Part of my listening session was used for classical music. Night on Bald Mountain by Mussorgsky performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Leibowitz and reissued several years ago by Living Stereo is one of the best recordings in my collection. It's an amazing demonstration of the power of a symphonic orchestra already suggested by the subtitle "The Power of Orchestra". The Initial delivered effortlessly not only on that but on momentum and dynamics. It was a well-organized fully controlled presentation in which each group of instruments, even individual musicians, had their precisely determined place. Another huge advantage of the 'entry-level' J.Sikora turned out to be its ability to convey the drama and climate of the music. This Mussorgsky after all is a story about a witches' coven gathering in a remote place at night accompanied by a storm which gives the listener a sense of rising tension. This ambiance of a dark, even frightening place was presented in such convincing fashion that I preferred to listen to it during the day rather than at night. Since Mussorgsky's music encourages to pump up the volume, it gave me opportunity to test this Polish turntable under vibration-intense conditions. No acceptable volume level was able to affect its sound quality. I had no distortion, compression or skipping stylus even though the loudspeakers worked really hard at pumping a lot of air into the room. The Initial remained as steady as a rock.

The final upgrade option is a higher-quality power supply. This was not at my disposal so I couldn't perform a head-to-head comparison. Based on my experience with the Standard which I listened to for an extended time with the standard power supply before upgrading to the top version designed for the Reference, I assume that something similar holds true for the Initial. When I reviewed the Standard, I loved it already with the standard PSU but after trying it out with the top-line version, there was no going back. With it the sound gained quite a lot in terms of dynamics and energy, control and definition of the bass and even higher purity of the whole presentation, in part due to a now pitch-black background. This difference was significant, much bigger than anticipated. With the Initial it might not be as huge but I expect that it should be significant enough to be considered mandatory once one's budget allows. I'd thus say that of these three potential ways to enhance the performance, the higher-grade PSU might offer the biggest single step up. I'll conclude with a few comments about the almost twice as pricey cartridge, my trusted Air Tight PC3. This is not about the class of pickup itself because its advantage is obvious; nor a description of the turntable's performance equipped with the PC3. The point here is that the Initial immediately presented higher resolution, even better separation, saturation, clarity and refinement, all key features of this remarkable Japanese cartridge. Nothing apart from the pickup had changed yet this entry-level J.Sikora turntable benefited audibly from a single higher-quality element in the signal path. This proved how on one hand the Initial offers excellent performance already in its standard version and how on the other, it still hides potential to achieve much higher performance when equipped with the available upgrades but also using a higher-class cartridge and even tonearm. That's a clear benefit for the potential buyer. Once one outgrows the initial sound quality, there's no need to replace anything. Rather, make smaller or larger upgrades (clamp/weight/PSU and cartridge/tonearm) to move upward. I suggest to start with the upgrades offered by J.Sikora themselves. Later the time might come for a better pickup and tonearm.

Summary.  €6'000 is obviously quite a lot of money. Once you add the price of a tonearm and cartridge, it will look even more serious. But remember how that is relative. We must compare to what it buys elsewhere. Once you do that, you realize that in terms of build, finish and performance, the J.Sikora Initial is a fairly even attractively priced product. For this brand it is an entry-level model but don't let that fool you – they simply start at a high-end level and with their more expensive models take the performance up ever higher. Their Reference competes with many far more expensive top-line products from the famous brands. Whilst the Initial offers such great performance already in stock from, the upgrades take it even higher. Hence this is no deck one buys for a year or two to replace with a more advanced one. You can keep it for many years (the build quality suggests a highly reliable product) and achieve new levels of performance with each upgrade. It is also worth repeating that to achieve its far lower pricing over the Standard, this manufacturer cut costs in a very smart way. The build and finish quality remain the same to be as astonishing as they've always been with the other two models. The performance of the Initial can't quite match the Standard of course but the gap between them is much smaller than anticipated and still narrows with every upgrade. It's an absolutely fantastic highly recommended product. If you have the chance, try it for yourself.