Named for a mythical Nordic eight legged horse whose name means "smooth" or "gliding", the Sleipner Reference looks and feels as smooth as its true air bearing, belt driven 20 pound aluminum platter floats and its air "bearing" arm slides.
New tone arms on display at Munich's High End 2013 point towards a renewed interest in their design and execution, especially among German enthusiasts.
At Munich High End 2013 German manufacturer AMG (Analog Manufaktur Germany) introduced a new 9" version of its innovative tone arm that the company has been packaging with its Viella turntable. You can see cutaways of the arm's innards in the CES 2013 show report.
Reinhard Thöress's point-to-point wired hybrid JFET/vacuum tube powered phono preamp features five phono inputs, plus variable RIAA that allows you to adjust variances from the RIAA curve at the time constant "knees" of the curve.
This compact idler wheel drive turntable designed by Audio Silente's Simone Lucchitti kept me coming back to look and finally hear, though in the crowded main floor listening was next to impossible.
Not everyone would strap a GoPro camera onto his head and walk around the High End Show in Munich. But I did. Videos will be posted as soon as they are downloaded and edited!
Pro-Ject founder and CEO Heinz Lichtennegger has decided to go after the cheap plastic turntable market with a high quality alternative that will sell for $199 complete with an Ortofon cartridge.
Just concluded day two of High End 2013 in Munich. The MOC Convention Center was packed. It's a large venue sort of like a somewhat smaller Javits Center in New York City. Not all of it was used for the show but much of it was, including an enormous ground level space and much of the second and third floor atrium area.