Munich 2013

The Da Vinci Audio AAS Gabriel MK2 Reference Turntable is a thing of beauty to be sure. It is obviously a mass-loaded design and the build quality appears extremely high with a commensurate price tag of around $50,000.

However, this does not appear to be an innovative design. Rather its claimed high performance is based upon its precision build and there's nothing wrong with that!

The tonearm is the Master Reference Tonearm Virtu. As with the turntable, the design does not appear to be innovative but rather appears to be an ultra-refined version of a standard gimbaled design. However, refinement is as important as innovation.

While this arm has been declared by some as "state of the art" and I'm sure the all important bearings are of the highest quality, my take is that any tone arm featuring a '60s era SME-type locking collet head shell design must be disqualified from "state of the art" status. Such a head shell termination, while convenient, losses a considerable amount of rigidity and that by definition must to some degree limit its performance.

Still, you won't find a more beautifully turned out turntable built to ultra-high Swiss standards.