Trans-rotor Lenardo - Anyone give a listen?

transrotor and clearaudio are both german manufacturers but unrelated to one another; indeed, they are ardent competitors in europe. in the usa, clearaudio is imported by musical surroundings and transrotor by axiss. i've heard only the "mid-line" transrotor (msrp $22k usd). it sounds wonderful and makes the clearaudio grand reference look almost "shoddy" in comparison. email me and i'll send you some jpegs. -cfb

You might want to take a look at this link:
http://www.audiocircuit.com/9150-turntable-circuit/Commercial/Transrotor-TRAN/9150CMTRAN.htm#models

I think you should go for the Gravita model, only $47k - pretty cheap if that includes the apparently integrated stand. You'll be the envy of all the Ferrari owners in your neighborhood.

Please post a review after you take delivery.

We have had both of the Leonardo turntables (single plinth, and two plinth models) since CES this year. They sound fantastic... we use them with Benz Micro Glider cartridges. You are correct that the tonearm is a modified Rega, chromed and a new counterweight. I strongly suggest looking at the second model up, the Leonardo 25/25/40 because the bearing is significantly better due to the table's ability to house the deeper assembly (although, at 2K the 25/40 is still a bargain).

I have the Leonardo in my house right now. I've only listened for about 2 hours, but right away it is pretty incredible! I went from a Micro Seiki 1500/Graham/Koetsu to this table with a Grado Blue and am fairly blown away by the performance. I will be mounting my Koetsu tomorrow and see how the table sounds. Should be amazing based on what I've heard so far!

There is a member here, who's moniker I can't remember, who emailed me once, that has a Transrotor Leonardo and also bought a Teres 245. He said that once he heard the Teres 245, he put the Leonardo in his 2nd system, as it could not compare sonically to the Teres. Pricing was simiar for the 2 tables.

I have noticed that any TT with an acrylic base material has a lack of bass response compared to some other materials. When I had my Teres 135, which has an acrylic base, it did not have anywhere near the bass response that the 245 has. The only difference between the 135 and the 245 is the acrylic base vs the wood/lead-shot base. My auditioning of other acrylic base TT's has also indicated this same characteristic.

I agree with Twl about the acrylic base. I owned an Oracle Delphi I (upgraded to II) for twenty years and replaced it two years ago with a VPI Aries/JMW10 combo and was blown out of the water by the VPI base response. No comparison. The VPI was so much better in the base response department that I couldn't believe I held onto the Oracle for so long. IMHO, the Oracle is way over-rated - perhaps it's that acrylic base. Just my 2 cents.