Raul also made a stop in Houston during his US travels and as luck would have it, he and I were able to spend an entire day listening to the Essential in my system. Unfortunately, we firts had to overcome two serious problems, loss of the diamond from my Titan due at least in part to the stylus cleaning fluid that I have been using which apparently dissolved the glue (at least it gave me a good excuse to purchase a new Titan i) and problems with my preamp that turned out to be a bad tube. When you have 19 tubes, it is not always easy to immediately identify the problem. Fortunately the Einstein shut itself down noiselessly and without effecting the rest of the system. This essentially meant that we were unable to do real comparisons. Raul was kind enough to install a backup Clearaudio Accurate which was at least five years old and had not been played for a number of years. Not an auspicious beginning. Raul is a true gentleman and probably the most knowledgeable person that I have met with respect to cartridges and phono stages. He also absolutely refuses to gossip about other people's systems and equipment or to make comments about equipment with which he is not intimately familiar.
After playing several records the Accurate came alive and sounded very good, different from the Titan but very good in many of the same areas. The Essential 3150 is built to Swiss standards (think FM Acoustics). Raul has listened extensively to every part employed in the unit, in many instances listening to hundreds of different parts before chosing the ones in the Essential. The case work is very professional. This unit is clearly not something manufactured in a garage.
The sound? Noiseless even with the volume control fully advanced, black background. There is no hum or RFI which allows you to hear very deeply into the soundstage and is particularly revealing of the type of low level ambient details that make reproduced music more closely approximate live music. It also does an excellent job at the frequency extremes. The lows are subterranean, particularly with the Cabasse A21 subs and the high end on plasma tweeters was open and extended without grit or edge. The midrange seemed quite natural. Depth was excellent as was stage width and imaging. The harmonic envelope created by the Essential differs from that created by the Einstein which in turn differs from that created by the CAT. I am hoping to hear the unit again in the spring when my Triolons have arrived and I can compare the Essential directly to the Einstein combo with a broken in Titan. At the current introductory price, the unit is a steal.
After playing several records the Accurate came alive and sounded very good, different from the Titan but very good in many of the same areas. The Essential 3150 is built to Swiss standards (think FM Acoustics). Raul has listened extensively to every part employed in the unit, in many instances listening to hundreds of different parts before chosing the ones in the Essential. The case work is very professional. This unit is clearly not something manufactured in a garage.
The sound? Noiseless even with the volume control fully advanced, black background. There is no hum or RFI which allows you to hear very deeply into the soundstage and is particularly revealing of the type of low level ambient details that make reproduced music more closely approximate live music. It also does an excellent job at the frequency extremes. The lows are subterranean, particularly with the Cabasse A21 subs and the high end on plasma tweeters was open and extended without grit or edge. The midrange seemed quite natural. Depth was excellent as was stage width and imaging. The harmonic envelope created by the Essential differs from that created by the Einstein which in turn differs from that created by the CAT. I am hoping to hear the unit again in the spring when my Triolons have arrived and I can compare the Essential directly to the Einstein combo with a broken in Titan. At the current introductory price, the unit is a steal.