$30,000 Turntable Makes Your LPs Sound Like a Million Bucks

 

Click to Open Overlay GallerySpiral Groove If you’re looking for some exciting high-end audio gear to trick out your weekend bungalow on Maui, you should give the new Spiral Groove turntable a look-see. The new SG1.2 turntable is a redesigned version of the Berkeley, California company’s award-winning SG1.1, a model that came out in 2007. In the world of audio products, “high-end” is code for expensive: Each of the new SG1.2 turntables costs $30,000. If you invested in one of the older SG1.1s a few years ago and you’re feeling burned right now by the shiny new business, take a breath: Spiral Groove will upgrade your SG1.1 with all the new tech for just $6,000. What’s new? The turntable is 20 pounds heavier, with a newly redesigned platter (the part where you place the record) seeing the most dramatic change. More weight was also added to the aluminum main platform of the turntable, and the feet have been retuned (with the new design borrowed from Spiral Groove’sStrange Attractors feet) to provide more vibration damping and isolation. The addition of all that weight and vibration damping is crucial for noiseless playback. Because a stylus vibrates in the groove of a vinyl record to produce noise, any additional vibrations will also be picked up by the needle, muddying up the sound. A heavier (and better-isolated) turntable will vibrate less when you walk around the room or crank up the volume, so the records you play on them will sound better too. One more nice design detail: The tonearm assembly is attached to the body of the turntable by a bayonet mount, and you can pop it off with a push of a button. This lets you keep several tonearms, each pre-balanced and mounted with a unique stylus, at the ready for different styles of music you may want to listen to. So, you can use your Oracle SME V tonearm mounted with a Linn Troika cartridge for your 1971 pressing of Tago Mago, then use your Rega with a Grado Prestige for that copy of The Ramones’ Rocket to Russia you found in the dollar bin.   www.wired.com