Look at the headshell of the tonearm which is detachable. Such design is very smart in allowing the setup of different cartridges ready for service on different headshell. So for lazy people like me, I can simply ask Master Chik to set up a few cartridges on different headshells and with some minor adjustment on the tracking force, etc, I am on the run!! I am not an expert in tonearm but this design is really new to me! My first combo is obviously the DV Virtu class cartridge !!
The new Virtu arm cannot be described as 'evolved' from the previous Grandezza Reference arm although I recall it was really the idea when DaVinci has put this new arm in their design board. After several iterations, the new design of the Virtu arm has become a new class of its own having a much more precise and frictionless bearing mechanism. From a layman's angle, the Virtu arm is a piece of modern art having little resemblance with the Grandezza arm which apparently comes from a more 'classical' school of look and feel.
Master Chik used the DG Recording, Beethoven Sonatas performed by Emil Gilel to setup the Virtu arm in AE showroom which I witnessed 2 weeks ago, so I have the same LP ready for our 'inaugural' audition !
Forgot to post this photo. The CD has played a vital role to ascertain the improvement of this Virtu arm vs its predecessor, I will explain more in my detail report...
Comparing to many veterans in this forum, my exposure to the world of analog musical playback is at the level of kindergarten in terms of number of components used. My first encounter of this vinyl domain is the DaVinci tonearm carrying an Eminent cartridge on the TW Acoustics Raven turntable. I then gradually moved to use the DV Unison One turntable, the Grandezza cartridge and now the Grandezza Reference cartridge and Gabriel turntable. I still have the Thales arm ready for serving me but at this point I have not made up my mind if I would go for an additional armbase to run it on the Gabriel or get its matching turntable that AE has set up recently. This is not the main point, the key is, my vinyl journey is very much paved on the DaVinci foundations and beliefs although I am still far away from the league of Mr. DV who uses a whole suite of DV system end-to-end.
If the previous Grandezza reference tonearm is capable of delivering a musical picture of solid colors and richness in the ambience, this Virtu tonearm is producing a music ‘video’ with everything above done with perfection PLUS much more details on the continuous motion of the performers within the musical context. Gabriel has no doubt playing a pivotal role in minimizing the mechanical vibration and distortion but the noise introduced by the imperfect tracking and friction on the joint/bearing may also lead to ‘blurred’ details in the playback of the recording. Virtu arm has dramatically improved on the precision of such delivering contiguously movements instead of discrete picture by picture. The tail harmonics of multiple piano keystrokes are developed in layers and structure without intermingled with each other. Spatial resolution not just on the relative positioning of different musical objects/groups but also on the surrounding environment even covering the audience in case of live concerts.
I am particularly fond of cello music on vinyl recordings and in the past, a cello is a cello and a cellist is a cellist with different level of skills. With the Virtu arm setup, the tonality of different cello becomes more distinguishable and the passion and the musical message that the cellist wanted to communicate can be more vividly reflected through the rhythm , tempo and touchings presented by the cellist during the performance. Such reflection is contiguous, lively as well as structured. In hindsight and in comparison, Grandezza tonearm depicted these emotions in a chained but fragmented pieces.
I moved house in between upgrading from Grandezza to Virtu . What I have described above is clearly based on my memory recollection of how Grandezza performed under my old setup. Such would not be conclusve if I do not get some control as a reference. This question was in my mind for quite a while until I realize I have the same recording of Emil Gilel playing Beethoven on a CD. I listened to the same CD when I was in my old setup using Grandezza. At that time, using Vekian and Neodio as my CD sources, I compared many CD/LP combo of the same piece of music in order to understand the difference among the three. The CD playback of this recording is fast, impactful, punchy with lots of transient and microdynamic details. On top, the LP playback by Grandezza adds more liveliness and ambience making the music more natural and organic. If the margin between CD and LP(Grandezza) is 5 in a scale of 1 to 10, the margin between CD and LP (Virtu) is now 9 in the same scale. This is scaled according to the overall system performance taking into account the deficiencies in the acoustics, changes in the gears and cables. This is certainly not an absolute apple to apple comparison but given the CD playback is almost a constant in the overall equation, the above relative marginal differences would still give an indication on the performance of the 2 arms. What contributes to this difference in performance relative to CD is primarily the weight carried by each piano keystroke traversed deep through into the legs of the piano into the floor and the echo of the bouncing back which can be clearly heard via Virtu while it is relatively lighter in Grandezza and almost ‘gone with the wind’ in CD playback. On CD, it is a piano hanging in the air, on Grandezza, it is a piano shipped in an ocean, on Virtu, it is a piano anchored in the floor….this may be a bit exaggerated to illustrate the relative ‘buoyance’ of the musical images.
I have heard the more energetic facet of Virtu In AE showroom when it was paired with Kansui cartridge and Trinity Phono exhibiting more dynamic headrooms and fast transients. In this regard, Virtu arm does not exhibit a strong desire to capture the attention of audience by having its own signature sound. It just helps to unleash the strength of the other components in the chain and playing an honest and unbiased role. This is truly a statement product by DaVinci and now I can safely say it is worthwhile for the waiting of such state-of-the-art product! I am glad to declare, once again, I am back in the analog world of music drowning myself in a heritage of vinyl music !! My salute to Peter of DV who helps making this happened!!
Recently I always look for a good preamp to replace my PRT-1, Takumi K10 is a good one but not my cup of tea. Last week Jlam sent me an e-mail telling me a brand new Nifty preamp would arrive my apartment for testing soon and there would be no chance I can resist it. When I went home last Saturday, a black rectangular box like Wavac AC2 with big knobs on the front panel already rested on the floor. When I tried to put it on the crazy rack, I could not believe how heavy it was. I had the impression that Peter must focus all his efforts to inside instead of the appearance to catch people’s heart.
Having connected to the system and auditioned for 5 minutes, my jaw almost dropped on the floor. I never heard any preamp with such amazing resolution, speed and control yet had no compromise of density and musicality which are always my top concern when listening to music. To verify what I had heard, I let the preamp run for a day and listened again for a few hours on Sunday before making any judgment.
Even without enough break-in, Nifty is the best preamp I have encountered. The only one can beat it should be Virtu which I don’t have a chance to audition. Nifty projects a stable and huge 3D soundstage with sharp positioning of instruments inside. All instruments integrate each other so well you never have a sense of broken stage like many solid state preamps do. The bass is extremely fast, tight, punchy and detailed and hearing drums is fxxking live. The separate circuit ground design is revolutionary and the result is phenomenon, once connected to Troy I can guarantee you have never experienced such calmness and dark background from any preamp before.
If speaking of richness, harmonics and musicality, Nifty has them all like old Da Vinci gear. I truly have no clues how Peter designs and builds such a giant killer with this price. Nifty exhibits all the goodies coming from top end tube and solid state preamps without any compromise. Is it flawless? I don’t know yet, but after 2 days of listening I still cannot find one weakness. If Nifty can come earlier, I am pretty sure it will be the best product and best buy of year 2011. Conclusion? Of course I bite the bullet and what left in my mind now is the Nifty phono. I must give tribute to Peter who develops this wonderful preamp for us.
Finally managed to visit AE2 today. With all of the positive experience shared by other fellows, I am not very surprised in the first 45 min. PT demo with those challenging CDs that showed off both the quality of the gears and more importantly how those gears and the room living together harmoniously. Its a great achievement but within my expectation. The Cessaro and K10 are gears that I familiar with but what really reignites my audio passion (since I suspended this hobby since return to HK) is the Virtu power amp. I picked Li Yundi's Vienna Recital, PT commented that that's easy. After 30sec, I said to PT, this is the piano music that I love and thats not easy to replay at that level. The non-eye catching mono blocks appears to be the majic. I was tempted to ask PT to connect the Virtu Preamp as well... I know what I need when I settle my proper listening space in HK. Really good stuff.
There will be many people auditioning the Da Vinci Virtu amplifier driving Cessaro in the next few days because of the rave compliments from the community!
Thanks to Dso who spent a whole afternoon helping me to fine tune the Gabriel/Virtu setup and at the same time further improve my speaker positioning to produce a more complete soundstage. When we both sat down after 2.5hrs of hardwork (mostly by Dso), we were both rewarded handsomely by the lyrical music produced from the vinyl system....each key stroke on the piano music brought by Dso burst out spherically in 3-dimension with weight and texture!
When everything is done a bit 'right'er than before, the cumulative jump is not small !!
I am envious of your CEO position with great helping hands at your service all the time. What is more interesting is to better share what had been done to elevate the performance and what went wrong originally so that the incumbent can grasp from your experiences. Does the spherical dispersion of the high pitch note also apply to the bass notes?
It will be even more fruitful to all of us if your hands are put into real action. It is more interesting from readers' perspective going through your own mistakes and subsequently resolved it.
Have you ever known someone who can swim without practicing in the water?
You seem to be pretty good at descriptive works of reviewing hardwares/cables rather than analytical works of bettering your own system all these years. Maybe it is a time to start a new audio magazine called "Marvelous Audio System" with Marvel as the Chief Editor? I will be the first subscriber. I will make sure the top bankers receive them and read them before they go to bed.
I do enjoy reading your reviews all the time. But the recent one on the Virtu arm wasn't a great job. I know many people who can reproduce what you described. You need more facts to convey a strong message justifying your happiness and satisfaction brought from the Virtu.
Marvel is an audio playboy like myself. But if anyone is serous about vinyl, I believe even our playboy character has to change to accommodate the nature of analog - troublesome. That requires patience and painstaking effort of adjustment, fine tuning, adjustment, fine tuning until indefinitely....
Comments
Master Chik used the DG Recording, Beethoven Sonatas performed by Emil Gilel to setup the Virtu arm in AE showroom which I witnessed 2 weeks ago, so I have the same LP ready for our 'inaugural' audition !
To be continued....
If the previous Grandezza reference tonearm is capable of delivering a musical picture of solid colors and richness in the ambience, this Virtu tonearm is producing a music ‘video’ with everything above done with perfection PLUS much more details on the continuous motion of the performers within the musical context. Gabriel has no doubt playing a pivotal role in minimizing the mechanical vibration and distortion but the noise introduced by the imperfect tracking and friction on the joint/bearing may also lead to ‘blurred’ details in the playback of the recording. Virtu arm has dramatically improved on the precision of such delivering contiguously movements instead of discrete picture by picture. The tail harmonics of multiple piano keystrokes are developed in layers and structure without intermingled with each other. Spatial resolution not just on the relative positioning of different musical objects/groups but also on the surrounding environment even covering the audience in case of live concerts.
I am particularly fond of cello music on vinyl recordings and in the past, a cello is a cello and a cellist is a cellist with different level of skills. With the Virtu arm setup, the tonality of different cello becomes more distinguishable and the passion and the musical message that the cellist wanted to communicate can be more vividly reflected through the rhythm , tempo and touchings presented by the cellist during the performance. Such reflection is contiguous, lively as well as structured. In hindsight and in comparison, Grandezza tonearm depicted these emotions in a chained but fragmented pieces.
I moved house in between upgrading from Grandezza to Virtu . What I have described above is clearly based on my memory recollection of how Grandezza performed under my old setup. Such would not be conclusve if I do not get some control as a reference. This question was in my mind for quite a while until I realize I have the same recording of Emil Gilel playing Beethoven on a CD. I listened to the same CD when I was in my old setup using Grandezza. At that time, using Vekian and Neodio as my CD sources, I compared many CD/LP combo of the same piece of music in order to understand the difference among the three. The CD playback of this recording is fast, impactful, punchy with lots of transient and microdynamic details. On top, the LP playback by Grandezza adds more liveliness and ambience making the music more natural and organic. If the margin between CD and LP(Grandezza) is 5 in a scale of 1 to 10, the margin between CD and LP (Virtu) is now 9 in the same scale. This is scaled according to the overall system performance taking into account the deficiencies in the acoustics, changes in the gears and cables. This is certainly not an absolute apple to apple comparison but given the CD playback is almost a constant in the overall equation, the above relative marginal differences would still give an indication on the performance of the 2 arms. What contributes to this difference in performance relative to CD is primarily the weight carried by each piano keystroke traversed deep through into the legs of the piano into the floor and the echo of the bouncing back which can be clearly heard via Virtu while it is relatively lighter in Grandezza and almost ‘gone with the wind’ in CD playback. On CD, it is a piano hanging in the air, on Grandezza, it is a piano shipped in an ocean, on Virtu, it is a piano anchored in the floor….this may be a bit exaggerated to illustrate the relative ‘buoyance’ of the musical images.
I have heard the more energetic facet of Virtu In AE showroom when it was paired with Kansui cartridge and Trinity Phono exhibiting more dynamic headrooms and fast transients. In this regard, Virtu arm does not exhibit a strong desire to capture the attention of audience by having its own signature sound. It just helps to unleash the strength of the other components in the chain and playing an honest and unbiased role. This is truly a statement product by DaVinci and now I can safely say it is worthwhile for the waiting of such state-of-the-art product! I am glad to declare, once again, I am back in the analog world of music drowning myself in a heritage of vinyl music !! My salute to Peter of DV who helps making this happened!!
Marvel
Having connected to the system and auditioned for 5 minutes, my jaw almost dropped on the floor. I never heard any preamp with such amazing resolution, speed and control yet had no compromise of density and musicality which are always my top concern when listening to music. To verify what I had heard, I let the preamp run for a day and listened again for a few hours on Sunday before making any judgment.
Even without enough break-in, Nifty is the best preamp I have encountered. The only one can beat it should be Virtu which I don’t have a chance to audition. Nifty projects a stable and huge 3D soundstage with sharp positioning of instruments inside. All instruments integrate each other so well you never have a sense of broken stage like many solid state preamps do. The bass is extremely fast, tight, punchy and detailed and hearing drums is fxxking live. The separate circuit ground design is revolutionary and the result is phenomenon, once connected to Troy I can guarantee you have never experienced such calmness and dark background from any preamp before.
If speaking of richness, harmonics and musicality, Nifty has them all like old Da Vinci gear. I truly have no clues how Peter designs and builds such a giant killer with this price. Nifty exhibits all the goodies coming from top end tube and solid state preamps without any compromise. Is it flawless? I don’t know yet, but after 2 days of listening I still cannot find one weakness. If Nifty can come earlier, I am pretty sure it will be the best product and best buy of year 2011. Conclusion? Of course I bite the bullet and what left in my mind now is the Nifty phono. I must give tribute to Peter who develops this wonderful preamp for us.
When everything is done a bit 'right'er than before, the cumulative jump is not small !!
Salute to DSo !!
I am envious of your CEO position with great helping hands at your service all the time. What is more interesting is to better share what had been done to elevate the performance and what went wrong originally so that the incumbent can grasp from your experiences. Does the spherical dispersion of the high pitch note also apply to the bass notes?
It will be even more fruitful to all of us if your hands are put into real action. It is more interesting from readers' perspective going through your own mistakes and subsequently resolved it.
Have you ever known someone who can swim without practicing in the water?
I do enjoy reading your reviews all the time. But the recent one on the Virtu arm wasn't a great job. I know many people who can reproduce what you described. You need more facts to convey a strong message justifying your happiness and satisfaction brought from the Virtu.
Had you reviewed any hardwares recently?