Music is magic
Magic it is. And it took the rediscovery of an old format, which stores musical information on a round, black piece of plastic to spring music to life. I grew up with the sound of vinyl, but never really appreciated it as much as my music-loving, record-playing parents.
I was in junior college when CDs replaced vinyl as the preferred format and I thought then that with the CD, technology had finally done music justice. Who would have predicted how wrong that musical path was? Musical fidelity soon suffered big-time, many audiophiles realized.
Vinyl and vacuum tubes, they would later find out, were replaced by the CD and transistors not because they sounded bad, but because they former were more expensive to produce. It was expediency that did in vinyl and vacuum tubes.
Fortunately, a few brave audiophiles refused to embrace the change. Soon enough, vinyl and vacuum tubes reentered the musical landscape. Just like a virulent virus, the analog renaissance swept the world again.
Yes, the magic of music is in the vinyl. While each of your sound components must team up to bring it out, the task of faithfully retrieving musical information lies solely at the tip of your cartridge which scratches the record groove.
A properly set-up cart can raise those goose bumps — especially when you hear an uplifting piece of music — or it can virtually transport you inside the musical wizardry of “Witches’ Brew,” a much-sought-after RCA Victor recording of the New Symphony Orchestra of London, with Alexander Gibson interpreting the works of Mussorgsky, Liszt and Humperdinck, among others.
Now, this record contains minute details that only a top-caliber cartridge unearths. The Swiss-made Benz Micro Glider M2 is up to the task. Immediately out of the box, upon first playback, it astonished me no end. This gadget has the tempo and hustle that blend very well with soothing sonic fidelity throughout the entire frequency range. Its low-mid and sub-low response is dynamic in bringing out the slam in Overture Tam O’Shanter Op. 52.
A timpani strike, for instance, is quite difficult to accurately reproduce, but the Glider exposes the total core with attack and decay that you will not only hear the drum being struck but the reverberating skin after each assault. And when the music segues to smoother passages, the mid range is just as liquid with detail and precision. The highs are revealing, but they remain silky enough not to be overly diagnostic. It’s certainly the best I have heard in years.
The live presentation of Discwasher’s The Good Life is just as captivating to listen to, with the Glider’s masterful separation between instruments and projection of a much wider soundstage. I can’t ask for anything more. For a price a little bit over P50k, the Glider can give the more expensively hyped cartridges a run for their money. Having been coated with gold color, the Glider is quite a looker, too. Its moving coil cantilever assembly is free of body resonances, and sports an open, free-floating (nude) design.
The reason it can give music better definition and transparency is because of its lower moving mass coil with the increased dynamics it draws from a new rear pole piece. The strength and size of its magnet generate higher output level, while its new mirror-polished line contact styli is the one responsible for greater retrieval of musical information. Accurate tracking will never be a problem with its cutting-edge aerospace suspension technology.
Improved imaging is a result of its locking azimuth/suspension mechanism. The Glider has greater signal conductivity, and easier and more precise vertical tracking angle (VTA) adjustments. A boon for audiophiles is the technical improvements being made to an old technology.
Carts, turntables, tone arms, plinth and cables, among others, are now being produced using modern topology and materials — things that weren’t possible before. My parents used to marvel at the sound they were hearing from vinyl. Too bad they are no longer around; they would have been probably thrilled to learn that the analog gear of their generation only barely scratched the surface of the musically magical vinyl.
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