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Even with newer music like Depeche Mode—and the maxi-single Wrong recorded at 33RPM with wide grooves for big dynamics and strong bass—the assets of this turntable made me sit down and listen. In the title song I was most impressed by Martin Gore’s vocals where beautiful reverb adds to what happened on the front line.
Because the effect is set back a bit, it usually appears small. With the Argos its size was impressive, showing how the resolution and rotational stability of the device were brilliant. Gore sounded incredibly clean and inspired, creepy even. This was confirmed with John Coltrane’s Giant Steps from the brilliant Rhino/Atlantic remaster on two 45 discs.
The German turntable showed the timbres to be incredibly saturated, albeit without coloring the lower midrange as the Avid and Linn turntables do. That’s the easiest way to render the sound more attractive. Although these are brilliant machines in their respective price categories which I’d gladly own, once we consider them from the perspective of the Caliburn, SME or Argos, we shall perceive their colorations.
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The Argos is perfectly balanced and steps back only in the very top end. This is not mudding but still present.
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The deck’s phenomenal resolution is not paired with a mechanic feel or hardening. If a contrabass on the Japanese issue of Study In Brown by Clifford Brown and Max Roach was strong but quick, then it sounded accordingly. When there was plenty of powerful low but somewhat rotund synthesized bass as on the Depeche Mode album, it sounded like that. It seemed that bass in particular benefited the most from the massive construction of the Argos. This avoided all traces of brutality. It also wasn’t smeared yet depicted actions in the sub-range naturally soft like the SME and Avid. This naturalness relates to live sound where most instruments have this velvety character. Even harsh and vivid trumpet attacks then are devoid of mechanical ‘accuracy’.
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Brown thus simply sounded brilliant. This was the disc on which I most admired the outstanding dynamic prowess of the table. Although Study is monophonic, the amount of music was overwhelming. The Argos brilliantly differentiated the distance from the listener while retaining a tacit connection with the coherent whole. The same I also heard from the spectacular Classic Record 4 x 45 pressing of the Basie/Benett session. Dynamics and vividness were fantastic. This is how the SME 30A sounds but the Argos went a step further.
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With this deck, the soundstage depends mostly on the cartridge. With the Lyra Titan, the starting line was a tad behind the speakers, with the Air Tight closer to the listener. I preferred the latter since it provided an impression of the musicians’ presence. With all cartridges the soundstage was very deep and the perspective of perception extended far. With devices of this class, we are confronted by a kind of inconsistency between what we hear—the musical event in our home—and what we think is right. Let me explain. With Sinatra’s Paris concert, we know how his voice suffers slightly curtailed bandwidth below and above. The percussion meanwhile is clearly more dynamic and extended on top. Subconsciously we attribute this to a recording error. With the SME, Avid and Transrotor, these flaws are evident but stand apart from the music and how it all hangs together. Of course we must hear all of this for the full effect but this aloofness of flaws is similar to how we ideally respond to clicks and pops. Good turntables show those noises alongside the music. Their distinctiveness seems to happen in a different universe which intersects with that of the music only by coincidence. The Argos went a step further and applied it to the recording itself.
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