Grooves, Are you an acquaintance of Jonathan Valin's? As you know he claims the Continuum is nothing special. (I am not sure, but that may be an exact quote.) But it does not seem as though he's heard one in a well set up home system and certainly not in his own system. Have you discussed with him his failure to fall in love with the Caliburn and his apparent preference for the Walker Proscenium? It is my opinion that once one is considering turntables that cost more than $15K or $20K, it's a crapshoot, in that there is nothing like a linear relationship between goodness of sound (pardon the semantic) and price. Among the really excellent products, it's finally a matter of one's own opinion and what other gear one is using. Or do you think that the Continuum represents an audio absolute?
I'm also wondering whether the qualities of the GPM that you do not like so much have anything to do with the "sound" of carbon fiber. |
Lets be fair to Mr. Fremer. He did NOT at any time suggest that reviewing of the GPM or any other product can or should be done by listening to a CD-R copy. What he did say (better you should read what he said above) is that he made such recordings at very high bit rates and bandwidth of the same music being reproduced by BOTH the Caliburn and the GPM, that to his (very experienced) ears these recordings preserved the differences between the two turntables as he heard them and that others to whom he sent or demonstrated the CDs also heard the differences, even though those individuals were not told what they were listening to or what to listen for. It is a well accepted fact that high resolution digital recordings (not talking about RedBook here) can preserve the sonic character of LP reproduction. (Read about the Tascam and Masterlink on the Vinyl Asylum.) I know those of you who own or sell the GPM are anxious to repair any possible damage to the reputation of that product, but give Fremer a break. He did his job properly. That does not invalidate your buying decision in the least. |
A "digital release" is likely to be produced according to Redbook specifications. Then you are back to the same old hash. There are people in this universe (if you can imagine it) who prefer RBCD to LP, because they are obsessed with surface noise. If you refer to DVD-A or SACD "releases", there are lots of folks who prefer one or the other of those sources to LP. Then it boils down to a matter of opinion. But there are several posters on the Vinyl Asylum who use Tascam or Masterlink digital recordings to preserve their vinyl in hi-rez. Most claim that those (not too expensive) devices do generate copies that are indistinguishable from the LP source. I've heard some such recordings on a friend's rig, and they are indeed remarkable, but we never sat there and compared the digital recording to the original vinyl played on the same system. Mike Fremer appears to be someone who also believes that hi-rez digital reproduction captures the essence of the best vinyl reproduction. I don't think he mentioned what device he uses to make his digital recordings and at what resolution. |
Dear Raul, Please do not take offense, because I think you are a very courteous and very knowledgable person, and I greatly respect your insights. But if you think carefully about what you say, perhaps you can see that you do have a preconceived bias and agenda, just like many of the rest of us. In this case, it seems to me that you are positing that the GPM turntable is in fact inherently lower in distortion than either all belt drive turntables or the Caliburn (I'm not sure which). Once one takes that position, then your statements follow logically. But do you or we know that your basic premise is correct? I suggest that one is always trading one set of distortions for another, when one changes the paradigm, e.g., from belt drive to direct drive or from a tube preamp to a solid-state one. |
Dear Raul, I think MF usually uses the Cobra tonearm on his Caliburn tt and that for the sake of the comparison, he mounted (whatever tonearm) on his Caliburn and the same one was used with the GPM, so he is NOT guilty of trying to force the GPM to perform in a system that was customized for his Caliburn. Moreover, with all due respect, you are missing the point. The point is that in order to do such a comparison, one must observe the scientific method - change only one variable at a time. In this case, he held the system constant and changed only the two turntables (plus unfortunately the turntable stands), and he heard what he said he heard. End of story. One could well argue that the Mike heard the difference between the two stands moreso than the difference between the two turntables, but he did as he was asked by the GPM manufacturer.
Your point that further tweaking of the GPM in isolation could possibly make it superior to the Caliburn is unchallengable, since in the end this is all about subjective judgment.
By the way, I have no dog in this fight; I cannot afford either turntable. |
Raul, I am now forgetting what Mike Fremer actually did, but did he not test both tables with the same tonearm and cartridge? If so, then the only variable was the use of two different stands (assuming also that he took the elementary precaution of using the same interconnect and phono preamp in both cases). So, the deficiency of his review is that (I agree) it would have been nice (and very interesting) if he had tested both tables on the same stand. As he wrote here more than once, he used the GPM stand, because the maker of the GPM table insisted on it. SO, if all the above is true, then one can fairly say that the perceived differences in sonic character between the two tables are valid, for Mike's ears and given the difference in stands. What you are saying is that some tweaking of tonearm/cable/cartridge used on the GPM might alter the sound of the GPM for the better. Who could argue with that? I certainly don't, but that's asking and answering a different question. To me, the Fremer review is a very rare instance where a reviewer actually compared two high end products head to head and gave us the straight poop, in his opinion, whereas in most cases we are fed verbal pablum that tries through metaphor to describe the sound of a piece of gear in isolation. JV of TAS does this all the time; he has a boatload of high end gear in his living room, but when he writes his (usually elegaic) reviews, he typically does not mention how the equipment in question compares to his various references. |
Raul, This is getting to be fun. According to what you wrote above in response to my last response, a reviewer should take into account that one preamp contains different values and brands of capacitors and resistors and circuit topology than another, if he were to be comparing preamplifiers. Moreover, he should be willing to replace parts and alter the circuit of the (in his opinion) inferior sounding product, to see if it can be made to sound better. The essence of audio reviewing is to take the product that the manufacturer puts out there and listen to it as is. The GPM and the Caliburn are both record players, period. For all his faults, HP got this part right 30 years ago when he started TAS. Raul, we should discuss this over a couple of Coronas.
I quite agree with Grooves re the innovative nature of the GPM, or lack of same. Wonderful as the product may be, it is a direct-drive turntable made with a lot of carbon fiber parts. We've seen this before, although maybe not in the same place. The most novel aspects of the GPM appears to be the motor and its speed control and the incredibly high quality of execution. |
Mtkhl567, Do you really mean to say that the pursuit of a fine audio system takes third place to eliminating famine and child abuse as worthy goals? See, that's the problem here. What about the mess in the Middle East, the gradual collapse of the US economy due to globalization, HIV, pandemic flu, global warming, etc, etc, etc? Audio and the music that good audio systems reproduce is merely a nice hobby to take our minds off such vexing problems, but only momentarily I hope. Relax; you should not need Mr Fremer or anyone else to validate your purchasing decision.
By the way, given the cost of the Continuum Caliburn, I don't think advertising is relevant or needed. The megabuckers who have the dough will find it or be led to it by their advisors or by MF's passion for it. All the advertising in the world could not get the vast majority to fork over $120,000 for a turntable/tonearm/stand. |
Mtkhl567, When I opined that you did not need Mike Fremer's approval to validate your purchase, I was not intending to denigrate MF's opinion so much as to let you know that I think you are/were over-reacting to it. Mike has said here and elsewhere over and over again that he recommends we evaluate for ourselves the products he reviews, using his experiences only as a touchstone. He did not and probably would not say that you were "wrong" to buy the GPM, is all I meant. Anyway, I'd love to hear either table in a good home system, along with a Walker to compare to both. Not many folks will ever get such an opportunity, so Mike's work is of great value but should be taken with a "grain of salt". Dealer venues and audio shows don't tell us much. |
I don't want to be a spoil sport, but this thread is not about a low to mid-price Denon tt; it is about sturm and drang over a review and the reviewer of megabuck (almost hypothetical due to cost) tt's in a magazine. Carry on. |
