| The Graham Slee Era Gold V and
Elevator EXP Phono Preamplifiers |
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Page 2
Following Graham Slee’s advice, I did not use
a line conditioner: an Eichmann AC extender
strip with a DNM solid-core AC cord handled
the 2 AC lines from the 2 power supplies. I
placed the 2 PSU-1’s on a round hardwood slab
and isolated them from the floor with
Stillpoints. Similarly, I placed the 2 phono
units on another hardwood slab and used the
Stillpoints or the Ganymede VCS to isolate the
slab from the equipment rack shelf. Isolation
proved critical to maximize performance,
releasing a transparency that was lacking with
casual positioning. As a charter member of The
Society for Placing Things on Other Things,
these results were not new.
Thankfully, musical results with the Era Gold
V completely outweigh the tedium of the long
break-in period and time spent on system
optimization. The simplest way to describe the
Era’s performance is that of superlative
resolution and natural-sounding clarity. Its
ease, speed, and time/phase coherence is
immediately transparent to perception by its
exceptional tracking of the transient envelope
of notes. The initial transient attack,
flowering, and decay of notes are as good as
it gets. Its accurate tracking of the decay of
notes deserves special comment and praise.
Moreover, this ability applies to multiple
instruments playing together at simultaneously
different and varying volume levels. Except
for live performance, I’ve never heard the
simultaneous increase in volume of one
instrument with the decreasing volume and
decay of a quieter accompanying instrument
rendered so well. Instruments playing new
notes into the reverberant overhang of
preceding notes are rendered in a way that
previously I had also only experienced live.
The piano is particularly strong at producing
this effect. Not surprisingly, piano
reproduction was first-rate, with both its
percussive and lyrical nature equally
replicated.
Complicated meshes of instruments and
instrumental lines are clearly separated,
allowing one to perceive the forest and the
trees simultaneously. The depiction of the
relative loudness of individual instruments
playing together is particularly musically
communicative. The connection between lead and
accompanying instruments is completely
transparent, resolving the meaning of
accompaniment, whether it be response to the
lead instrument’s call, harmonic contribution,
elaboration, variation, or subvoce comment.
The Era’s superb reproduction of individual
instrumental timbre, musical architecture,
group interaction, phrasing, punctuation, and
larger musical thrust inspired me to a
marathon Concerto concert: 10 different
concerti from Vivaldi to Bartok were
reproduced with such utter ease and such deep
musical and sonic satisfaction that I could
not help foolishly clapping at the end of each
concerto. Virtuoso solo passages, particularly
in slow movements and cadenzas, had me
spellbound, unconsciously holding my breath
until the tension in the music was released.
Subtleties of phrasing, punctuation, slight
shifts of tempo, rubato, and dynamic shading
allowed deep understanding and immersion into
the quality of the artistry of the
performance. This intense level of involvement
in the music and its meaning is what I search
for and demand in audio components: the ERA V
Gold is at the state-of-the-art in phono
reproduction in allowing this fundamental
demand to be met. It is spell-binding.
This ease and accuracy was duplicated with
every genre of Classical Music. Solo sonatas,
duos, trios, string quartets, chamber
orchestra concerti, and full symphonic works
were replicated with the same exceptional
clarity, resolution and direct communication
of the work’s aesthetic purport. Outstanding,
simply outstanding.
Synchronistically, one of the reference phono
cartridges used in the development of the Era
is the legendary MusicMaker III from The
Cartridge Man, Leonard Gregory. The MusicMaker
III is an all-time classic of the cartridge
art and its performance with the ERA V Gold
revealed even more of its greatness. Listening
to a ‘dedicated’ set-up with the Hadcock 242
tonearm and with The Isolator, and then with
the Origin Live Silver 250 and Conqueror arms,
the MusicMaker III’s performance with the Era
ranks as some of my most musically exalted
audio experiences. Performance with other
musically adept cartridges led to similar deep
aesthetic experiences. The Garrott Brothers
Optim FGS, Rega Exact, Grado Signature TLZ-V
and the sadly discontinued Shure V-15 V xMR,
were all stellar performers, their ultimate
quality limits set by the tonearm and
turntable used. Less musically capable
cartridges like the Blue Point Special,
regular Blue Point and Denon DL 160, never
sounded as good as they did with the ERA, but
their technical limitations (predominantly
their elliptical stylus tips) and fundamental
music-making limitations were clearly audible.
The Era doesn’t editorialize: it tells both
what’s good and what’s bad about its ancillary
partners. If a cartridge has good timing,
musical flow, and punctuation it will let it
through; if it doesn’t, you’ll know it. The
Era doesn’t flatter, but then it doesn’t harp
either.
Damaged used records won’t have their flaws
glossed over; groove damage manifests as a
“tick” rather than the “tock” of narrow
bandwidth designs. Some of the more
unrealistic and deranged studio engineering
techniques used in Jazz and Rock recordings
will be obvious; the music’s quality, however,
will come through. (Example: Dave Brubeck’s
Time Out places Brubeck’s piano to the far
right in the stereo mix, though it is obvious
through the Era that the ascending treble
notes coming at you mean that he must have
been either at the left or in the center in
the studio.) The resolution, coherence and
clarity that so well serve Classical Music
also apply directly to great musicianship in
any musical category. Extracting the music
from crappy recordings is an art form itself
and one I highly value.
If you expect bright, exaggerated high
frequency response from the Era V Gold, you
will be disappointed. The top end sounds like
the best of British Classical Music monitor
speakers: sweet, transiently controlled,
non-metallic, and almost self-effacingly
neutral. The purpose of wide bandwidth design,
after all, is not to titillate or torture
porpoises but to aid naturalness and
resolution in the frequency bands where the
music happens. Indeed, brightness and spotlit
high frequencies are more often a side effect
of poor top-end extension, poor transient
control (and its resultant smearing of
resolution) along with phase, transient, and
intermodulation distortions. Midrange was so
convincing that I find nothing to comment
about; the presence band was neither
exaggerated nor recessed. Lyric
intelligibility was first-rate. It is likely,
however, that the bass reproduction of the 2
phono sections will be the most controversial.
Graham Slee feels that the bass reproduction
of most phono preamplifiers is falsely fat,
loose and transiently slurred. Both the Era’s
and the Elevator’s bass is tight, controlled,
and in-focus, sounding more like a woofer
whose alignment is critically damped rather
than the boom and smear of under-damped
designs. The lack of subsonic filters, which
Slee considers essential to maintain correct
phase response to 50 Hz, means that
reflex-loaded woofers’ lack of damping below
their in-box resonance will allow cone
excursions should low bass perturbations
emerge from the turntable. Since the vast
majority of contemporary speakers use bass
reflex loading, special care should be taken
regarding turntable isolation and tonearm/cartridge
ability to track record warps. Users of
sealed-box acoustic-suspension speakers need
not concern themselves. Freed from
sub-resonance woofer excursions and the phase
anomalies of port radiation, these designs
will reveal more clearly the tautness and
phase coherency of the Slee designs.
Perceived bass response with LP is a complex
combination of factors and the Slee duo lean
towards being faithful messengers rather than
flattering courtiers. Depending on the
associated gear, particularly speakers and
phono cartridge, the bass can sound slightly
reduced in level and lacking some punch and
authority. Artificial bass compression and the
bass cut-off at 50 Hz on older US records will
be apparent, perhaps to an unwelcome degree.
It’s perhaps unfair to blame the messenger
here: careful system matching, particularly
cartridge choice, can obviate the effect.
Still, the resonance of cellos and double
basses grounding to the recording venue’s
floor through their instruments’ spikes was
absent in all my auditions. Bass-driven Rock
music can sound slightly curtailed in thrust
and the resolution of expressive bass playing
can seem slightly less nuanced.
The Elevator EXP, while sounding identical to
its moving magnet comrade, proved slightly
easier to integrate into a system largely
because, like a sonic chameleon, it took on
the sonic aspects of the moving magnet phono
to which it was connected. Some thought should
be taken when mating the Elevator to the Era,
as the duo’s lack of flattery can expose
bass-light cartridges as bass-shy. The
slightly self-effacing quality of the top
treble of the two can serve to bring the
rising high-end of many moving coils closer to
a more natural perspective, especially since
the Slees’ speed, resolution and lack of
distortion will eliminate the metallic sheen
so commonly audible with moving coil designs.
The duo’ s neutrality will not however flatter
the cartridge’s overall tonal color signature;
moving coil cartridges all too often cast a
blue, silver, grey or white pall over the
natural tonal colors of instruments.
Fortunately there is a movement away from the
‘lean, sheen, and mean’ school of moving coil
sonics of the past towards a richer, more
natural (dare I say it? moving magnet) sonic
perspective in current moving coil designs.
Needless to say, fuller-bodied and more
natural-sounding cartridges like the Garrott-modified
Ortofon SPU trumped cartridges like the
Dynavector Karat and Talisman Boron.
Stereophonic effects were purely a function of
the recording, the phono cartridge and the
loudspeaker’s abilities. I personally find
acoustic orchestral music the only dependable
and meaningful reference to rate stereo
performance; the vagaries of multi-mono,
pan-potted studio constructions bear no
relationship to live reality and judgements
based on them are fraught with error. At their
best, the Slees, with my di-pole electrostatic
Sound Lab Dynastat reference speakers,
produced a front row perspective with width
greater than depth and the soundstage
extending beyond the speakers and sidewalls of
the room. With the excellent new Rega R1
mini-monitors ($495 a pair: review in
progress) the soundstage took on the
3-dimensional imaging hallucination that is
the mini-monitor forte. Soundstage focus
remained clear from the lowest bass to the
highest treble.
Compared to the nine other phono sections I
had available, the Graham Slee Era and
Elevator matched them in timing, rhythm, and
in laying bare the fundamental structures and
meaning of music. The duo proved superior in
offering a higher overall degree of clarity
and resolution. The musical significance of
this was most obviously manifested in
classical music where the organic and holistic
qualities of excellent high-output cartridges
like the MusicMaker III cast deeply affecting
spells. The Era Gold V and MusicMaker III
combination was so holistic and integrated
that one can easily discredit the claim of
moving coils as being somehow “better.”
The music-making abilities of the Elevator EXP
with moving coil cartridges was no less
revelatory: I have never heard moving coils
sound as good, and given the contemporary move
in moving coil design toward more natural
tonality, the Elevator opens up a genre of
design for investigation that I have
consistently found in the past to be both
sonically and musically unconvincing.
The Era Mk V Gold and Elevator EXP are
definite contenders for reference-quality
performance. Their purist thoroughbred nature
demands careful system matching to realize
their potential, limiting perhaps universal
application, but richly rewarding those
willing to devote the effort.
Paul Szabady
______________
Address:
Manufacturer: Graham Slee Projects
1 Monks Way, Monk Bretton,
South Yorkshire, United Kingdom
S71 2JD.
Telephone: 0(044)1226 244908
Email:
info@gspaudio.co.uk
Website:
http://www.gspaudio.co.uk/index.htm
US Distributor
Elex Atelier
2227 Double Tree Av.
Henderson, NV 89052
USA
Tel: 702-631-7558
Fax: 702-974-0220
Email:
elex@elexatelier.com
Website:
http://www.elexatelier.com/phonopreamp.htm
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