Alto Armboard

A couple of weeks ago I took delivery of the new Alto sub-chassis and Armboard and duly installed it over the weekend (see pics). I had been eagerly awaiting this, since Theo informed me last year that he was upgrading the design from the existing Serene chassis and Armboard available at the time. I had previously upgraded my LP12 with a Serene top-plate, cross brace and ultimate baseboard, and was very impressed with the improvement in sonics (cleaned up midrange, deeper, tighter base and clearer treble) but nothing could have prepared me for the depth of improvement that the new Alto chassis and armboard have brough to my LP12, originally fitted with a Majik chassis and Karousel bearing.

What really struck me is that the bass is now incredibly tight – it’s almost as though it’s going an octave lower, with a phenomenal impact and solidity. Any percussive instrument (including piano) has a heightened sense of attack, and in rhythmically complex passages I can hear the individual elements of rhythm more clearly, and the sense of timing now seems incredibly precise. For the midrange, any hint of congestion is simply gone. Brass or woodwind instruments (esp. saxophone) now sound wonderfully clear, with a vibrancy that simply wasn’t there before, with a complete absence of glare or brightness to their sound. As for the treble, this is where I had the biggest surprise – I had always thought the treble was clear and sweet, but now there is noticeably more detail and crispness, and I can clearly hear the metallic bite of a cymbal strike, with all the harmonics still there with a completely “natural” sound character that is not bright or harsh – just totally realistic with heightened sense of the instrument’s position. I would say the overall effect is that instruments can now not only be much more precisely located L to R in the stereo image, but also their sonic image itself is sharper, with more depth and clear location front to back. As a general impression, the sound has more energy right across the frequency spectrum, and there is an immediacy to the sound, where I now get an uncanny sense of the real, live musician playing the instrument in my living room e.g I can clearly hear their breath intake on vocals, or the “air pressure” from the instrument itself, especially the trumpet or a kick-drum. For example, I listened to my Analogue Productions version of Hugh Masekela’s “Hope” album, – with the Alto chassis/armboard it simply makes the experience of listening so much more immersive, with a heightened sense of being being in the acoustic space of the live event, and the realism and impact imparted on this amazing performance is wonderful. I just can’t stop listening to it!

So, overall an unqualified success I would say and incredible value for money – a big step up from the standard Majik chassis (for less dosh than a Linn Kore), and I find it hard to imagine how much more improvement could be further be achieved within the confines of my existing set-up. I have a Hana ML cartridge, Audio Origami PU7 arm and Origin Live DC motor drive fitted to my Linn. For my electronics, I use a Musical Fidelity MX-VINYL phono pre-amp in fully balanced mode, a Lyngdorf TDAI-2700 amp with the audiophile analogue input module (has the XLR inputs) fitted, driving Kudos Cardea C30 floor-standing speakers via Audioquest solid core speaker cable. XLR tonearm cable and interconnects are silver star-quad cables custom made by Yannis Tome.”