Turntables, Arms & Cartridges

Michell Engineering GyroDec SE Full spring suspension and a competitive performance makes the Michell a strong contender. . . This deck is relatively unusual these days in that it includes a full spring suspension, which in turn is rare in using springs in tension rather than compression.

Clearaudio Performance SE This turntable’s simplicity belies some refined engineering technology and a performance to match The latest incarnation of the Clearaudio Performance is a more substantial turntable than it looks, thanks to a plinth that’s made from a sandwich of aluminium and HDF. You can’t see the highdensity fi breboard because it is framed by the natural coloured aluminium in the sandwich, but it performs the critical task of damping any resonance that manages to get through the three adjustable feet beneath it. The platter is a 40mm slab of acrylic that sits on a ceramic magnetic bearing, the shaft of which has been polished to an even higher degree than on the original Performance. The magnetic suspension means that the ceramic shaft doesn’t need a ball bearing or thrust pad to take the weight of the platter, which should reduce noise from this critical component quite considerably.

Roksan Xerxes. 20plus A highly refined and beautifully finished design, the Xerxes. 20plus has its own distinctive approach to musical nirvana The 20plus is a considerable refinement of the original Xerxes design. It is far better finished and thought out, but the essential principles remain the same.

Pro-Ject RPM10. 1 Despite its low price, the RPM10. 1 has more features than most, including a carbon-fibre tonearm We looked at the RPM10. 1 back in HFC 348 and found a lot to like in its high-mass, magnetically isolated design.

Are you Xperienced? Pro-Ject has added a unipivot to its Xperience turntable. Ed Selley cues up Pro-Ject seems intent on creating a turntable to suit absolutely everybody and its range is expanding on a seemingly daily basis. The classic decks, of which the entry-level 2-Xperience Basic+ is now a part, sits somewhere above the Essential and Debut ranges and runs parallel to the RPM series. Beefed up The deck itself looks more like a beefed-up Debut, than a member of the RPM series.

Tiny Temper Die-hard LP12 fans have found a new haven in Well Tempered. Jason Kennedy looks at the entry-level Simplex, complete with silicone damping There are some radical turntable designs in the glorious world of analogue audio, but very few comparable to a Well Tempered product. The Simplex was first developed in the early eighties and this new entry-level turntable is still the least expensive in the Well Tempered range. The design, unlike all other turntables, doesn’t have mechanical arm bearings; instead the arm pivots on a silicone-damped golf ball that hangs from a nylon filament thread.

Pro-Ject Xperience 2 Pack Brand new acrylic turntable combines Pro-Ject’s impressive credentials with a top-quality hi-fi performance Acrylic is not actually the perfect material for turntables, but it’s a good one. It is reasonably stable dimensionally, not very resonant, quite tough and, of course, capable of being polished to a very high standard of finish. In this case, it is supported on three very slightly compliant feet, adjustable to set the deck level, which are the only suspension in the design. Across to the left is the motor, a low-voltage AC type which is fed from a simple wall wart supply and which drives the outside of the platter via a square- section belt.