I have had a visitor staying for a while in my HiFi system, one that turned out to be very welcome.   The visitor is the new Composer - 1 turntable from Art Audio.  Art Audio make some of the finest valve amplification systems on the market but this is their first venture into a front end and, as would be expected from a company of this calibre and a designer like Tom Willis, it is up there with the very, very best.

From a technical point of view, the Composer is a really interesting beast.  As well as the already discussed aluminium chassis and the acetal platter, there is a white version with a clear, acrylic platter.  The bearing itself is pretty special with a shaft made of 420 stainless steel that is hardened to 50 Rockwell.  This is then coated with tin nitride, which brings the hardening to 400 Rockwell.  The bearing is self lubricating, as it uses Oilite phosphor bronze bushes.  One of the things that makes the deck image so well is that mechanical noise from the motors, which is already low, is reduced by 3 neoprene decoupling pods on the top of the sub platter, which has the effect of allowing the platter to float on the mechanism. 

I have been through large amounts of my record collection now, enjoying each disk more than the one before.  The lucidity and coherence that the Composer brings to reproduction is staggering.  I have also tried a number of different cartridges on it to make sure that it isn\'t just a particular synergy between the XL, the Riga and the Turntable that is so good.  I have now tried cartridges such as the AR 77, Shure V15 Mk 3, Koetsu Rosewood Signature and they are all equally impressive, being allowed to work right up to their limits by the Composer.  I look forward to getting an SME base to try my SME IV on the turntable and am looking forward to Art Audio\'s further developments, which are an improved suspension/isolation system and a facility to fit a second or even third arm on the deck.

 Zobacz link i tekst recenzji