Turntable in 20 K$ price range - Design & Music

Johnnyb53,
I did not read the whitepaper, seems instructive.

And they have changed approach from:

"We can design and produce arm boards for other tone arms as required by our clients"

Since :

"What we learned was that the Monaco Turntable is fundamentally free of coloration and has proved to be an ideal platform for comparing and evaluating tone arms"

That is what I was expecting, like any high end TT, and different arms have different merits, just enjoying the arm/cartridge combo on the TT is important for many.

Tim

I'm looking for a nice turntable in 20 K$ price range.

There is a nice one available, from Switzerland, DaVinci Audio designed it. It is called "Unison" (I think).

Davidri,
Have neither seen nor heard the Bergmann but on the review that's come across my eyes, and a post or two on here, it seems to be deadly quiet. Do you have experience to the contrary?

I like the SG TTs very much but they are out of my price range. I was pleasantly surprised that the Ayre DPS set-up for which I paid $13.5K was nearly as good to my ears as the nearly twice as expensive SG set-up I also auditioned. And I believe the Ayre DPS qualifies as a "beauty" in terms of both looks and sound. You can configure it with a "better" tonearm and cartridge than I have and easily hit or exceed the $20K price figure. Worth an audition IMHO!

I have lost interest in almost all typical so called high end belt-drive turntables that has platters bigger than my rice cooker. The bigger and heavier approach is bordering on the vulgar these days. Aesthetically the Simon Yorke table is eye candy for me and the VPI HRX is an eyesore to me. There are a few BD tables that, at least, look quite elegant and seem to be well engineered, such as the Brinkmann LaGrange, et al. I am a direct drive kinda guy so all my dream machines are from the golden age of DD tables, ie, late 70's to 80's. But it's nice to see a modern DD design like the Monaco and it's also great to know someone actually here heard one and decided to buy one over the SME, which puts a smile in my face. Now, I just need to hear one for myself!