Shindo 301 Vinyl Playback System

Jack Roberts has posted a review of the Shindo 301 Vinyl Playback System ($25,000), a highly modified Garrard 301 with custom tonearm and cartridge, at Dagogo. His conclusions:

Garrard 301s are known for their solidity, body, power, dynamics, and drive. The Shindo does all this and at the same time something fundamentally different from any other record player I have ever heard. With the right amplification and speakers, this vinyl system really sounds real. I started with the word “alive”, but I have used that word most often to talk about the energy level combined with a transparency that lets voices and instruments sound very alive. The Shindo allows my system to move beyond this to sounding real. It is very transparent, and it has as much lifelike magic in the range where human voices are as I have ever heard. When you add to this a solidity and relaxed sound, it just sounds more real than any other source I have ever heard. It has an uncanny way of getting loud and still sounding natural.

You can read the full review here.