Grand Prix Monaco review in new Stereophile- OUCH


Anyone read Fremer's review of the Grand Prix Monaco in the latest Stereophile?

Ouch that has to hurt. I am familar with the design of this table, and of course on paper it seems groundbreaking, but if I were in the market for a $20K table, (I'm not) this review would completely kill my interest in this seemingly stellar product.

Any other opinions?

(actually this is a great issue of Stereophile - lots of gear I am intersted in)
emailists
I used the same technique to measure both my stand and the Grand Prix stand. If what you're saying is true, I should have gotten similar results. I didn't. In fact they couldn't have been more different. I repeated numerous times. You may work in this field but you're not thinking particularly straight. i compared apples to apples....
Raul, This is getting to be fun. According to what you wrote above in response to my last response, a reviewer should take into account that one preamp contains different values and brands of capacitors and resistors and circuit topology than another, if he were to be comparing preamplifiers. Moreover, he should be willing to replace parts and alter the circuit of the (in his opinion) inferior sounding product, to see if it can be made to sound better. The essence of audio reviewing is to take the product that the manufacturer puts out there and listen to it as is. The GPM and the Caliburn are both record players, period. For all his faults, HP got this part right 30 years ago when he started TAS. Raul, we should discuss this over a couple of Coronas.

I quite agree with Grooves re the innovative nature of the GPM, or lack of same. Wonderful as the product may be, it is a direct-drive turntable made with a lot of carbon fiber parts. We've seen this before, although maybe not in the same place. The most novel aspects of the GPM appears to be the motor and its speed control and the incredibly high quality of execution.
Lewm has it right. The Monaco is a very well executed dd turntable that uses a 12 pole Hall sensor commutated motor. Nothing unique there. What is unique is the use of sinewave commutation as opposed to square wave commutation. This used to be extremely expensive, but clearly the price has dropped. Mr. Lloyd's design is elegant and brilliantly executed using high quality parts and superb machining and construction. I don't think I could have been more lavish in my praise of that aspect of the design and execution. However, just as spring suspended designs and mass loaded designs, and belt drive designs have sonic signatures, so do dd turntables. Back when the original Technics dd designs were issued, they too claimed speed perfection and the measurements available then demonstrated that was true. However, the 'hunt and peck' aspect of the servo system, which was always correcting and overcorrecting in the process of producing "speed perfection," produced a brightness and a discomfort that brought about the "belt drive" revolution of the Linn LP12. Belt drives (mostly) have problems that cause wow and flutter, but these are less perceptible as it turns out, than the high speed constant corrections of those old dd turntables. The Monaco design goes to great lengths to deal with the issues of Hall sensor torquing, and all of the other problems associated with dd motors where the platter is literally part of the motor, just as the Caliburn design has gone to great lengths to deal with the known issues of belt drive designs. Neither acheives perfection and both have sonic attributes. I stick by my sonic description of the Monaco both good (superb rhythmic-pacing performance and outstanding bass) and less good (a dry or tight quality in the midrange with a loss of low level detail and harmonic development) compared to the best belt designs. Which one prefers is always a matter of taste and as long as one understands the sonic character, one can better choose a complimentary cartridge and phono preamp. This is true of every audio product. The Monaco "white paper" claimed "neutrality" and colorlessness for the turntable. Sorry. I don't buy that there or with any other audio product I have ever encountered in more than 20 years of doing this. The review should no more discourage any interested parties from considering the Monaco than the review of the Merrill, which said that the bass was not as tight, extended and well controlled as the Monaco, should discourage audiophiles from considering that 'table. The rest of the blather here really is pretty foolish in my opinion and not worth the cyberspace it takes up.
Dear lewm: Don't be so " extreme ". All I'm saying is that when we change a componnent we have to made a " fine tunning ": that's all.

Come to Mexico and be my guest for the Coronas!!!

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.
Dear grooves: Of course that I know that you know how to make a TT/tonearm/cartridge set-up ( you have a DVD about. Btw, very good one. ).

The point is that you don't mentioned nothing about specially on load impedance and VTA. So, now I understand that you use the same load impedance with both set-ups, is ok for me don't problem: no one knows better your system that you.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.