Grand Prix Monaco review in new Stereophile- OUCH

Dear Raul, Please do not take offense, because I think you are a very courteous and very knowledgable person, and I greatly respect your insights. But if you think carefully about what you say, perhaps you can see that you do have a preconceived bias and agenda, just like many of the rest of us. In this case, it seems to me that you are positing that the GPM turntable is in fact inherently lower in distortion than either all belt drive turntables or the Caliburn (I'm not sure which). Once one takes that position, then your statements follow logically. But do you or we know that your basic premise is correct? I suggest that one is always trading one set of distortions for another, when one changes the paradigm, e.g., from belt drive to direct drive or from a tube preamp to a solid-state one.

Dear Lewm: IMHO I think that if everyone of us are testing an audio item ( that we know is a good product ) and we find that it is not performing in the way we are expecting, what normally do any of us?: try to find the whys of that poor performance and try to correct it making changes " here and there " till we achieve the performance target that we know the product can show.
In the Monaco case the minimal changes that we have/must to try ( because of the short comings that MF reviewed )are: load impedance, VTA/SRA, VTF and even a different tonearm and/or phonocable interconnect.
The short comings that MF speaks in his review have to " see " with those parameters changes and maybe " playing " with those changes everything will be right on target.

I don't care about the Monaco but I think for what I read on the MF review and for what he say in this thread that the conclusion of that review was a little on the unfair side for the Monaco and maybe needs a re-review ( or at least a second Stereophile review with a different reviewer in a different audio system ) making some of those changes and other ones.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

heard a rumor about a guy who bought grand prix table at show, now moving up to a walker. believe what you will

Dear Grooves: I know I'm no-one to tell you this ( I'm not the the Stereophile editor in chief!!! ) but IMHO it is almost mandatory a Monaco Stereophile follow-up review where the Monaco " feels " at " home ".

For what I read in your review and for what you already posted I assume that you don't make/do almost nothing for the Monaco wil be/stay " happy " in a more friendly analog audio environment ( I think that every product that you or any reviewer review deserve that and specially with one product/Monaco that show a new " old " technology that is very interesting for the analog Stereophile readers and for the whole audio community. ). Maybe you did but you don't say nothing about.

What do you think?, I ask you and insist about because you are " someone " at the reviewers community and " someone " at the very top level: YOUR OPINION IS CRITICAL AND DELICATE ON THE SUBJECT !!!

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

This is an interesting thread that drives home the fact that vibration control and stand construction material is a key determinant of sonic signature. From reading the review and now Mike's follow up here I wonder what the table would sound like on 2" thick or more maple. I test (mostly) vintage equipment and I have a thing for the big Luxman tables. Unfortunately, without proper stands these tables are two dimensional with the sound stuck on the speakers. You have to build a special platform with a sandwiched elastomer to exploit the big Lux tables. Once you do they are in the same league as the Walker.

Bet this table could benefit from these stands.

Good job, Mike.

Peter