimensionality in a
soundstage that seems limited only by the rest of the recording /
reproduction chain.
The
massiveness of the Premier’s platter and its ability to remain
unperturbed under dynamic conditions are such that you can tap the
record surface during play and not hear anything – anything – through
the speakers. I’ve not witnessed a more impressive demonstration of
isolation-cum-damping since my Sota Star/SME IV / Virtuoso Boron
ensemble kept playing without skipping a groove during the 1987
earthquake that hit Los Angeles.
I don’t have much say about the sonic characteristics of the Eurolab /
Mørch / Shure ensemble because it is so clean, neutral – maybe “pure”
isn’t too strong a word. Thanks to the low noise-floor, this set-up has
a resolution that retrieves a wealth of true detail without sounding
“analytical.” The top-to-bottom coherence, the wide dynamic range that
does not sacrifice smoothness, the control that still allows for that
elusive sense of “liveness” without the typical vinyl artifacts – all
this and more made me enact an audiophile cliché: I listened well into
the wee hours two nights in a row, blissfully going through record after
old record for the sheer pleasure of hearing them again, so beautifully
reproduced.
The Bernstein / Carmen (DG, NLA on vinyl), my all-purpose
orchestral/choral recording, alive with color and excitement, packed a
tremendous dynamic wallop. Jacintha singing “Autumn Leaves” was honey
smooth yet vividly there [Groove Note GRV 1006-1]. Ben Webster’s golden
saxophone on Classic Records’ remastering (alas, NLA) of Ben and Sweets
was so burnished I wanted to reach out and stroke the tone. And Sinatra
singing, “ ’Scuse me, while I disappear,” at the end of “Angel Eyes,” in
the Mobile Fidelity remastering [NLA] of Only the Lonely, brought one
evening to an appropriately meditative close. Exquisite.
A few nuts-and-bolts matters REG didn’t cover.
First, while
he may be right that ideally a turntable is best placed in another room,
said arrangement is so inconvenient and impractical I doubt most users
could tolerate it. In fact, the Eurolab fares far better than most
tables in-room or under adverse conditions. I placed it on a small
platform near one of the speakers, where it performed as previously.
Second, I
can’t for the life of me understand the thinking behind the two-part
weight, which consists of a tall narrow inner- ring that goes over (the
very short) spindle and a larger, squatter ring that fits around that.
Third, its appearance: An open-chassis configuration with the oversize
platter (12.5 inches diameter x 2.25 inches thick) of frosted white
acrylic against the high-gloss black of the smaller base and round
armboard (attached to a platform that juts out toward the rear), it
suggests the Mother Ship resting on its landing pod. The outboard motor
is housed in a cylindrical case, also high-gloss black, with a
three-position toggle switch that chooses 33, 45, or off (but whose
numbskull idea was it to leave all three positions unmarked?). There is
no dust cover. I find its looks quite striking in a massive, industrial
sort of way.
Impressive to look at, glorious to listen to, the Eurolab Premier
belongs among the handful of the best turntables ever made, regardless
of price. That it is priced not all that far above several
manufacturers’ entry-level models is almost too good to be true. If
you’re in the market for a new turntable and fail to investigate this
one, you run the risk of enacting another audiophile cliché: the fool
who is soon parted from his money. |
Scheu Analog