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Everyone's got their prejudices, and mine are against turntables with box-like plinths and big slabs of undamped acrylic. I have no problem with either in models that cost a few grand or less, but once you get into high-priced terrain, less plinth and less acrylic usually yields better performance. Generally, though, all a plinth gets you is a vibrating surface to transmit or store and release energy. Who needs that? If your high-performance 'table has a plinth, you need to heroically damp it the way SME does in its Model 30, and the way Rockport did in its System III Sirius.
A Balanced sound
Leaving aside the Rockport System III Sirius, which is in a class by itself, the only competition in my experience for the Brinkmann's sonic performance, aside from my reference Simon Yorke S7, are the SME 30/SME V, the Avid Acutus, and the Kuzma Stabi Reference. However, the Brinkmann's mass-loaded system was unchallenged in bass performance. I had never experienced such fundamentally correct, deep, tight, articulate, yet delicate bottom-end performance from any turntable, including, perhaps, the Rockport. As the Yorke shattered my then reference VPI TNT back in 1998,…
Leaving aside the Rockport System III Sirius, which is in a class by itself, the only competition in my experience for the Brinkmann's sonic performance, aside from my reference Simon Yorke S7, are the SME 30/SME V, the Avid Acutus, and the Kuzma Stabi Reference. However, the Brinkmann's mass-loaded system was unchallenged in bass performance. I had never experienced such fundamentally correct, deep, tight, articulate, yet delicate bottom-end performance from any turntable, including, perhaps, the Rockport. As the Yorke shattered my then reference VPI TNT back in 1998,…
Follow-Up from April 2012 (Vol.35 No.4):
The Brinkmann Balance epitomized elegance in turntable design when it was introduced more than 25 years ago, and it still does. With its understated architecture, compact and carefully considered shape, and jewel-like fit'n'finish, the maximum-mass, minimal-plinth Balance looks as good as it sounds—and its sound is, in my experience, still near the top of the turntable hill. (I reviewed the Balance in May 2005, Vol.28 No.5, and the less-expensive Brinkmann Bardo turntable in May 2011.) The Balance has been recently upgraded, with a new motor built…
Sidebar: Specifications
Description: Belt-drive turntable.
Prices: Brinkmann Balance turntable with extended armboard, $24,700; 12.1 tonearm, $7500; EMT-Ti cartridge, $4300; RöNt tubed power supply, $4300.
Manufacturer: Brinkmann Audio GmbH, Im Himmelreich 13, 88147 Achberg, Germany. Tel: (49) 8380-981195. Fax: (49) 8380-981233. Web: www.brinkmann-audio.com. US distributor: Brinkmann USA (2005); On a Higher Note LLC (2012), PO Box 698, San Juan Capistrano, CA 92693. Tel: (949) 488-3004. Fax: (949) 488-3284. Web: www.onahighernote.com.
Bryston describes its SP-3 ($9500) as comprising a true analog preamp plus a full-featured multichannel digital audio processor, and claims that none of those functions compromises any of the others. That statement is a slight modification of the sentence that began my September 2006 review of the SP-3's predecessor, the SP2. It is indicative of the enduring philosophy of the manufacturer that, in the more than five years since, Bryston has worked to create a new pre-pro that fully reflects new developments in audio and video but without compromising analogquality. Audio is extracted from an…
Through the Bryston's analog stereo inputs the sound was absolutely pristine, powerful, and a breath of fresh air. My regular reference discs provided a spacious and stable soundstage with good depth and balance. The SP-3 sounded full and rich, while imposing no undue warmth on the music. I had expected otherwise—my memory and notes told me that the SP2 had a clean but moderately lean tonal balance—so I was greatly surprised and pleased. Indeed, although I did no direct A/B comparisons between the SP-3 and the Parasound Halo JC 2, which sat below it on the rack, my overall impression was…
Sidebar: Contacts
Bryston Ltd. PO Box 2170, 677 Neal Drive, Peterborough, Ontario K9J 6X7, Canada. Tel: (800) 632-8217, (705) 742-5325. Fax: (705) 742-0882. Web: bryston.com.
XTZ AB, Gamla Nissastigen 19, 314 41 Torup, Sweden. Tel: (46) (0)345-20049. Fax: (46) (0)345-20800. Web: www.xtz.se. US distributor: XTZ Sound in Balance USA, Inc., 1298 Lakeview Drive, Romoeoville, IL 60446. Te;" (630) 441-2580. Web: www.xtzsound.com.
And now for two soundtrack albums, Chico & Rita and Pina: the first explicitly jazz, the other prancing all around its borders, both completely captivating.
Chico & Rita is an extremely stirring animation movie about the flustered-then-redeemed romance between a Cuban pianist and singer (Chico & Rita) against the backdrop of Havana and New York City in the late '40s to early '60s, all evocatively captured, not just in the era's looks but also—unsentimentally—its feel.
Bebo Valdes, the great 81-year-old Cuban pianist, plays on the soundtrack (the movie and the album).…
If any single voice was synonymous with the flowering of the LP era, it was that of German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. The great artist's death at his home in Bavaria on Friday, May 18, 10 days short of his 87th birthday, sets the final seal on an age in which art song, oratorio, and opera received equal respect from record companies and the listening public.
Equally adept at all three disciplines, Fischer-Dieskau became perhaps the most recorded baritone in history. There was a period in which nary a month went by without another LP from Fischer-Dieskau on which he sang either…
HiFi-Tuning Supreme Fuse, May 2012 (Vol.35 No.5):
This follow-up review owes its existence—at least in part—to a posting in a forum at www.stereophile.com. Commenting on Stephen Mejias's review of NAD's C 316BEE integrated amplifier in the July 2011 issue, forum contributor and Stereophile reader "dlb" wrote that the substitution of a HiFi-Tuning Supreme fuse and MIT jumpers had transformed his own NAD C375BEE from a great-value integrated into "the amp of his dreams." I had previously commented favorably on the original HiFi-Tuning fuses, in a sidebar to my review of Onkyo's A-9555…