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Thales – an arm that costs an arm & leg

I was invited to attend Thales dinner presentation earlier this week and then went to AE’s showroom to audition the Thales pickup arm on Friday – Jlam later asked me to write my listening impression.

I must confess I normally spend 80% listening to CDs and only 20% on the black vinyls, not because LPs don’t sound better (folks who have heard my LP playback system can discern LPs sound 30%+ better than CDs) but my air-bearing tonearm requires a lot of attention & maintenance before each playing and I have to adjust VTA & VTF whenever I spin different types of records and not to mention to choose the right equalisation curve i.e. DECCA & COLUMBIA if the recording engineers did not use the RIAA curve. In addition, I tweak my system almost everyday, so I have to rely on the accuracy & consistency of my formidable Zanden 4-piece CD combo.

After hearing the history & design concept at the presentation, I was rather intrigued by the Thales arm and its reported trouble-free maintenance further aroused my keen interest to give it a serious consideration.

On the next day when I arrived to AE showroom, frankly speaking, even though AE was using the same speaker models as mine, the overall sound initially was less than satisfactory to my ears. To be more specific, the soundstage, imaging and tonal balance left a wee bit to be desired of. It is not easy to switch your attention and focus on the sound of the arm but nevertheless, I managed to do just that and after expressing my slight dissatisfaction with the sound, PT was able to tweak the room acoustics and subsequently the slight thin mid-range sound was rectified after the lower bass region was beefed up a little and the diffusor on the left window was removed, this allowed the sound on the left channel to open up a little more.

After these acoustic tweaks were successfully carried out, it was very easy to audition the tone arm as the coherence & linearity of the sound was nothing short of spectacular. I have never experienced such vivid sound from any playback system in my hi-fi experience, despite having the best linear sound from (top to bottom) my air-bearing tone arm, the Thales simply thrashed it by having a richer & more natural highs, a very life-like mid-range – you can hear the vital subtle nuances from the performance of a violinist to the vocal expression of a singer as well as incredibly tuneful bass. It was really an ‘ear-opening’ experience for me ( I was also using the same cartridge at home), therefore, I know what I’m talking about and trust what my ears are telling me. This is one hell of a revolutionary design and more importantly, a truly spectacular sounding arm. I can’t say this is the best arm in the world as I haven’t used all the available ones in the market (I have played over a dozen ones during all these years) but Thales is easily the best sounding arm among the ones I have used as well as those I have listened to (yes, I can discern the sound from the tone arm from any vinyl playback system).

Where do I go from here, this ingeniously designed master piece by a brilliant swiss designer commands a justifiably hefty price which precludes me from placing an on-the-spot order, well if AE’s vinyl king goes ahead with his purchase, I shall bite the bullet and install a second tone arm on my turntable, its your call Marvel bro !

Mr Z




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Comments

  • Mr Zanden,

    I share much of your views when I listened to the Thales tonearm this morning. Frankly I am far away from being a veteran in vinyl, but I recall on that night having dinner with the team, you suggested we pair up to bite the bullet. I have informally been advised by PT a few months ago on the advent which I have indicated much interest already. I SMS PT after dinner on that night to confirm order. So I am sure we will be getting the tonearms in the same batch if you place it now....(or already yesterday?).

    Today, I was struggling if I should use SMR EE to run from the tonearm to Tidal. I have not made up my mind yet as the arm has already cost me an arm and a leg!! I might just buy the tonearm first and save up more money to buy the rest in order to make it sing.

    To me, this tonearm is not just another state of the art product but also the end game on tracking rectification.

    Marvel


  • AE搞seminar一向好專業, 真係好精彩, 班後生仔好叻有技術有志氣, 我對黑膠認識很少, 但用Thales arm播Belafonte最後那段Maltida真係聽到我耍拍手, 低音的節奏和空氣慼令我難忘, 我的天鵝盤雖有SRA Ohio護身, 但也沒法還完那動活生感, 我的低音是一大舊拋過來, 不是有層次的那一種, 舞台和樂器也好合比例. 好彩天鵝盤不能安新臂, 但我開始識聽mistracking!

    Mr.Zanden, Grey兄和Marvel大大能歎盡音響極品中極品, 實在令我羨慕!
  • 查兄, 點解唔見你出現?

    丹尼兄, 你有冇仲黑膠毒? PT話你處的發展potential是最大. 你部黄金俠833到, 希望你能請我來見識下.
  • Mr Zanden,

    You are already the high commander in the AE camp and need no matching couple to bite the Thales arm.

    The ingenious design plus the precision engineering is already sufficient to secure its place in the tone arm's hall of frame. While your Kuzma is no doubt state-of -art but from a user friendliness perspective, the Thales is just so... "simple" and non-consuming.

    Care to share with us what is the most obvious perceived weakness of the design based on your experience.

    Marvel,

    Why torment yourself, just order the SMR EE lah. You are the shinning beacon!



  • Alecy,

    I must confess I'm no technical buff and to ask me what is the weakness in the arm's design, if any, is like telling my best friend on the day I have decided to propose to my wife what her shortcomings are. Seriously though, I never really care about the design of any particular product, otherwise, I would never have purchased the Cessaro Alpha One as I really lothe horn designs as none of them sounded right to my ears over all these years.
    The Thales intrigued me with its design which combines the best of both worlds i.e. tangential & pivotal, obviously, its proof was in the hearing when I auditioned the LP playback system at AE's showroom (I was almost totally familiar with everything there). Sure, some may not be totally convinced of the arm & cartridge pairing and the phono stage as being the best match to bring out the best synergistic effect, neverthelss the playback system did something no other LP system we have encountered can do, so we have to concede the advanatge of using this new design as superior to any other designs & models available in the current market, period.
    Notwithstanding to the praise its derserves, there is/are areas which can be improved, for instance, the cueing devise is rather tricky to use as compared to my tonearm or other models I had used in the past, some may prefer a finger lift, anyway, we are talking about the operation of the tonearm rather than certain aural aspect of it which we are not totally convinced.
    The good thing (or rather hard-core facts) about high-end hi-fi is it is never a plug & play thing, no doubt when AE comrades subsequently acquire this tonearm and pair up with their preferred cartridge, phono stage and using different amps and speakers, you will hear certain system(s) easily sounding vastly better than others (no explanation needed for making this statement I hope).
    My turntable has an independent tower to mount the Thales, its ingenious design (like ALL air-bearing arms) allows its user to change the VTA even when you are playing the record, this is a plus point for me, so it shouldn't be too long for me to make a decision to add this arm to my turntable system. Vinyl Rules okay !

    Mr Z
  • Are you torn between the mathematician and the painter?
  • Big Grass recommended the pairing of the Hyper Emminent by My Sonic Lab with the Thales tonearm/Tidal phono after a 2-hr listening sessions last week. I took his words seriously. JLam got it on Monday. We mounted in last night. Master Wai was there to do some practicing of adjusting the tonearm as he will eventually help mount at least 4 in HK.

    B.Grass is correct. We are very happy.
  • Please describe more on why you are so happy.
  • Go and search the paintings by 吳冠中. Experts universally agree his paintings carries the widest appeal regardless of age, gender and race. The paring of the Hyper Emminent with the Thales/Tidal had me thought about 吳冠中last night.
  • First home listening impression of "The One and Only Tangential Pivoted Tonearm"

    Many months have passed since I last auditioned this uniquely patented design masterpiece and although my immediate impression of this product prompted me to order one almost 7 months ago because of its superior sound (I must admit it was very difficult for me to focus on the sound of the arm under a not-so-ideal listening environment and system matching), I didn't think too much of it afterwards as I was happy with my turntable with its matching air-bearing tonearm. Yes, I did temporarily swap out my Dynavector XV1-s with several other ones, the EMT was one of them BUT it was not a match made in heaven to say the least, after 30 hours of breaking in, I had to call it quits as the sound was uninvolving and light in balance - the latter characteristic was also easily discernable at PT's place and the rest (at PT's place) was history as PT subsequently found many compatible cartridges to macth different tastes and wallets.

    I was very happy with my air-bearing arm as its tracking was its forte and its linear reproduction of sound was impressive, so all was well until my Thales finally arrived last Sunday, this is the x'mas gift my dearest other-half gave to me. For some reason I could not explain, I did not watch the assembly and mounting of this special arm (big mistake) and I only assisted Master Wei to adjust the huge & heavy (but moveable) arm tower to my turntable. A quick confession here, I only started doing regular very fine adjustment on speaker placement some 5 years ago and fine tuning my turntable system 3 years ago (subconciously I was too afraid to in case I screw up the arm and cartridge adjustment - but don't rely on others doing it for you either as turntable system is a mechanical devise, like a car and needs regular tuning to maintain its peak performance). After a bit of fine tuning, it was ready to hear the new arm with the new EMT gold cartridge.

    Frankly speaking, the first few minutes of listening was a disppointment as the sound was not so dissimilar in tonality and information retrieval to my previous setup which I had just heard, I comforted myself by saying to myself perhaps it really needs to break-in both tonearm and cartridge for 30-40 hours b4 one can do any serious listening. I was wrong as after subsequent checkings, I discovered the wire connected to the tweeter on the right speaker was accidentally lossened during the installation, in addition, after adding a single thin wire for grounding purpose to reduce initial hum problem inadvertently shifted the arm tower, causing the tip of the needle to rest 2 mm beyond the tracking arch of the arm protractor.

    Finally, after everything was set back to normal places (with NUMEROUS VTA, VTF adjustments and fiddling with tension of the 2 screws on the headshell), I began doing some serious listening. Whow, the sound was purer, more organic, better resolution , more 3-dimensional soundstage plus better bass resolution than my previous setup. You could almost hear everything which was recorded on the record, not that I could hear something (information) new which was not noticeable previously, everything came out naturally and you could hear the recorded information clearly without making any effort to listen to anything closely, in other words, you can follow every part of the music/playing with ease, just like when you are sitting in the fronts rows of a concert hall - is the sound of a tone arm with zero tracking error ?

    I bought my first high end turntable in 1975, an Era (French) with the popular SME followed by Linn, Grace(then ITTOK and Syrinx) & Supex in 1976/77, my dream arm at that time was the world's most expensive swiss made Breuer (Micha of Thales has some relationship with this designer, so I was told). Since then, I had gone through many TTs, tonearms (including some older air-bearing and tangential designs). The point I'm trying to make here is I'm no spring chicken in the art of turntable playing (yes, when I visited many so-called vinyl lovers' homes, the sound of their turntable system was not perfectly tuned, some had the platter playing marginally faster than 33 1/3, some had slight mistracking, some had minor imbalance on the left & right channel and less-than-ideal VTA & VTF setting). Honestly, I find some hi-fi folks out there play turntable for the sake of showing to themselves or others that they are audiophiles but the sound of many of the so-called audiophile homes are rather mediocre (if you do not feel the same as me, then you may probably be one of them too).

    My conclusion ( you can take it with a pinch of salt like I always do when I read other hi-fi reviewers' reviews) is the Thales is the best arm I have the pleasure of owning, it could possibly be the world's best arm but I can not and will never be sure of this but as long as I think it is, I can concentrate on maximizing the performance of my current turntable system. The Thales has made me aware of the design defiicency of the other arms I had used in the past, these include single pivot, tangential, tangential air-bearing and many others. A word of advice to those air-bearing tonearm users out there, air is the most tricky part after you have got everything done right (that means A LOT) because air CHANGES with temperature and humidity and last but not the least, pressure. Everytime when I used my previous air-bearing tonearm, I had to adjust the pressure, too much of it, the sound is less refine and may sound wee bit harsh on certain records, too little of it will impair the tracking esp. towards the end of the record - if you can't hear these subtle changes, good for you as you won't need to buy other designs. A turntable system is like a mini hi-fi system, if you don't get eveything right i.e. speaker placement and room acoustics, you can only hear 50% or less of what your gear is capable of giving.

    Happy tweaking all you vinyl players out there but Thales rules okay !

    Mr Z



  • We all know you are not "spring chicken". The Thales is good, that is certain. Thanks for good writeup as always.
  • Mr Zanden,
    I was also shocked by the cleanness and distortion -free characteristics of the Thales tonearm back in April in PT's place, I don't care much about the EMTcardtridge(it should not sound lean in no circumstances),it was the tonearm that really struck me. The only fault that I can detact about the Thales is its inability to reproduce high level dynamics, I'm not sure its because of the tonearm, the cardridge or the other gears. My vinyl experience also started in early 70's and I believe we have more or less same thoughts about tonearms and the like, to wit: only a very few vinyl set up I've heard over the past 30 years can pass a simple tracking test, including my numerous set-ups. The Thales solves most of the problems which are inherent to other tonearm designs, longer arm could eliminate some of these problems but at the same time adding new problems to it, such as moving mass will be increased exponentially due to a longer arm making tracking ability unpredictable and uncontrollable, tonearm resonance will be in a different pattern, traditional inteligence sets an optimum arm lemgth with acceptable mistracking error, a shorter arm such as Thales deals with it intelligently. Mr Zanden, if you find the mid-bass energy sufficient and high level dynamics acceptable, you've own a super arm.
  • Thales arm is revolutionary in design and original in philosophy. The equivalent of Thales in the world of cartridge is this one built by a 60 year old Japanese man. The movement of the stylus has so much more freedom than all conventional design known on earth till now. This is ground breaking out of the box/non-conventional design. I rank it equivalent to Thales.
  • Mr.Zanden, your report is always great. I am waiting for the Thales too.

    Ray, what's up? Come on tell us more, at least a damn name of this cartridge!


  • I shall report with more indepth listening.
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