Grand Prix Monaco review in new Stereophile- OUCH

Whenever a ground-breaking product comes along, we sometimes have to revaluate our frame of reference, and see if what we are listening to is indeed better, or just different.

I'm like many of you, I read Mikey's column and do believe he's telling it as it is, in the context of his system. For that I do appreciate his consistency and minimum standards which Stereophile maintains.

In this particular instances, you have one TT which is DD and the other a belt drive. The comparison was done with the same equipment, same arm/carts and the conclusion was that the Monaco was thin sounding in comparison with the Caliburn.

Certainly the one key thing about the Monaco is its touted speed accuracy. I'm a little perturbed that no mention was made of this parameter in comparison to the Caliburn, since this is one of the Monaco's key selling points. So is it indeed more accurate than the Caliburn or not? I disagree with the assertion that speed accuracy and consistency is not an important criteria for a TT, let alone one that costs over $20k or 4x that amount.

Certainly if one is more accurate, it would extract more detail and/or possess the more correct presentation of the music. This is fundamental to good analog playback.

If you agree that the more accurate TT is presenting the music correctly, then the next obvious thing is to build up the rest of the system around its strengths - base, arm and cart/phono which are complimentary/sympathetic to the TT. Unless you evaluate the piece of equipment with the best matching anciliaries, how would you know what is its performance envelope? Here I agree with Raul, that perhaps the tables (pun intended) were stacked in the Caliburn's favour, the outcome was therefore obvious.

Where then does this leave the potential customer who's looking for a state of the art analog playback system? If you accept Mikey's conclusion and write off the Monaco, I think you missed the point completely. Go listen to both tables and gain an appreciation of what each has to offer, listen for its "sound", and choose the one which ultimately matches your system and musical preferences. Its all about getting the right "mix". At this level and price point, the balance can easily tilt either way.

Mikey, thanks for bringing these new technologies to our attention and giving us your honest opinions on their sound, and more importantly, the context of your review!

Dear Downunder: +++++ " YOu don't need to agree with the final outcome of what MF says " ++++

That was not the point and my subject, you really miss it:

+++++ " . Yes, IMHO MF had to tweaked the whole Monaco set-up and ( for what I read and for what he already say ) he did not: I wonder why????????, totally unfair " +++++ and

+++++ " What I'm saying ( please read again carefully what I posted )is that if any one is comparing/testing two different TT's surrounded for the same around analog rig: tonearm/cartridge/cables/phonolinepreamp, etc etc, we must try to make an individual set-up to achieve the best performance on both TT's: VTA/SRA/VTF/load impedance ( compare apples against apples and not apples against oranges. )" ++++

I'm not against MF, I read him every single month and in one way or other I enjoy it and no I don't agree always with his statements. I respect him like a person and I respect his unvaluable analog audio experiences where in some way or other almost all of us were/are learning something always.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

the problem as i see it, Raul, you are suggesting MF should have "tweeked" the Monaco to compete with what ever it is being compared to. the problem with that is, who better then the designer to know what sounds best with their product. if other cables, cart. or arm were entered in to the review or the same one in the compared setup you would complain they weren't the correct tweeks(arm, cart. cables stand/rack etc.). who better then the designer to deside what sounds best with his/her design,in the end it's his/her ear you are listening to. I have a little different aproach. I subsribe to the idea that every part(tt, cables, amp, pre-amp, phono etc.) should add to the whole and be able to stand on it's own. meaning, if any new component is entered in to a system it should make a positive improvement(tube or solidstate) whether it brings out the bad in another component or makes the sysem as a whole sound better. i understand synergy and except it's importants, but like children all components MUST be able to play together.

Dear Koegz: I think we are talking on the same subject/approach with very little differences.

I almost agree with you that in theory the designer should be the right person to know about but we have here the Guru of the analog gurus ( and this statement does not means that he has no errors: he is human like any one else. ) that IMHO and with all respect to everyone in many ways knows/experience a little more on some ways that the designers it self.

+++++ " I subsribe to the idea that every part(tt, cables, amp, pre-amp, phono etc.) should add to the whole and be able to stand on it's own " +++++

the critical word here is " add " because many times that component add good " things " and other times add bad/wrong " things or ( like you say ) brings out the bad on other components.
In anyway we have to make a FINE TUNE set-up to find the wrong component(s ), to find why the new component it is not performing like we are expecting and fine tune it ( tweaked ) to find if with this fine tune that component is up to the task. I think that when you add your Talon subwoofer in your audio system you make some fine tune about, right?

+++++ " all components MUST be able to play together. " +++++
I totally agree with you, only add with/in synergy.

Achieve this target is very complex because there are many different parameters in an audio system ( including room ): if we change the VTA or the cartridge load impedance ( examples ) almost everything change for the good or bad and that's why I think that every single link in the audio chain must be fine tuned to obtain what anyone of us are looking for in our individual audio systems that in my case is to be nearer to the recording and live event.

Well, what I'm saying is that in this time MF does not fine tune his audio system for the Monaco and I ask him again: WHY????? Because he is comparing it to his Caliburn that is totally fine tuned in his audio system!!!!!!!! , got my subject?

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

agree and disagree. assuming MF system sounds as good as he claims it does(i believe that, that is a given)and all the parts are of high quality state of the art components(i am sure they are), changing one component should not be the direct cause of the system to sound bad(the extreme) unless it has flaws. an example maybe to compare a porsche 911 to a corvette. they both do the same thing but if i were to say that the porsche beats out the corvette in everyway(and it does) in a test drive you would argue that the porsche was tweeked(even though we are talking stock cars) better then the corvette or that the track was set to posche's favor. these aguments don't hold water, would you argue the porsche has better tires or a better clutch. would you swap parts to try to improve? of corse not. IT IS THE SUM OF IT'S PARTS AND HOW THEY ARE CONECTED THAT MAKES ANY COMPONENT WHAT IT IS, THEY ARE CHOSEN BY THE DESIGNER. you can tweek a SYSTEM but in the end a component is what it is..... i do enjoy the music