Grand Prix Monaco review in new Stereophile- OUCH

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

Raul, I am now forgetting what Mike Fremer actually did, but did he not test both tables with the same tonearm and cartridge? If so, then the only variable was the use of two different stands (assuming also that he took the elementary precaution of using the same interconnect and phono preamp in both cases). So, the deficiency of his review is that (I agree) it would have been nice (and very interesting) if he had tested both tables on the same stand. As he wrote here more than once, he used the GPM stand, because the maker of the GPM table insisted on it. SO, if all the above is true, then one can fairly say that the perceived differences in sonic character between the two tables are valid, for Mike's ears and given the difference in stands. What you are saying is that some tweaking of tonearm/cable/cartridge used on the GPM might alter the sound of the GPM for the better. Who could argue with that? I certainly don't, but that's asking and answering a different question. To me, the Fremer review is a very rare instance where a reviewer actually compared two high end products head to head and gave us the straight poop, in his opinion, whereas in most cases we are fed verbal pablum that tries through metaphor to describe the sound of a piece of gear in isolation. JV of TAS does this all the time; he has a boatload of high end gear in his living room, but when he writes his (usually elegaic) reviews, he typically does not mention how the equipment in question compares to his various references.