Dave, I am familiar with it at a distance. I don't own one. And the reason I don't own one is that there is unanimous agreement among those that do or did own one that it is inferior to the stock stainless steel platter sheet, in terms of sonics.
I spent 4 hours at the show yesterday. The best thing that happened is that I bought 20 great LPs from one of the vendors for a total of $100. The VPI direct-drive cum 3D printed tonearm was there, but I did not even bother to see them, because I know I cannot judge how they would sound in a totally strange environment. I did however see the new Saskia II, and I had a nice chat with Win Tinnon, who is a great guy and good friend. He is showing it with headphones, using a Schroeder tonearm and a vintage Panasonic strain gauge cartridge which is driven by a Dave Slagle tube-based preamplifier. As Win himself admitted, the problem is that the headphones he was given to use by another company are not that great. I could only marvel at the beauty of the Saskia and the obvious state of the art approach taken by Win. His new controller is quite impressive.
Best vinyl room, or one of the best, was the Robiyatt Audio one with Miyajima cartridges on demo. Their latest mono was in a Gray tonearm on a restored Gray turntable, very very cool. They were using restored Quad 63s, by Electrostatic Solutions. The amps and preamp were new Miyajima products. The Miya phono stage has THREE phono inputs. Seems that manufacturers are getting the message.
