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Vinyl Asylum: REVIEW: Origin Live Encounter MK3c Tone Arms by jrlaudio

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REVIEW: Origin Live Encounter MK3c Tone Arms

96.250.189.56


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Model: Encounter MK3c
Category: Tone Arms
Suggested Retail Price: $1,750
Description: Dual Pivot 9
Manufacturer URL: Origin Live
Model Picture: View

Review by jrlaudio on October 16, 2013 at 01:39:22
IP Address: 96.250.189.56
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for the Encounter MK3c


Recently I have been helping a client improve his already very nice system. We have upgraded the loudspeakers, cabling tubes in his preamp. He had an old Maplenoll Athena. It had seen better days and was in need of a great deal of work. I suggested since their are many fans of the Maplenoll out their who love to have one, and since he also had as Ariston, that we sell those and get something more ... well ... substantial.

What we ended up with a very pristine Oracle Delphi MKI with the MKIV suspension upgrade. I have a soft spot for the Oracle Delphi, since I worked with Nick Martino at Audio Visions in W. Babylon, N.Y. back in 1981-83. Nick really had a knack with these tables, quickly gained a reputation with them. People would travel thousands of miles just to buy one he setup. Over the years I earned a degree in engineering, which only made me appreciate the design of this table, and Nick's knowledge of how it worked, even deeper. Due to its nature of being very quiet, it makes a superb platform for testing the true performance of a tonearm or cartridge.

I did some research and made some phone calls to some fellow colleagues in the industry and asked informally about what tonearms are out there for about $2000 that have good characteristics. While getting many suggestions the name Origin Live just kept coming up. Many mentioned it first!

Tonearm Details

So I purchased an Origin Live Encounter MK3c . This is the tonearm in the middle of it lines. It is the lowest price "Dual Pivot" tonearm they offer. Dual Pivot is similar to the method used on the tonearms like the venerable SME 3009. However the Origin has much better modern materials and construction quality. The Dual Pivot bearing handles vertical arm movement. Low friction standard bearings in the base handle horizontal arm movement. These bearings are housed using highly developed decoupling techniques. The wand is constructed of a special carbon fiber and ebony. The headshell is non-removable and firmly bonded to the wand. The arm uses high grade internal Litz wire.

One of the nice features is an integral VTA adjust wheel at the base that uses the threaded base allowing for minute adjustment and recall of VTA settings. Two markings, one each on opposite sides of wheel, make for very intuitive and easy to see position reference. Nice feature.

Bias is via the familiar hanging weight method. And it worked flawlessly.

Once I custom fabricated a new Lexan armboard disc for this arm (this Oracle is the type that cannot use the new Oracle aluminum armboard) I went to work setting this baby up. The Encounter (and all OL arms) use the Rega single hole mount scheme. I was pleased how easily this setup went, with no complications. I had already prefabricated the board taking careful measurements before sending the CAD drawing to the machine shop. The overhang distance ended up dead-on, to my pleasant surprise. The position of the pivot point was exactly where it needed to be on the arm board ring on a Delphi (to allow for fine adjustments by rotation), and the distance to the spindle was right where it is specified. The fit of the tonearm base was snug, but it moved freely when needed. No wobble in the hole. I love it when a plan works!

The cartridge used was a very nice high-output Supex 901 mkIV (I can't remember right now) which was already broken in.

I set the arm and cartridge up using my trusty Dennesen Soundtractor. It uses the Baerwald geometry, which I am fine with. The cartridge ended up dead center in the headshell, with the front face perfectly flush with the front of the headshell, which had a certain aesthetic appeal. It also allowed for good coupling since entire top surface of the cartridge was in contact with the headshell. Another happy accident maybe?

I set the VTA roughly suing the "straight arm parallel with the record surface" method. I did this because I wanted to see how well the mounting surface headshell was aligned to the arm wand. Checking on the Dennesen showed it to be nearly perfect. I made slight changes by ear, but more on that later.

The system this was to be used on is actually very similar to my system. It included a Juicy Music Blueberry Extreme Preamp, a British Fidelity P270 MkI, and a very cool pair of B&G Radia FS-420 Ribbon line array loudspeakers. Also included in the system is a Rythmik Audio F12G Direct Servo subwoofer which operates very cleanly and flat down to about 15Hz. The system has been carefully analyzed and the transition to the subwoofer has been very carefully adjusted. One is hard pressed to tell a subwoofer is present until something god awful low-frequency shows up in the music, like with tympani or pipe organ. The F12G is one of only a very few subs that will truly operate down there. So this puts a great deal of pressure on the tonearm performance since the system can operate down at the lowest limits a tonearm can perform as far as bass extension.

I recently restored the the Blueberry Extreme preamp and had rolled through a bunch of tubes to find the ones I had which were the lowest noise and distortion. I ended up with a NOS Telefunken ECC-903S frame grid ultra low-noise type for the phono stage. The system is very flat, extremely revealing, lightning fast, and imaging is wide and deep. The Haas Effect area is large, without a severe sweet spot. The sign of a very phase and time coherent low distortion system.

Subjective Listening Tests

At first listen the sound was slightly warm, however not muddy and very dynamic. I realized very quickly this warmth was due to VTA being just a tad low. The Supex was well broken in and they have a tendency of loosing a little stiffness in the cantilever. So I went to the VTA adjuster and went a quarter turn. Things began to get very tinkly now as expected. I ended up another quarter turn and that seemed about right. I always love when you hit that special spot on VTA. The soundstage got huge, wide and infinitely deep.

I was using my new copy of the "Cantate Domino" on Propius label. This recording has a choir, pipe organ and brass beautifully recorded with an X/Y stereo pair of mics. It's one of those recordings where you hit the right spot on the VTA you can hear individual voices in precise locations within the soundstage. Also the soundfield goes distinct 3 dimensional, with the ambiance and reverberations of the hall being reproduced all around you.

Next came the Reference Recordings pressing of the "Symphony Fantastique" by Berlios. Kojian and the Utah symphony deliver a performance that is second to none on this recording, and Keith Johnson's engineering is simply spectacular. This 45rpm recording however has the nasty tendency of showing you very quickly the dynamic limitations of not only your system, but particularly the turntable performance. I was shocked how effortless this arm took this incredible dynamic content and translated it perfectly. Fast powerful, ultra-deep extension only when needed; simply breathtaking!

Now for the real tests. I have a reference few people who are audiophiles have. I am a recording engineer. And I have worked on numerous recordings that are audiophile favorites. My reference is I created the recording. I know how the instruments sounded in the rooms they were recorded in. I mixed the recordings. I know exactly how they should sound, and therefore I can tell when the system or in this case the turntable is adding something that isn't in the grooves.

So next came the Sheffield Labs STRAVINSKY, Igor - Suite "Firebird" (1910 Version) with Erich Leinsdorf conducting the L.A. Philharmonic. We used a Blumlein pair of Coles/BBC ribbons to make this recording on Stage 1 of MGM/UA. I have to give Doug Sax and Dave Boyk a lot of credit having the nerve to use a point source microphone setup to record this in this space. It is a very intimate sounding space, not at all the concert hall thing. But hey ... we all get to listen to it now, in all its brilliance. I remember how that orchestra sounded in that room and the recording reflect exactly they way it sounded, if the turntable is any good. This turntable was dancing around this recording like an old friend coming home. It sounded exactly as remember, when I was there. I was falling in love with this tonearm.

I am fortunate in that I have many copies of these famous recordings. One of my favorite recordings is, of course Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon . I have the good fortune of knowing Alan Parsons, and when he was recently at Abbey Road Studio in London, working on a documentary film on Dark Side , I was there working on an unrelated recording. I was able to listen to the original "master" multi-track of this famous recording with Alan at the AR/Neve. It gave me a new perspective and awesome point of reference. So next on the turntable was my UHQR Mobile Fidelity. It was quite remarkable how the arm and cartridge were simply not adding anything to the source. Which is what audio gear should be doing. Nothing. The total neutrality of this arm is remarkable, particularly on the sax solo on "Money". Some setups can make this sound too fat, and others way to strident in the upper-mids & highs. This sounded nice and rounded, just like the master playback at Abey Road.

Conclusions

I listened for several days more with my client friend, going through my catalog of reference material and his, which includes a great deal of beautiful recordings of world music, jazz and more eclectic things. We kept playing around with the VTA but always ended up on the same setting I began with. And VTA makes a huge difference with this cartridge and tone arm. This is good sign, it means the arm is doing what a tonearm should do. Nothing. At least sonically. This arm is very capable of translating only the music into the system and impart no additional character of its own. It is accurate and therefore supremely musical and honest. I cannot same the same for my Delphi MkV with an SME V/Koestsu combo. It certainly adds a character, a nice one, but still it changes the sound of the music.

The Origin Live Encounter Mk3c seems to be more musical simply because its honest to what's in the groove. I will rank it as the most musical and therefore best performing tonearm I have ever setup and heard. And I have heard most, and setup up as many.



Product Weakness: Still trying to think of any!
Product Strengths: Utter Neutrality, defines "transparent"<br>Deep, yet not over emphasized, extreme low-bass extension.<br>Simple design with good looks.<br>Built in VTA adjuster.<br>At $1750 USD (2013) one of the best values in hi-end!!!


Associated Equipment for this Review:

Amplifier: British Fidelity P270
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated): Juicy Music Blueberry Extreme
Sources (CDP/Turntable): Oracle Delphi
Speakers: B&G Radia FS-420, Rythmik Audio F12G
Cables/Interconnects: Custom
Music Used (Genre/Selections): See review
Time Period/Length of Audition: Several days
Type of Audition/Review: Friend's System




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Topic - REVIEW: Origin Live Encounter MK3c Tone Arms - jrlaudio 01:39:22 10/16/13 ( 2)