Naim introduce a turntable - the Solstice Special Edition

It looks ridiculously overpriced but the Aro 2 should certainly draw a lot of interest.

The original Aro remains the best tonearm I heard. 

It seemed expensive at the time but even the used price never went down.

@rossb ,

"Funnily enough, the ARO remains the worst tonearm I have owned. I couldn’t wait to get rid of it!"


Although it sounded very organic on the LP12, better I thought than Linn's own Ekos, I can easily imagine it could be a nightmare to use.

Manually cueing turntables can be tricky enough with any deck, but a unipivot arm on a spring suspended turntable?

Not for everyone I guess.

Interesting topic, platters. My preference is for a lightweight design because I believe Rega are on the right track at least where weight and mass are concerned.

On the other hand both my Rega 3 and and LP12 had heavy platters. In fact one of the most convincing vinyl demos I ever heard featured a turntable with an enormous platter.

It was almost comical in size, could have been 6-8 inches deep. It was rotated by a motor that was housed in a separate box situated several inches to one side via a fairly long thin belt.

My initial visual impression was that this could, in certain domestic situations, be a surefire recipe for disaster.

However the image it cast, via some Avantgarde Trios, was the best I have ever experienced.

Spookily good.

As my memory of the event (London Show late1990s/early 2000s?) inevitably fades, the sheer size and precision of the image being cast remains.

@pani,

"Thats why most audio demonstrations in shows happen on simple vocal based music, with couple of instruments in the background."


When I went to an early presentation of the Naim Ovator s600s that's exactly the kind of music they were displaying.

Of course they would probably cite many reasons for that, high quality recordings / lack of compression etc.

Unfortunately 95% of my collection isn't like that. A good tip is to take your own music with you as most folks will oblige you. 

The only problem is if you notice the room quickly beginning to empty.

On the other hand, at the last show I attended (2019) they were quite happy to play the entire side 2 of Abbey Road.

Most of the listeners remained seated if I remember correctly.

Here's hoping it's back on later this year.