Vinyl Asylum: REVIEW: S.M.E Model 10 Turntables by cjfrbw

Model:	Model 10
Category:	Turntables
Suggested Retail Price:	2650 pounds of the realm
Description:	Unsuspended belt driven, seperate power supply.
Manufacturer URL:	S.M.E
Model Picture:	View

Review by cjfrbw ( A ) on March 07, 2004 at 19:30:53
IP Address: 24.5.235.220

Add Your Review
for the Model 10

Well, I'll try a hand at a review. I upgraded to this turntable from my Michell Gyrodec/SME 309. I liked the Michell, but was not real sure of the speed stability. The motor and the wall wart power supply also seemed a little fragile and not of the absolute highest quality. Upgrades were available in terms of the Orbe platter and upgrade power supply, but I wasn't really interested in patching on endless items to try to improve things. The Michell is an excellent turntable, but I can afford more so I decided to go for it. The Michell with its original RB300 and kontrapunkt a certainly wiped the floor with anything digital and made sacd scream up the block and around the corner. The 309 arm probably improved the listening quality about 40% above that over the RB300, both with the kontrapunkt a.
I really like the 309 tonearm. I figured nothing would work better with SME than another SME. I discovered from reading on this forum and elsewhere that the real secret of the 309 arm is that it sounds extremely close to the V if you merely change the included cable to a high quality, all silver cable. I can attest that it is a wholly transformed tonearm with an all silver cable.
Although I can afford the SME 20, I am still fundamentally a value seeker(aka cheapskate) and I admire all things cheapskate. I started out with a dual 622 and sure m75 cartridge then onward and upward. I now recognize that I am pathetically a permanent vinyl convert. The review from the SME website by a long time owner of the SME 20 indicated that the SME 20 sounded virtually the same as the SME 10 except for giving up some lower bass authority and having a more finicky requirement for a non resonant platform, even without changing the phono cable. Other reviews and opinions from this site have varying opinions about how much of a difference there is. Everybody seems to agree that the SME 30 is stratospherically better, but the difference between the 10 and the 20 is a judgment call, so I decided to to get the SME 10 with the SME 10 arm and use the upgraded phono cable, at a savings of several thousands of dollars. The SME 10 arm is virtually the same as the modern magnesium 309 that I used on the gyrodec . I transferred the kontrapunkt a to the SME 10 tonearm.
My general (bigoted) impression of British products is that they often can have brilliant if sometimes eccentric design and engineering. However, when it comes to execution, materials and testing for failure modes, after the brainstorms, everybody just breaks to the local pub and forgets about it. If you don't have a butler to fix it, you shouldn't be buying it in the first place. My general (bigoted) impression of German type products is insane and compulsive engineering excellence combined with the best possible use of materials and a pride in longevity and quality, if not inspiration. From this perspective, the SME is probably 90% German and 30% British ( I know that doesn't add up to 100, but this is a subjective review.) It looks like you could fire a gatling gun at it and it would spark and twirl and then just go back to business as usual. The gyrodec, by comparison, is generally "light" in construction, though inspired in general design and execution. The 10's clamp alone is a heavy, sculpted piece of industrial art, compared to the flimsy plastic and aluminum frisbee of the gyrodec. The 10 has the uncanny quality of immediate rotation and braking. As soon as you push the button, it seems up to speed. As soon as you shut it off, the platter stops spinning. The comment on clamping is to tap the record in three spots to discover by finger resonance the correct degree of clamping, and this is indeed true.
So how does it sound? Remarkable. I am afraid to listen to the SME 30 or the Rockport Sirius if I have the chance, I just don't know how much better it can get, and I don't know if I can stand more costly sound lust than I already have.
The SME 10 presents a disciplined yet rich bass, much more high frequency detail and presence than the gyrodec, a deeper soundstage with a lot more detail front to back. High frequency retrieval and dispersion are an order of magnitude better than the gyrodec. The 10 seems to be fairly ruthless in unraveling the mysteries of the grooves. There is an eerie silence between cuts that at first made wonder if anything was on.
I have read accusations that the SME is accurate sounding but not musical. I think the British ideas of PRAT is a good one, that audio equipment shouldn't be evaluated as mere frequency transducers but as musical instruments in and of themselves that need to preserve important characteristics of music. In this regard, the SME is probably 50% British and 50%German.
In the past, when I have improved my equipment, I will usually play an old favorite, expecting that it will be ecstatically revealed in a new and wonderful light. Often this results in a disappointment, because what I had previously was a romanticized idea of the piece based on how it synergistically interacted with the limitations and colorations of my music system. However, with genuine improvements, for every door that seems to close to a kind of disappointment based on prior limitations, a hundred doors open enabling me to appreciate more kinds of music and some that I had previously rejected. The improvements with the 10 are those kinds of improvements.
I think the accusations of the SME 10 not being musical fall into this type of experience. The Gyrodec had a romantic, lolling, lush quality by comparison. This is probably unfair to the Gyrodec, but it would probably be akin from going to a lush sounding older tube amp with rolled off highs to a more modern tube amp. The good stuff is still there in the 10, but tightened and disciplined with greater dynamic range, clarity, focus and frequency extension.
I played Ramsey Clark's "Hold on Ramsey" This piece is recorded live in a club with a lot of audience participation. It has probably the sweetest brushes and cymbals and biggest drums I have heard. It sounded just great on the gyrodec. However, on the 10, it gave me one of those rare experiences for the jaded audiophile i.e. I heard something that I never heard on recorded sound and didn't think was possible. The brushes and the cymbals were like delicate metallic white light with a gazillion timbres and shimmering overtones spreading and interacting over the surfaces of the instruments and into the surrounding space. On PCM I suspect that these would have sounded like leaves being shaken in a bushel basket. On SACD, they would be digested, homogenized and pasteurized, filled with emulsifiers and sweeteners and regurgitated as an unrecognizable lump.
Bear in mind, this is from the same cartridge/arm type. I am not an expert on cartridges at all, but I think if I had heard this same cartridge going from the RB300 to the SME 309/gyrodec to the SME 10, without knowing any better, I would have thought that they were three different cartridges each amazingly better than the previous. The relatively modest kontrapunkt a became a much more stellar performer due to the deck. I also continue to be amazed at my Apogee Stage/upgraded crossover speakers that I have had for fourteen years. They seem to reveal each improvement without breaking a sweat and I still don't know what their upper limitations are.
Anyway, this actually was a big buck improvement that was worth it. My vinyl credentials are lowly. However,since nobody else has had a SME 10 review around here, I decided to give it a shot for those contemplating this purchase.
I will follow up later with a more extended audition and possibly an additonal review of a new Kontrapunct c cartridge.

Product Weakness: Sticky Rubber feet make it hard to level (I had to find something wrong)
Product Strengths: UberBuilt, unfussy paint by the numbers setup, "Turntable for Dummies", Complexity and Sophistication made to look simple.

Associated Equipment for this Review:
Amplifier:	VTL 450 Signature Monoblocks
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	Sonic Frontiers Line 1, SFP-1 Signature Phono
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	SME 10, SME 10 tonearm, Kontrapunkt a
Speakers:	Apogee Stage/upgraded crossover
Cables/Interconnects:	Mogami balanced, Monster
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	Jazz, Classical, C&W, Synthesized
Room Size (LxWxH):	19 x 13 x 10-16
Room Comments/Treatments:	zip
Other (Power Conditioner etc.):	Powervars, etc.
Type of Audition/Review:	Product Owner

Product Weakness:	Sticky Rubber feet make it hard to level (I had to find something wrong)
Product Strengths:	UberBuilt, unfussy paint by the numbers setup, "Turntable for Dummies", Complexity and Sophistication made to look simple.