Is the Townshend Rock 7 "the" giant killer?

My friend Larry Weinstein (Hollywood Sound's owner and audiophile guru for more than 3 decades) always has in display both the WT Amadeus and the Rock 7 in his listening room with Lyra carts driven by RA Hera, Zeus, and Ares and connected to his "all time" pair of favorite monitor speakers, the unassuming Spiral Groove Canalis Anima.

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not to take anything away from the WTA which has very strong merits and I could very easily live with it but with the Rock 7, well........I have never experienced a more capable TT under $10,000.00.

The Rock 7 delivers eminent resolve, musicality, openness, and depth in spades!!!!

Trully amazing TT when set up properly and paired with state of the art ancillary equipment. To my ears, a giant killer indeed.

Perhaps at the expense of more confusion, Larry is now the distributor for Nott. It would be interesting to get his most recent thoughts.

I have a Rock because it is THE table for the Decca/London cartridge. I feel a system should be assembled from the two ends towards the middle. I sometimes see a guy looking for a speaker to go with his amp, or a cartridge to go with his arm. Transducers first, and I don't care what Ivor says!

Bdp24- How is it to live with from an ease of use standpoint. I did hear from previous owner , that it was not quite a SET AND FORGET table. He found it had some idiosyncratic tendencies he could not live with. He had a version 7 with a Helius arm. He did not go in to detail. Sonically, he thought it was outstanding.

The Rock just requires one extra step in playing an LP---swinging the trough over the record, which is no big deal. The concern people have about the damping fluid in the trough spilling onto an LP is unwarranted---it's very thick and gooey, not thin and watery, so doesn't "slosh" out of the trough. The "paddle" (it's actually a hollow tube) that is submerged in the goo never leaves the trough, so it doesn't drip any goo onto LPs.

Ergonomically, the biggest inconvenience of the trough is it's being in the way of the stylus for 1- cleaning it, and 2- visually cueing it to a mid-LP groove (the beginning of a song in the middle of an LP side), which I rarely do.

If you really want to have damping in a pick-up arm (almost mandatory with Decca/London cartridges IMO), the headshell is the most efficient and effective place for it. I've read that the research and development of the original Cransfield Rock was predicated on it's use specifically with the Decca cartridges of the time, and it's design was influenced by the needs endemic to the cartridge. But what is good for Deccas/Londons is also good for other low-compliance cartridges.

As for not being a set & forget record player, sure, it's not like, say, a Rega. But neither is any other high-performance table; think about what owners/users of the Eminent Technology linear-tracking arm have to go through to maintain that arm's performance. In comparison to an ET, the Rock is a breeze!