My Aro!

Nice feeling.

Last night's session included some newly acquired (and not yet VPI-cleaned) vinyl (since the beginning of December, I've acquired around 150 to 160 new LPs, some of which were bulk buys and therefore contain a lot of 'bottom feeder' stuff). EVen in its dirty and scratchy state it sounded alive in a way the Akito could never do.
Moving over to something in a better condition, i.e. "Little Earthquakes" by Tori Amos, vocals were there, without any distracting burrs and inflections, and everything had tightened up considerably.

I've noticed that the Aro is capable of picking up the minutest signals with complete clarity - I was listening to an album which fades in from the end notes of the previous track. With the Akito, I thought there was perhaps a two seconds gap, but now I know that there is no gap and that the signal is miniscule and was being missed by the
lesser arm.

Inner details are there in abundance, but it isn't that which impresses the most. In common with adding Mana levels beneath the LP12, the
whole sound becomes so much less forced and breathes far better. Flat earth things like the PRaT are much better, whilst the round-earth attributes like imaging are there in abundance as well.

Everything basically sounds RIGHT.

Anyway, I'm whittering on here... in short, I love the Aro, even though it does look a bit Heath Robinson, with its dangly weight and unusual protruberances. Just what the doctor ordered, though

John

John

quote:

---

isn't that an excommunication offence from the "Church of Sympathetic Resonance" and on the eve of Friday their most holy of days

---

Nah, not at all. Like many others, if I find a piece of kit that works well, I will tell everyone. If it sucks, I will also tell everyone. Mana works, so I am 110% behind their product. The Naim Aro works, so I am 110% behind it as well.

IMHO, Mana and the Aro do different but complimentary things to the LP12 - they both increase detail and musicality by significant amounts, but there are subtle differences, which I think together act as a yin and yang which form the horizon of flat-earth and round-earth. I'm not going to go into what those differences are - it's difficult for me to describe - but each represent IMHO fundamental leaps in quality.

However, bearing in mind that the Aro is well over a thousand pounds new, and a couple of levels of Mana is three hundred pounds, I still stand by my stance that the Mana represents the biggest bargain in high-end musical audio. In my case, I'd reiterate:

Phase 1 Mana < Aro = Phase 2 Mana < Phase 5 Mana

i.e. in terms of sonic improvements. However, I think that the improvements that the Aro brings over the Akito are magnified by a relative amount by the Mana, bringing the overall effect to the equivalent of maybe Phase 8 with the Akito. COmplicated, I know, but I feel that there were just some facets of the music that the Akito just couldn't dig out of the vinyl, Mana or no Mana. Now that the Aro can get to this music, the Mana enhances an already excellent arm.

Conclusions?

Well, I have read that a Lingo/Aro combination is not ideal. If this is true, I cannot imagine how good the Armageddon/Aro combination is. I don't want to know. I am happy on my little perch

FYI, total vinyl cost to date:

LP12/Basik/Akito/new K9 PSU:
400 UKP
Cirkus kit: 175 UKP (at same time as LP12)
Lingo (s/h): 300 UKP
Asaka: 150 UKP including rebuild.
Mana phase 6: 900ish, maybe more.
Aro (s/h): 480 UKP plus fitting+tune.

Total: 1925 UKP plus 900ish for Mana.

Hmmm... quite a lot actually, but then it's quite a lot of LP12 now ;-)

John

John

John

Make sure that when you placed the arm top on the deck and connected it to the arm base, the lead out wires going to the armboard are not touching the central pillar holding up the arm, or the surrounding (black) cylinder of the armtop. Basically those four wires shouldn't touch anything. If they do, they kill the sound a little. Look before changing. If it looks good, then I'm expecting too much of an improvement from the arm.

Regards,
Frank.

However, who cares? It's a substantial improvement whichever way once slices it!

Happy John

I am glad that you like the ARO that you got from me, indeed it has some very strong qualities, and it is the best matching tonearm for the LP12 I have heard until now. The reasons I sold it were that I needed money last year urgently, and that I am using a different record player, where other tonearms suit better.

BTW, a former Naim dealer in Munich, named Klaus Denzinger, suggested that putting some grease in the saphire bearing cup would tighten up the bass and transform even the glorious midrange and treble qualities into the bass region. But when he posted his idea to the (old) Naim forum, no one replied, so it seems to be a non-approved modification.

BTW, part 2: I just repaired a friend's Linn Akito with sticky bearings and posted the procedure on http://www.AudioAsylum.com/audio/vinyl/messages/49370.html, so anybody interested can imagine how it is done, and how difficult it is.

BTW, part 3: If you want to see something really strange, go to http://www.croftj.net/~abltt, which is the homepage of a design group for the ultimate air bearing linear tonearm, where I am contributing member to the closed mailing list (the list itself is not accessible).

regards,
Hartmut from Munich, Germany

On the ARO's visual appeal, I like it because it looks understated and rather like the old Grace G707, which was used on many LP12s until the Ittok arrived.

They rate the Aro. But it has an asterisk...

Tim J