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Checking on staging chops I cued up Carol Kidd’s "Nice work if you can get it" from her Nice Work album. The extravagant stage seemed to give up all limitations and completely took over my music room. This became a truly intense session with Miss Kidd rendered in exceptional 3D. Other albums like LSC 2430 with a suitably large and deep but otherwise conventional ambiance confirmed how the AMG team merely pulled out whatever had been committed to the grooves. This could be generously vast or more compact and flat as with an older reissue of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours.
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With its effective mass of 12gr, the tone arm should play happy with the majority of modern moving coils. As expected, this meant zero compatibility issues with the Aventurin 6. This top MC from Mülheim an der Ruhr on the 12J2 arm impressed particularly with its colour fidelity and liveliness. With a Dynavector XV-1S beneath the head shell I ended up in a similar direction. By temperament the big Dynavector plays it a bit darker and dynamically more restrained but on the Viella particularly the second aspect lifted to leave little to be desired. The slightly soft treble gained some freshness without fundamentally shifting the balanced character of the XV-1S. My pickups seemed to take very well to AMG’s long wand by exhibiting their usual strengths at high potencies. I also was impressed that AMG’s included phono leash far exceeded throwaway freebies to perform at a level I took serious enough to recommend pursuing this cable just by itself.
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Conclusion. Should one call the Viella an exercise in high design, a precision tool or a time machine? Truth be told, I could care less as long as this much data is mined from the depths of the grooves. To issue a recommendation for a turntable which refuses to tamper with the sonic mix as resolutely as the AMG Viella 12 does it is really not difficult as long as one can handle the truth. That said, this doesn’t equate to any hair-shirt relentlessness. With proper setup care and appropriate ancillaries, the fun of surfing a stack of licorice is pretty much guaranteed. And it’s well possible that one rediscovers this or that album as though for the first time.
Granted, lovers of analogue homeliness might detect insufficient flair. And that’s fair since this deck clearly doesn’t subscribe to the ideal of manufacturing beautiful sound. Those honestly keen on hearing what was committed to vinyl meanwhile will be hard-pressed to identify a more engaged and truthful partner. Add attractive looks, innovative proprietary solutions and standard-setting finish and it all sums into a really well-rounded proposition.
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Psych profile for AMG’s Viella 12…
• with the 12J2 arm this table plays slightly on the slim side of neutral. Choice of cartridge and phono cable can easily influence this tendency. Still, admirers of opulently saturated playback won’t feel entirely catered to.
• this gear doesn’t seem to suffer any bandwidth restrictions to truly cover the full audible range.
• bass is exceptionally well defined and enormously quick. Definition trumps ultimate mass. There’s no power zone emphasis to suggest low bass which wasn't recorded. When encoded, there’s surprising LF extension.
• the vocal range impresses with first-rate resolution and realistic timbres. A well-set balance shows no tendencies for excess or undue starkness.
• the high registers are neither overlit nor shadowed but fundamentally prepared for solid presence. The choice of pickup determines the final treble dose.
• the Viella/12J2 combination excels at brilliant dynamic reflexes and well above-average impulse response. This one must experience!
• soundstaging is generous on principle but when dictated by the recording can also get very close-up intimate. Even narrow foreshortened spaces are on the menu with inferior albums.
• the table is quite responsive to its support which in particular will influence bass and the colour temperature.
• the arm’s VTA and anti-skating adjustments lack fine scaling to lack secure repeatability.
• the quality of manufacture impresses in both the micro and macro arenas. Particularly the surfacing treatment maxes out what’s technically possible today. In that respect I’ve not hosted better.
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