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Blame the Puritans! say I. The high end has always had an ostinato accompaniment of grumbles from those who appear to feel that it is immoral to want to listen to music with as high a quality as possible. In a recent letter, for example, Fanfare and Stereo Review contributor and author Howard Ferstler states that "the audio world has more products of bogus quality and shills promoting them than any other industry, bar none," and trots out the old saw that audiophiles "end up spending an excessive amount of money on equipment or tweaking techniques of surprisingly dubious quality."
The Oracle Delphi Mk.II ($1250) is both a turntable and work of art. It is a visually stunning product, retaining a level of styling that, in my view, has never been equalled by any other audio component. It also adds enough sonic improvements to the original Delphi that it ranks close to the VPI HW-19, and is superior, in naturalness of sound quality, to the SOTA Star Sapphire.
These improvements include much easier setup procedures (although far more fuss and bother than the SOTAs and VPI), and a better motor, suspension, and top plate. Earlier Delphi motors were noisy or had…
Thomas J. Norton wrote about the Delphi Mk.IV in August 1991 (Vol.14 No.8):
"What am I going to use for a lead?" I wondered, seated in the dentist's chair, a lead apron squashing my vitals. I was doing my best to forget where I was—and what that implied for the immediate future—by mulling over the review I was about to commit to floppy disc.
"Smile," I could swear I heard the dentist say. Easy for him—he wasn't biting down on a medieval oral torture device. The X-ray machine buzzed, the dentist emerged from behind his 3'-thick lead- and concrete-reinforced bunker to survey the…
Solution: contact Graham Engineering. Bob Graham modified Oracle's SME mounting plate (which uses the same cutout as his arm) by providing additional threaded holes in the bottom of the plate to accept the arm mounting bolts. He also furnished the longer arm bolts needed to reach these threaded holes. Now both halves of the plate could be fastened to the subchassis first, following which the arm could be mounted on the top plate. (Oracle is now able to provide mounting plates suitable for the Graham arm.) I should also make one other note concerning the Graham arm on the Oracle. Those who…
All of the critical auditioning was done using the optional Turbo power supply. According to Oracle, the major difference between this and the standard supply is improved filtering in the more expensive unit to improve isolation from the power line. Toward the end of the evaluation process, I conducted comparisons between the two supplies; they were very close. The differences were definitely not night-and-day, and even with the standard supply I feel that my observations on the Oracle's sound would have been virtually the same. The longer I listened, though, the more I felt that the Turbo…
But with almost any other turntable, a reviewer is really commenting on the sound of the turntable under review as partnered with his or her choice of arm and cartridge. The only approach has to be that of trying several different but limited combinations, then attempting the perilous leap from the particular to the general.
In any event, I felt I had a pretty good handle on the Delphi Mk.IV at this point—while remembering the realities observed in the previous paragraph. However, I still wanted to see how it compared with at least one other highly rated turntable. My first choice was…
Michael Fremer wrote about the Delphi Mk.V in December 1997 (Vol.20 No.12):
You always remember your first one. For me it was an Oracle Delphi turntable back in 1982. I'd gone to Christopher Hansen's in LA to buy a brand-new one, but as luck would have it, a barely used one had just been traded in by film director Roger Corman's son, and I was able to get the Delphi/Magnepan unipivot tonearm combo for a few hundred dollars less than the cost of a new 'table. My first exposure to a wobbly-armed unipivot gave me the creeps, but the deal was too good to pass up.
My LP…
Over the years, the original Oracle has been modified and improved many times, but the basic design remains unchanged—so much so that the subchassis of the original Oracle will fit perfectly on the spring towers of the latest version. Whereas the original Oracle featured an AC motor, the Delphi that I owned used a square, black, "Hall effect" DC drive system. Oracle built 1500 of these. On the Delphi Mk.II, Oracle substituted a round Pabst motor similar to what ReVox used as a capstan drive on its famous A-77 open-reel tape deck. A few thousand Mk.IIs were built. Between 1986 and the demise…
Sidebar: Specifications
Description: Belt-drive turntable. Speeds: 331/3 & 45 rpm. Built-in drive electronics; electronically controlled speed adjustment (±5%). Finish: silver and black (other finishes available at extra cost). Power supply: outboard, 18V DC (18V DC Turbo supply).
Dimensions: 20" W by 15" D by 5.5" H (w/o arm). Weight: 28 lbs.
Prices: $1250 (1986); $1995 (silver finish, standard power supply), Turbo power supply optional at an additional $450 (1991); $2775 plus $550 for the Turbo supply (1997); $4700–$5650 (2008). Approximate number of dealers: 40.
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We continue the search for the successor to Fried's Q loudspeaker of yore. Renaissance Audio is the former Morel USA, so they have a long track record in both OEM driver manufacture and making complete loudspeakers. As I mentioned in my June column, their MLP-403.5 loudspeaker is a two-cubic-foot, sealed-box three-way with a dome midrange driver, at the near-improbable price of $1090/pair (footnote 1).
The first two pairs of review samples were damaged in shipping. Both boxes (two speakers in one box) were dropped with enough force to shear off the pins that secure the grilles,…