Hi Rwd
Yes, its their latest stab at the SOTA of turntable playback. There are 2 models, just simply called no1 and no2, no2 being their top of the line, which is the one I got.
I bought the Scheu unseen/unheard, only through the pictures and descriptions of the dealer in Singapore and what he could gather from German designer's attempt to translate some musical feature from German to English. Obviously something got lost in the process. Nevertheless, the benchmark for comparison was their Premier model, so I had no reason to doubt it was going to sound better. The question was - how much better?
Now as to whether a suspension or a suspensionless table would be better - I did hear their Premier model(grandfather if you will) and the children, the Teres and Galibier (missed the Redpoint though), at the RMAF'05 and at Thom's lovely home. My experiences with the rigid/high mass school left me with no doubt that these designs were superior to any suspension-based design. As to which to get, I was leaning towards the Galibier, but the previous models were above my budget, besides considerations on support due to distance. My attempts to contact Teres were all unsuccessful and the tables at the RMAF left me disappointed.
Then Scheu came up with these what'd-you-call-it? DL tables and the design of the No2 appealed to me. I decided to pull the trigger on this as my Kuzma Stabi('97) was showing signs of aging. I had heard their Reference model - which was highly raved by the hi-fi press and it certainly is a great table - the design is one of the most elegant ways of implementing a suspension on a rigid plinth. Nevertheless it still had a suspension and a rubber belt and a hefty price tag to go along.
After a couple of days of living with the Scheu No2, I can safely say it is a significant upgrade over anything I've heard so far - with the exception of the Rockport. As the design was based on an acrylic platter, I had expected it to be a little "dead" sounding in the mids - a typical criticism of acrylic. However the reality was surprisingly the opposite. In combination with the Mystic Mat, the mids are fleshed out even more accurately than any suspension based design. As expected of high mass designs, the bass tightened up tremendously, both in terms of tonal accuracy and weight. Dynamics took a quantum leap, this table being very quiet. The sense of pace/speed was also enhanced now with the string belt as opposed to a rubber belt. A most important aspect often overlooked by some tables, is scale. On the Scheu, the images are big/full/life-sized, not cardboard cutouts.
I just re-listened to Holly Cole's "Don't Smoke in Bed" and now realise what the Trio were doing to make music - on one of the tracks, the pianist was plucking the strings of the piano, and on another track, he was tapping on the piano's woodwork. Things which I hadn't noticed/heard before. Impressive, truely impressive indeed!
