Analog Corner

When I reviewed D'Agostino's Momentum line preamplifier in the August 2014 issue, I said that it had "delicacy, transparency, three-dimensionality, and especially liquidity and freedom from grain without softening transients—all floating above the blackest backdrops." All of this was also true of the Momentum Phonostage, which served all musical genres. The latest vinyl from the Electric Recording Company is Leonid Kogan's recording of the Brahms Violin Concerto, with Kiril Kondrashin conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra (ERC027), first released in 1960 on EMI/Columbia. Following its usual practice, ERC pressed only 300 copies of its reissue—which, the label says, will never see another pressing—priced at £450 ($563 at time of writing). Expensive? Yes, but an original pressing of this album sold in February 2016 for $3750.

I haven't heard an original pressing, but I imagine that ERC's restored, vintage, all-tube mastering chain is far superior, as are the its plating and pressing. The reissue, too, will only appreciate in value. The sound of Kogan's violin is silky-smooth, effortlessly transparent, and realistically sized on the soundstage in ways that no digits manage, which helps explain the original's rising price.

Granted, the ARC Reference Phono 3's harmonic presentation knocked this one out of the park, but both the D'Agostino Momentum Phonostage and the Ypsilon VPS-100 produced more finely focused images, greater transparency, and more supple instrumental attacks, particularly of Kogan's violin, which glistened with a delicate silky sheen—as well they should, for twice the ARC's price ($13,995) in the case of the D'Agostino, and nearly that in the case of the Silver edition of the Ypsilon ($52,000). I mostly used Lyra's Etna SL moving-coil cartridge, but also used Miyajima Laboratory's Madake, which somewhat ripened the musical fruit.

I also listened to large-scale orchestral music—eg, Mahler's Symphony 3, with Zubin Mehta conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Master Chorale, California Boys' Choir, and contralto Maureen Forrester, recorded in 1978 in UCLA's Royce Hall (2 LPs, London/Decca/Analogue Productions APC 117). (This might have been Lenny Kravitz's recording debut—he was a member of the Choir, and is on this recording.) While Mehta's interpretation of Mahler's sprawling ode to nature is considered good if not one of the best, the sound produced by the Decca team in the specially treated hall makes it one of the best-sounding Thirds on record, if not the best.

The Momentum's ability to effortlessly reproduce full-scale orchestral dynamics, and to control the flow of the majestic double basses, all had me thinking it could be the solid-state phono preamp to win over tube lovers, especially given its ergonomic flexibility.

I tried the Ypsilon MC-16L step-up transformer into one of the Momentum's MM inputs. That produced a different but equally spectacular sonic picture that worked really well, especially for hard rock.

Conclusion: Of the solid-state phono stages I've heard, the Dan D'Agostino Master Audio Systems Momentum Phonostage is the one that most effectively bridges the gap between tubed and solid-state models. For sure, it's expensive, but its industrial design, ergonomic flexibility, build quality—and, of course, the sound—make it, for me, the most enticing solid-state phono preamp I've reviewed.

Gold Note Tuscany Gold low-output moving-coil cartridge
Before reviewing Gold Note's Tuscany Gold—a highly sophisticated, low-output moving-coil cartridge ($8030)—I had its designer, Maurizio Aterini, clarify for me that it is, in fact, made in Florence, Italy (footnote 2), and is not a Japanese-made motor in a cartridge body machined in Italy. However, like many cartridge makers, Aterini does get his stylus/cantilever assemblies from Japan—in this case, an Adamant-Namiki MicroRidge stylus measuring 2.5 by 75µm, in a boron cantilever.

Aterini won't like this part of the review. My skepticism about his cartridge was based on prejudice: His flagship turntable, the Bellagio Conquest, looks way too much like Clearaudio's Statement for my comfort, and, for reasons that make little sense to me, has "the longest platter spindle ever." (I've heard a good argument for a short spindle: less wobble.) And this part won't please Clearaudio's Peter and Robert Suchy: If you're going to copy many of the design elements of a very expensive turntable, why that one?

Gold Note, in business since the early 1990s, has sophisticated manufacturing capabilities and makes a complete line of turntables, tonearms, and other audiophile-quality products. The Tuscany Gold is a bespoke, high-tech cartridge that measured extremely well and provided me with great listening experiences.

The Tuscany Gold weighs 11gm, outputs 0.25mV, has a claimed frequency response of 5Hz–55kHz, an internal impedance of 4 ohms, a compliance of 10×10–6cm/dyne, and channel separation of greater than 35dB. In other words, while its construction includes a number of unique and carefully considered elements, the Tuscany Gold is an in-the-pocket, low-output MC.

The titanium pipe that holds the cantilever is machined to have four spokes, around which are hand-wound microcoils of silver wire, held in place by a Teflon spacer for perfect alignment and high rigidity. The steel suspension wire is held in place by a gold-plated nut in an arrangement that the inelegant translation in Gold Note's literature makes somewhat difficult to understand. The Tuscany Gold's tall, blocky, aluminum-alloy body is, per Gold Note, damped with "strategically" injected fluid polymers. The cantilever is tucked well back of the body's front edge, which makes setting up the Tuscany Gold and cleaning its stylus somewhat difficult.

With the tonearm parallel to the record surface, the Tuscany Gold's stylus rake angle (SRA) measured 91°—a good start. Raising the arm post about 5mm achieved the desired 92°. Maximum channel separation and equal crosstalk between the channels were achieved with the headshell slightly angled from parallel to the record surface—another indicator of high build quality, though I measured a channel separation of 32dB, not the claimed 35dB or more. The former is more typical of the measured results I've seen, compared to the overoptimistic ones often specified by cartridge makers; it's no cause for concern.

With everything else set, and based on my listening to the Tuscany Gold, I ended up using a vertical tracking force (VTF) of 1.9gm. (Gold Note recommends a range of 1.8–2.1gm.) I ran the cartridge into both the Audio Research Reference Phono 3 and the Dan D'Agostino Momentum Phonostage phono preamp.

If you associate Italy with romance, you'll be surprised when you hear the Tuscany Gold. It didn't sound at all on the warm, romantic side—nor, for that matter, on the lean, analytical side. Instead, it was firmly in the zone of tonal neutrality—just where I like cartridges to be—yet had a subtle, speedy richness that gave body and grippy stiction to the well-focused aural images it produced. Its bottom end was fully and firmly extended, and superbly controlled. Its midrange was on the correct side of generous, and notably transparent.

Imaging and soundstaging are what you hope for from an $8030 cartridge. Combine the Tuscany Gold's wide, deep stages and solid, three-dimensional images with its dynamics, which were equal to those of other great cartridges at or near this price, and you have a Class A cartridge easily able to favorably compete with the others in this class. The Gold Note was a good tracker, too, gliding silently through the grooves.

The Tuscany Gold split the difference in bottom-end solidity and weight between Ortofon's Anna ($8924) and A95 ($6499)—a good place to be. It did the same in terms of detail retrieval and tonal color. It had almost the exuberance of the Transfiguration Proteus ($5599), with somewhat greater refinement on top, and the transparency of the Lyra Atlas, though without that cartridge's slam, or the silky refinement of Lyra's Etna SL ($9995).

Overall, Gold Note's Tuscany Gold had a fine, beautifully balanced sound free of gross colorations, and it's well designed and built. Though priced near the top of the heap, it's easily good enough to compete with all of the costly, high-performance cartridges just named. I thoroughly enjoyed the several months I spent listening to it.

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Footnote 2: Gold Note, Akamai S.r.l., Via della Gora, 6, Montespertoli (Florence) 50025, Italy. Tel: (39) 0571-675005. Fax: (39) 0571-675013. Web: www.goldnote.it. US distributor: CoolKyte, 3045 Deakin Street, Unit M, Berkeley, CA 94705. Web: www.coolkyte.com