Why will no other turntable beat the EMT 927?

how do the other EMT tt's compare to the 927? such as the 948, for instance?

i know the 927 is an idler, while the 948 is direct drive. i owned a Garrard 301 for a few years and did enjoy it's 'meaty' presentation on certain music, but in the end i preferred higher resolution, more nuanced approaches as my everyday musical diet.

thanks.

Norm; a followup to Peterayer's question....

when you did (or if you did) compare the Halcyonics to the Stillpoints under the turntable, was the Halcyonics on a totally grounded rack with no de-coupling? in other words, was the Halcyonics optimized? was the floor beneath the rack concrete with the rack spiked into it?

thanks,

in 2008 Mosin did have the Saskia turntable at RMAF and it did sound wonderful. great propulsion to the music and very quiet and refined. as well as looking like a million bucks too.

anyone who has seen it has desired it.

at that time i owned a Dobbins Garrard 301 with the Loricraft power supply which i liked alot. the Saskia was a few levels beyond that for sure to my ears. it's a great turntable.

i would be very surprised if the 927 was in that league....but of course, it's possible.

i know that Mosin put a huge effort into the development of the Saskia. sometimes the talent and effort to create magic is not matched on the marketing side for whatever reason. maybe Mosin is too humble for his own good.

Dev,

you make a fair point about telling what is doing what outside of direct comparisons.

that said; when an unfamiliar system sounds crummy, who knows why? but when an unfamiliar system sounds very good, particularly a vinyl sourced system, i believe some things can be learned. either the speed is good or it's not. either the music has flow and energy or it does not. and familiar pressings reveal plenty about noise levels and such.

this weekend at the Newport Show i heard a number of rooms where the system sounded good but i did not hear the 'magic' in the vinyl front end, and other rooms where i heard quite a bit of 'magic' from a vinyl front end 'through' a less capable system. last year at the Newport Show i wrote of my impressions of taking one Lp around to 10+ rooms and hearing one same cut from all those systems. yes; no ultimate truth was revealed but lots of pretty good ideas were percieved.

i had heard the OMA system for a couple of years running at RMAF prior to that year, so i had a bit of a feel for it. and i had been living with three turntables at that time and paying very close attention to how various turntables were sounding then.

so while i agree with you in general principle, i am confident that my impression of the Saskia at the 2008 RMAF was useful to me and worth sharing.

i respect your right to dismiss it. it might have been better for me to have qualified my impression of the Saskia from that 2008 show.

recently i’ve acquired a Saskia model two idler. the Saskia model two has a 180 pound one piece slate plinth, a 40 pound platter, and uses a 3 phase Pabst motor designed to run large film reels for colorizing film for days on end in a commercial application.

i’ve heard a nice EMT 927....but it’s been a couple of years. without having them side by side with the same arm and cartridge it’s hard to know what exactly would happen, my sense is that the Saskia goes farther down the road with the same 927 strengths, and adds a lower noise floor, much greater detail and textures, and more expansive sound stage.

ultra tonal density, phenomenal flow, rock solid sustains and explosive dynamics are fundamental to the Saskia model two. i have a 1/2" Studer A-820 in my system which has a similar type presentation. nuff said.

it’s crazy good and i love to listen to it.

@cd318, thank you for your comments.

and i hope you noticed i specified '1/2"' A-820. i have three A-820's and the 1/2" is pretty much as good as reproduced sound can get.

FYI; the Saskia model two is not a vintage product; my particular example was brand new in 2016. the Saskia was first built in 2007-2008. the builder is Win Tinnon, who’s moniker is Mosin over many audiophile forums.

and if you are a patient sort of person and don’t mind spending a few dollars (it’s not cheap but to my mind an excellent value in performance terms) Win could build one for you.

but no doubt that the Saskia is under the radar and you would have to have been paying attention to know about it. there was never any marketing or dealers.

i did know Win, and heard the Saskia two times at audio shows. it was always in systems that did not allow it to fully strut its stuff, but still it was easy to hear it was something very special. maybe the ultimate idler ever. until i got it into my room a month ago and let it loose i did not realize what it was capable of.

Dear @rauliruegas , thank you for the kind words my friend.

i do need to add the Saskia to my system page. i’ve not yet really directly compared it to my direct drive NVS. the Saskia is really something to hear, so we shall see how that plays out.

best regards,

Mike

@normansizemore ,

thank you for the nice comments. at this point Saskia model two’s are quite scarce, and have not been shown at an audio show since 2015 i think.

currently i’m using the new Durand Tosca tone arm;
http://www.durand-tonearms.com/Tosca/thetosca.html

and the new Ortofon MC Anna Diamond cartridge;
http://www.ortofon.com/mc-anna-diamond-p-898

Fremer just did a rave review on this new Anna D cart. i used the original Anna for a number of years as my reference, and this new one is really something special.

this particular Saskia model two came with 7 arm boards. the previous owner had quite the tone arm collection.

i had two of the arm boards modified for my current tone arms, and received the one for the Durand Tosca. and am waiting for the one for my other arm, the Durand Telos Sapphire, to arrive back from the turntable designer.

my plan is trying both of these arms and a few others as my budget allows over time. the Saskia i think is a great alternative to my long term reference turntable, the Wave Kinetics NVS direct drive. i’m just in the beginning stages of getting a feel for the differences between these 2 top level tt’s.

btw; there is a thread on the Saskia model two on another forum with pictures and more information; here is a link in case you missed it in your search;

http://whatsbestforum.com/threads/saskia-model-two.28727/