I'm late as hell coming to this party, so whatever I say may not be seen by anyone who might care. I am motivated to write as an actual owner and user of an ELP who feels that this product has received far more negativity than it deserves. In my 1 1/2 years of experience with the ELP, I'd have to say that Useridchallenged has done a very fine job of defining the ELPs strengths and weaknesses, so any differences between his overall assessment and my own would have to be attributed more to personal taste and values rather than actual performance.
One gentleman wrote that he had two friends who sent their LTs back after a few weeks of ownership. I can relate, as when I first got mine I thought it sounded like it was missing something. It just wasn't as lively, and the sense of instrumental resonance and hall ambience seemed subdued. As time passed, two things happened: The LT improved with age, and I gradually began to realize that the missing information was not actual recorded information, but rather mechanical and resonant colorations that are inherent in all but the the finest of LP playback systems. I had become so used to these "distortions" in 30 years of LP playback that I had accepted them as musical qualities. That said, as a frequent attendee of live orchestral works, I do concur that the preceived dynamics of the LT are somewhat less than that perceived with conventional playback and, most assuredly, live music. For whatever reasons, I have observed that room temperature as well as time turned on have a noticeable effect on the perception of dynamics (a cold room seems to lessen dynamics). Nonetheless, I find the performance of the ELP to be compelling.
VOCALS
As Useridchallenged noted, there is a "rightness" to the sound of the LT, and recordings of the human voice reveal this attribute is spades. Vocals are rendered with greater ease and naturalness than I have ever heard from mechanical stylus playback. If you don't like the sound of vocals on the LT, its because you either have a record compromised from prior stylus wear or a bad recording/pressing. In fact, that could be said regarding most other aspects of reproduction as well. In my collection, worn records sound worse when played on the LT than when played on a standard turntable, but well-pressed new records are rendered with great realism (provided the recording possessed realism). This brings up another most important point.
NOISE
The LT has been bashed by everyone for noise. Unfortunately, there is no free lunch with the LT. The laser tracks everything, thus the superb detail retreival and resolution noted by Useridchallenged. Consequently, even the tiniest dust particle is "read" as information. A large particle might have the impact of a cannon shot. A stylus, by virtue of its size, will likely glide by the finest of particles never to be deflected by their presence. Thus stylus playback tends to be quieter, but at the expense of detail retrieval and resolution. I have found the Loricraft record cleaning machine to be an absolutely essential accessory. Some records are stubborn about coming clean, but repeated cleanings continues to lower the noise floor on even the worst offenders.
LINEARITY
One of the greatest joys is hearing instruments sound, both harmonically and in timbre, more like live instruments. If there are frequency response abberations with the LT, they have escaped me. In my many years of standard turntable/arm/cartridge playback, I could never say that about any arm/cartridge combination I ever owned. For this reason, I am completely perplexed by JV's comments in TAS as I find almost every record to sound quite different from the next. Admittedly, however, I don't have a Rockport or a Walker to make the comparison with.
I find it interesting that so many want to compare the ELP to State-of-the-Art turntable/arm/cartridge combinations that sell for 2 to 4 times the cost of the ELP, and then declare that the ELP is not ready for prime time. This is the turntable that audiophiles love to hate, and I'm afraid the reasons are diverse.
A real turntable has sex appeal, with bright chrome pieces, a massive, thick platter, exotic suspension and an exposed isolated motor--the LT looks like some old Laser Disc player out of the 70's or 80's. A real turntable has a sleek highly engineered tonearm that the user can tweak and adjust to his/her personal satisfaction of knowing that every aspect of alignment and playback has been personally optimized--an LT requres a weekly calibration with a calibration record that adjusts and optimizes playback parameters in 30 to 45 seconds. A real turntable can be made to sound however the owner wants it to sound by changing the cartridge or the arm/cartridge combination--an LT will sound the same everytime you play it unless you change the record. A real turntable both allows and requires a personal investment of the owner's time and reflects the owner's expertise in setup and pride of ownership, not to mention the owner's bias in sound--an LT doesn't allow the owner to introduce his own bias or taste into the reproduced sonic landscape. The damned thing can't possibly sound good because it sounds different from that sound which the audiophile has spent many personal hours and dollars to achieve. Lest you think I know not of what I speak, I've had many years of experience in dealing with the psychology of an audiophile--namely, myself, and I can assure you that all I have mentioned plays a role in what we hear.
IMHO, the ELP represents a tremendous value for vinyl playback. It isn't perfect, but I enjoy LP playback more today than ever before. I no longer avoid playing my favorite LPs out of fear of record wear, and it makes my near state-of-the-art digital playback sound artificial, mechanical and contrived by comparison. I no longer worry about wearing a stylus or bending a cantilever and I don't have the worry of having to spend $2K to $5K every year or two to either replace my worn cartridge or to purchase the latest and greatest whiz-bang cartridge whose cantilever is coated in non-resonant fairy dust and whose stylus is lower in mass than a flea's fart. And, for what it's worth, I have had no operational problems that have required repair or a return to the manufacturer.
I cannot explain JV's impressions of the LT other than perhaps his own bias towards the sound of his existing playback setup. As Useridchallenged expressed, the sound of the LT is different from conventional playback, but I don't consider either one to be overall superior to the other. That my personal biases place greater value on those areas of reproduction where the LT shines makes me a happy camper. Your mileage may vary.
