Vertere's Magic Bus

[Jason]

I paid a visit to the Vertere HQ in Chiswick recently, Touraj Moghaddam, a man with a mission to convert the world to great sound, had said that I could hear his fresh from the oven turntable. I don’t normally jump on a train when someone makes this sort of offer but Touraj is a bit different, he has been working on cable since leaving Roksan but before that he designed two rather inspiring turntables; the Xerxes and TMS Signature (my first serious TT was a Xerxes). And he had whetted my appetite by sending pictures of the SG-1 or Standard Groove turntable the week before; it looked a little like a TMS but not very. In the flesh the chunky acrylic SG-1 is a whole nuther ballgame. For a start it’s very free moving in the side-to-side plane which has not been the case with his previous designs, and pretty compliant up and down as well – more so than a TMS for sure. It’s not clear in the pictures but two parts of the chassis hang from the top plate, which is supported on three large polished feet. The board that supports arm and bearing is two layers of suspension away from those feet so very well isolated.

This turntable is the entry level model but it can be upgraded with Reference components to RG-1 or Reference Groove status with a replacement power supply, bearing and platter and base platform and dust cover. The standard platform and cover were not ready when I went to hear the SG-1, neither were the SG-1 or RG-1 tonearms which Touraj has designed for this turntable. So I heard it with the range topping Vertere Reference arm which has an eye watering price tag of ‘if you need to ask…’ proportions.

Paul Messenger (left) & Touraj Moghaddam

Touraj had only just installed a non-standard version of a Roksan Shiraz cartridge when I arrived so there was some fettling to be done. He started by playing some Diana Krall vinyl which in all honesty didn’t sound so clever. I didn’t say anything but he realised something was up and had a bit of a tweak, listened, tweaked a bit more and then all of a sudden everything snapped into place. Apparently this turntable had been on tour in the far east and he’d not had the chance to put it back together prior to my visit so I was a guinea pig for a short while. But it was very much worth it, I think it was a Grateful Dead album Anthem of the Sun that made it abundantly clear that we were cooking with gas. What had seemed rather rambling and shambolic, as often seems the case with early Dead, pulled itself into a cohesive whole. Touraj said that all he had been doing was making small alterations to the anti-skate bias, which surprised me but this is clearly a very revealing record player. We span Joni Mitchell’s Dry Cleaner from Des Moines (on Mingus) and the snap of the percussion combined with Jaco Pastorius’ delightful bass playing was a real treat. That was before the horn section stabbed and the entire soundstage expanded, this was a lot of fun. Just occasionally I get carried away with streaming audio because it’s so good compared to other digital formats but it’s very hard to compete with a decent turntable and all but impossible to hold a candle to one like this.

After a nice bit of Laurie Anderson things got rather lively with the Who’s Live at Leeds. I have this album at home but have never really ‘got it’ if you know what I mean, I thought that Won’t Get Fooled Again was the highlight of their oeuvre. I was wrong. This fact was made obvious when the needle hit Magic Bus and the volume got kranked. Lummy is the most polite way to describe my reaction to the power and dynamism of this phenomenal recording. Now I know why they are held in such high regard, and for that matter why bass player John Entwhistle had to play so loud. When Keith Moon’s drums pretty much explode he almost disappears from the scene. That was a seminal moment and I will be treating the album to a few more plays in future, I suspect however that the result will not be so mind blowing without a front end of this quality. It has the energy of a Rega and the poise of an SME, delivering power and physical presence whilst remaining calm under fire. It’s a very exciting sound indeed and I am clamouring to get a production sample home to hear more.

[Polarbear]

An excellent review, thank you Jason.