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Stitch wrote:

Romy the Cat wrote: Epigraph "…just buy a used Micro Seiki and don’t worry about turntables anymore; built like a tank and sounds better than TTs costing over 30K USD.” Mr. Ikeda, of Ikeda / Fidelity Research The Main bitching   It amasses me how the preoccupation of the analogs people with their turntables has practically no relation to the actual sonic result that those turntables are capable off and practically entirely depends from the blown up intellectual things that have no or little  relation to actual sound of those turntables ... Rgs. Romy the Cat That article was written 2006 and the first time when I read it, it was like a wake up call. That is (and will be forever) the Analog Manifest. Never was written something better about modern Audiophilia.  After all these years, I have to say "Thank you" for that. And coming back to our modern times, The Seiki is back again in new, it is called Air Force One and it is a technical copy from Seiki 8000 II with only 2 minor changes (obviously after 20+ years, it has an active speed controller and 3 platters the buyer can choose - of course, the brainless blubber is alive again, it is depending what "sound" the buyer prefers -.....). Available for 85000 USD and now it is taken seriously. That's the only language Analog Audiophiles understand :-) Probably Albert Einstein was an early Audiophile, don't know, but to quote him:  "Two Things Are Infinite: the Universe and Human Stupidity"

"It isn’t often that an audio component, upon first sight/listen makes this particular reviewer drool.  But the Air Force ONE has done just that.

It is immediately obvious that this is not only a classic, but a reference that gives the state-of-the-art Clearaudio (The Statement) super table hot pursuit, even at times exceeds that classic. (Just wish we had been able to keep it longer to further explore its wonders.)

First of all, the Air Force One is the quietest of the tables that has crossed our path here in Sea Cliff.  Indeed, it is so very good in this regard that we found dynamic extension on LPs that we simply had not suspected encoded in their grooves ... You quite simply get closer to the experience of the music itself and, ironically, forget about the sonics per se. ....   This table is, in my considered judgment, in a class by itself, and I am hoping for its use as a long-term loan for reference purposes."

That didn't pan out for HP as they only allowed him 3 weeks to gaze at it, so this is what he wrote about the Kronos Turntable a few months later:

"This Canadian import is, physically, one of the most beautiful looking of the new wave in turntable design.  .... About this, more later, but, for the nonce, know that it is quiet, highly so, and so stable that recorded  images seem to float solidly on cushions of their own ambient makings, allowing it to achieve sensationally wide dynamics. I must say that upon first listen, the LP’s sound less like recordings and more like music. I do not, at least yet, hear any “signature sound” or sonic identity. It does not impose itself upon the music or impart distinctive coloration to the recordings. I do not hear the turntable, only the music.

A masterpiece of design, but not of cost.  At $28,000 or so, it is still a bargain, given the comparable cost of sonically competing designs."

I guess he means Air Force One??

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