Continuum Caliburn - really the best TT on earth?

yesterday i spent 30 minutes or so at CES listening to the Caliburn. it had an Air Tight Supreme mounted, playing thru ARC electronics.

i've listened to the Caliburn 3 other times at shows but never had a true sense of what it's character was compared to my impression of my Rockport. it seemed in the past that i was always listening thru other gear and so could not get a handle on things.

anyone who thinks that the Caliburn is the best tt is certainlly justified. i think it does dig more information from the gooves than the Rockport. there is a remarkable amount of musical (not just stuff) info that is easy to hear. OTOH i think the Rockport has more forward propulsion and continousness, has a greater feeling of solidity and ease, and maybe, just maybe, darker backgrounds.

all these differences between the 2 tt's are not huge, but it's easy to hear when both speak so clearly.

i can think of a few potential reasons for the differences but the 'why' is not really important. i don't have a hankering to sell the Rockport to buy a Caliburn. but i'd love to own both if i could possibly afford it. since it is a current product it's nice to know that at least it's a choice. the Caliburn is a fantastic tt and all us vinyl lovers are better off that it exists.

great report Mike, did you have the chance to audit the Caliburn playing with the Wilson loudspeakers?

Dear halcro: Certainly a 100K+ TT has to perform different ( for the better I hope. ) " per se " but certainly too the Cobra has a weight on that performance, obviously in a lower way that the TT it self.

Maybe could be interesting to test the Caliburn with out its dedicated rack-stand and with out the Cobra to find out or to be nearest to the stand alone real TT quality performance.
I know that the Caliburn quality performance comes as a package, I just wondering.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

Dear breuninger: Is that a Goldbug cartridge?, that's a very nice vintage LOMC, one of the few MC's that still like me.

Very nice too your whole music room, congratulations!

regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

Dear Mike: Do you already listen your Rockport over the same " environment " like the one you heard the Caliburn?.

Maybe the Caliburn is the best TT's out there and I'm not questioning this but what I'm wondering is how you arrive to that Caliburn statement when you heard it in a totally different audio system than the one you own. Do you think that if you hear your Rockport in that same system can the differences still/be the same?

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.