Analogue

The Soundsmith

Soundsmith is a specialty audio manufacturer located about an hour north of New York City. Founded in 1972, Soundsmith has achieved an enviable reputation in the audiophile world for outstanding sonic quality and extremely high-value products. Perhaps best known now for their work restoring cartridges and for their Strain Gauge and Fixed Coil cartridges, every Soundsmith product is hand-crafted in Soundsmith’s Peekskill, NY factory by a carefully selected team of artisans and engineers.

About Peter Ledermann, President / Chief Engineer:
https://sound-smith.com/about-peter-ledermann-0

Animating Life:
https://sound-smith.com/animating-life

Available for your listening pleasure at MKoM, Toronto.

Avid Volvere SP Turntable

Avid Sequel SP BlackMany of the engineering innovations we have pioneered in our flagship, reference models are equally relevant to all our turntables.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Volvere.

This latest generation incorporates our latest DSP signal-generating power supply, totally removing the vagaries of the mains power signal and allowing precise calibration of motor speed. Introduction of the new twin belt drive system and revised bearing has improved platter dynamics, yet further improving the sound quality.

Conceived as a belt drive, sprung subchassis design, Volvere is designed and built to the same precision engineering standards as the Acutus turntable. Bespoke versions of the unique clamping, stainless steel bearing and suspension systems have been developed and applied to this novel design.

External vibrations are dissipated by the unique AVID variable frequency suspension system, effectively isolating the entire system from extraneous influence yet without the softening of dynamic response often allied to such systems.

Suspension dynamics are further improved in this latest version using revised lateral damping isolation bands and lastly but by no means least, a massive platter.

The result? Vibration caused by the stylus during playback is transmitted to the subchassis directly through the main bearing and not absorbed into the platter. The clarity and depth of the performance under reference listening tests is a testament to the attention to detail bestowed on the design and the manufacture.

Schröder Reference SQ Tone arm

Schröder tonearms are mechanical works of art. Easy to setup, precise and compatible with most phono cartridges. The sound is uncoloured by the arm resulting in the most beautiful vinyl playback with minimal artifacts impacting the overall performance. Timbres, textures and dynamics in the recording are fully preserved. This is the best sounding tonearm we ever used.

Available for your listening pleasure at MKoM, Toronto.

Ortofon’s New Reference Tonearms

At last, Ortofon’s anticipated Reference Series tonearms are now available for preorder

(Available at My Kind of Music, Toronto, starting week of December 11, 2023)  

Features at a glance:

High precision bearing assembly achieves a new level of sonic performance

Improved H4 connector resists wear over time

Pivot point center hole takes the guesswork out of using 3-point alignment tools

Includes 2 counterweights, one for standard cartridges and one for extra-heavy (ie SPU)

Includes shielded high-purity copper tonearm cable (6NX-TSW1010)

Available for your listening pleasure, within the GTA, at My Kind of Music, Toronto.

 

Mark Levinson No 5105 Turntable

For nearly 50 years, discerning individuals have chosen Mark Levinson products for their luxurious beauty and revealing sound. Robust materials, lavish niches, bold geometry, and outstanding performance are celebrated attributes of the Mark Levinson brand. The No 5105 is a premium precision-engineered turntable that delivers on that reputation with an original custom design.

Created for the discriminating analog music lover, the No 5105 is the perfect complement to the 5000 series phono stage included in the No 5805 integrated amplifier and No 5206 pre-amplier. The No 5105 turntable is available either with or without a factory installed moving coil phono cartridge

With its elegant motif, the No 5105 blends lustrous elements intrinsic to the acclaimed 5000 series while introducing new material combinations essential for its exceptional performance. No detail has been overlooked.

Available for your listening pleasure within the GTA at My Kind of Music, Toronto.

 

Audio Analogue AAPhono

Audio Analogue’s PureAA line aims to draw on some of the key ideas and features of the Anniversary amplifiers but to apply them in a slightly different way. While the Anniversary amps are masters of minimalist focus, the PureAA line sports a set of added features designed to appeal to music lovers who seek a wider range of functions and connections in a single product.

The New AAphono features high quality components with very tight tolerances throughout. Even so, it also incorporates a parallel circuit design in which any errors inherent within components are effectively cancelled out, adding a further ‘safety net’ to ensure consistently high performance.

The AAphono phono stage is fully configurable for both MM and MC cartridges. Highly versatile, it offers plenty of adjustable options that allow you to perfectly tailor its set-up according to your chosen cartridge. These include gain and loading for MC cartridges but also the less common MM input capacitance and resistance. At the same time, the AAphono is effortlessly simple to use. No need to power off, cool down and delve ‘under the hood’. Simply press an easily accessible button to make your adjustments, which will be saved when the unit is switched off or even disconnected.

In addition, three separate toroidal transformers form the heart of the power supply, and hence the heart of the phono stage – one for each of the stereo channels (left and right) and, to keep the audio signal as pure as possible, a third one supplies the control circuitry. In addition, the power supply includes multiple filters to ensure that every section of the AAphono has the best possible operating conditions.

Available exclusively for your listening pleasure at My Kind of Music, Toronto.

Wilson Benesch Circle 25

Wilson-Benesch-Circle-25

To celebrate the company’s 25th Silver Anniversary, Wilson Benesch introduced the Circle 25 Turntable and A.C.T. 25 Tonearm to one of its longest established product lines; The Analogue Collection.

The new Circle 25 Turntable references the classic Circle Turntable. Fifteen years on from the launch of the original Circle Turntable, Wilson Benesch has reworked many of the critical elements, vastly improving the design and breathing new life into a classic.

The History of the ‘Analogue Collection’
Since the company’s inception in 1989, Wilson Benesch has maintained an unwavering commitment to the development of analogue replay systems.

Central to our design ethos from the outset has been the concept that synergy must exist between tonearm and turntable design and that they should in fact be regarded as one system. Many reading this will appreciate the crucial importance of finding synergy in audio components and many will also appreciate that combining some of the best components, for example amplifiers and loudspeakers, does not guarantee an excellent HiFi system. It follows that components conceived and designed as one synergistic system is the optimum process through which harmony and true excellence can be achieved.

The Architects of Carbon Fibre Audio; Building the world’s finest analogue components with the most advanced engineering materials known to man

Available exclusively through MKoM, Toronto.   For further information please visit the manufacturer’s site: http://www.wilson-benesch.com

Goldring Ethos Moving Coil Phono Cartridge

 

Goldring Ethos

Ethos is a truly high-end cartridge featuring a vital-shank, nude-diamond stylus. This polyhedral, line-contact profile was chosen because it has a very low tip-mass and a large contact area whilst being very narrow from front to back; even enabling the un-distorted retrieval of ultrasonic frequencies in a recording. In order to properly process this information, at the heart of the Ethos cartridge is Goldring’s hand-built GOL-1 moving-coil generator. Featuring a hand-wound cross-shaped, soft-iron armature and married to a low resonance aircraft aluminum chassis, each one is precision tuned by our expert craftsmen to achieve our best ever level of performance. The result is that one becomes simply immersed in the musical experience …and that’s our whole Ethos.

Available now at My Kind of Music, Toronto

Ortofon MC Century – Limited Edition

 

A newly developed Anniversary moving coil cartridge – the Ortofon MC Century

The MC Century represents the absolute top of Moving Coil cartridges. This state of the art product is truly exemplary of the highest degree of performance possible in contemporary analogue playback technology.

The MC Century represents numerous Ortofon design elements and ideals:

  • The housing and the body of the cartridge are made in Titanium with SLM technique
  • High performance iron-cobalt alloy is applied for some parts of the magnet system.
  • The armature damping system provides complete elimination of unwanted resonance.
  • Ortofon Replicant 100 diamond, thin and light, with an extraordinarily large contact surface, tracing accuracy unparalleled by any other needle in existence.
  • The crystal structure and exceptional hardness of the new Diamond cantilever ensures the best possible interface between the stylus and the armature.
  • The combination of Nude Ortofon Replicant 100 diamond on Diamond cantilever provides extremely responsive and transparent sound reproduction.

Production of the MC Century is limited to only 100 pieces worldwide.   As such, you’ll need to move quickly if you wish to invest in Ortofon’s finest cartridge to date.

Available exclusively at My Kind of Music, Toronto.

Lehmann Audio Decade Phono Stage

Lehmann Audio Decade Phono StageAn ambitious phono stage that forges a link between the Black Cube series and the top-of-the-line model Silver Cube: this is our Decade. However, it is rather a high flyer than a stopgap. Owing to its cutting-edge technology, it has the gift to spoil even the most demanding music enthusiasts. And this with a flawless sound which points far beyond its price category.

It doesn’t matter if you keep playing your favorite LPs time and again or love to discover unknown records, if you are all alone or celebrate your music in an intimate circle – the Decade impresses in every situation with a harmonic performance of passionate temper and precise contours. For this is why we created it: for you and your very personal music fireworks.

“It has a wonderfully spacious sound, and is truly exceptional in this respect at the price, with fine dimensionality, dynamics and a very natural, airy treble.”— Hifi World