I am in the middle of writing a longer review, but meantime here is my short one. By the way, I live in Australia so am about equally distant from every centre of excellence!
In my opinion, the Holbo air-bearing system is an engineering masterpiece. It provides an exceptional platform for almost any cartridge you chose, at almost any price point.
The sound quality will pretty well approximate the sound quality of the cartridge you mount.
The starting point has to be the tonearm and the way it floats on a 10-micron cushion of air. Levelling is critical, but easy. A rigid T-shape, the tonearm holds the cartridge firmly and only allows it two degrees of freedom. It can rotate vertically like almost any other arm, and it can slide sideways as a rigid mass with virtually no friction. Once the cartridge is mounted, the exact tangent is set with a template. Then the azimuth and tracking force are set there's nothing to do except fine tune the electronic speed controls - one for 33 and one for 45 rpm.
The Vertical Tracking Angle (VTA) can be adjusted by turning a knob while a record is playing. Just as importantly, the Horizontal Tracking Angle (HTA), which is as important for stereo playback, is error-free. Almost all pivoted tonearms have significant HTA which is inherent to the design and cannot be corrected.
Set up is a breeze - allow half an hour if you have already browsed the User Guide and have a suitable rack. There is a separate power pack and air pump which need plugging in. The power pack is so quiet, I can only hear it if I press it against my skull. I cannot detect any air coming from the pump, but there is enough to instantly float the platter once turned on. Three chunky feet are adjusted to get the platter spirit-level exact. A micro-adjustment gets the tonearm bearing exactly level
I was saving for a Holbo having heard one at a demonstration evening for B & W loudspeakers, where it was the source in one of the listening rooms. It was already an absolute bargain, in my opinion, then Holbo went to a direct sales model and almost halved the price again.
My cartridge is currently a Shure V15 Type III with a new Jico SAS stylus with boron cantilever. I thought this high compliance cartridge might be problematic but it tracks in the Holbo at a tad over 1-gram downforce. The results are so good, I have ordered a DS Audio DS003 optical cartridge. Together with an Equalizer from SoulNote, I have more than doubled my initial investment in the Holbo.
That's how good I think it is.
