Analog Corner #282: OMA Plinth for Technics SP10, SAT CF1-12 tonearm, Doshi V3.0 phono stage

April 08, 2023 / By mobanmarket

Last May I got a text message from my vinyl-loving electrician: “Hey Michael, I’m listening to WFMU and a young 12 year old analog genius is guest DJ-ing, Malachi Lui. He mentioned you, and talks about mastering and pressings—he’s incredible. I imagine he’s been in touch with you. Hope all is well, Craig.”

Malachi hadn’t been in touch, but his comments were all over AnalogPlanet’s YouTube channel, and you’d never know they were from a 12-year-old. I responded to one, and shortly thereafter I heard from his mother, who said he really wanted to meet me, and that they’d drive over when it was convenient for me.

We set up a day and time just before Independence Day. I readied my video camera, in case the encounter proved worthy of YouTube. If you haven’t watched the video, please do. I guarantee it will make your day, no matter how good your day is already going.

After that encounter, a generous reader sent me a Rega P3 to give to Malachi, which I surprised him with during a return visit. And Robert Marino of Athena Productions, a pioneer of vinyl reissues I’d not heard from in decades, was moved to send the kid a box of great records.

In the second video, Malachi references Howlin’ Wolf and Captain Beefheart, along with Jack White, whose label, Third Man Records, recently reissued Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica (1969) on vinyl. Shortly after the second visit, Malachi and his family moved to Portland, Oregon. The man who’d sent the Rega ‘table mentioned that Jack White was going to play Portland; I checked with Malachi’s mother, and found out that they planned to attend.

So a surprise backstage visit with Jack White was arranged. It wasn’t difficult—White had seen the video, and he, too, had been bowled over by Malachi’s references to Howlin’ Wolf and Beefheart. The turntable benefactor—a Grammy-nominated music supervisor based in L.A.—texted that White was “psyched” to meet Malachi, adding that his kids were “already a bit jealous because Jack talks about him so much.” Probably a bit of hyperbole, but not much more than a bit, I’m sure.

The caption for the photo of the backstage encounter on White’s Instagram account (officialjackwhitelive) reads, “Jack is telling Malachi that he is the future of audiophile sacred music appreciation.” That’s not quite accurate. Malachi is the present of audiophile sacred music appreciation.

Because now Malachi is writing for AnalogPlanet, reviewing records and equipment and being paid the going rate. His review of Jack White’s Boarding House Reach is perceptive, his writing clean and well punctuated. But when he asked if he could review John Coltrane’s Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album, I balked. “Come on, Malachi—you’re 12 years old.”

Read the review. I suggested that he add a section outlining the albums Coltrane was releasing even as he left this one in the vault, and Malachi turned it in the next day. But the words are all his, with scarcely an edit. It reads as if written by an erudite 45-year-old—or, as one well-known record producer pushing 70 texted, “Damn, that’s what I would have written!” He then added: “If I could have been guaranteed a kid like that, I’d have had kids!”

Malachi’s parents, who are fully involved in and supportive of all of this, have provided me with a far more balanced picture of this precocious youngster, whom my wife describes as “an old soul.” When I told them that, on the phone and in the videos, he’s a sweet, bubbly kid, but in e-mail communications he sometimes sounds like a busy, middle-aged business executive, his mom said, “That’s him!”

How good is this kid? In September, I wrote and published a story that included links to 24-bit/96kHz needle drops of the same music, played using the same turntable, cartridge, and phono preamplifier, but switching among Swedish Analog Technologies’ original tonearm (over $30,000) and their more recent LM-09 ($25,400) and CF1-09 ($48,000) models (see “Analog Corner” in the November 2018 issue). I invited readers to listen to the files and state their preferences and why, and to try to guess which file was recorded with which arm. I also posted a file recorded using the same music, cartridge, and phono preamp, but with a “mystery” turntable and tonearm.

The next day, Malachi responded. He’d correctly matched every file with the tonearm I’d used to record it, and his descriptions of each arm’s sound eerily matched my own. (My review of the SAT CF1-097 had not yet been published, and he hadn’t read my review of the LM-098 because his complimentary subscription to Stereophile hadn’t begun). I told him by return e-mail that he was “the real deal!” He responded that he’d made the correct identifications in study hall, using his iPad speaker!

Malachi’s family and their friends have told me how fortunate he is to have me as a mentor, but really—to have this remarkable yet selfless young man appear at this juncture of my life and career makes me think that I’m the lucky one. Joy has replaced the sadness experienced over the losses, in rapid succession, of Dave Wilson of Wilson Audio Specialties, Wally Malewicz of WAM Engineering, and loudspeaker maven Siegfried Linkwitz.

Back to those needle drops and those unidentified tonearms: Most responders, including Malachi, noted that the “mystery” file didn’t sound as good as the rest, particularly in terms of background “blackness” and its overall soft sound. I produced that file with a Technics SL-1000R turntable—the one I reviewed in the November 2018 Stereophile and that’s pictured on that issue’s cover. I wrote in that review that the star of the SL-1000R—an assemblage of the company’s new perfectionist-quality SP-10R motor unit with plinth and tonearm—was probably the SP-10R itself, though at the time that was just conjecture, as there was no way to judge each individually.

OMA SP10 Plinth System
Specialty audio manufacturer Oswalds Mill Audio, aka OMA, makes tubed electronics, horn loudspeakers, and, for well over a decade now, high-mass turntable plinths (footnote 1). These plinths used to be made of slate, but recently OMA has produced an iron plinth specifically designed for Technics’ SP-10R and earlier SP10MK2 and SP10MK3 direct-drive turntables.

The SP10 Plinth System is a single sand casting of hypoeutectic or “gray” iron. This is not your grandmother’s cast-iron skillet melted down and poured into a plinth mold, but a more recent development. Gray iron combines high mass with exceptional rigidity and vibration-damping properties. On the SP10 plinth’s underside is a web of cast chambers, each filled with a vibration-damping polymer. The casting is CNC-machined to precisely fit the SP10’s chassis as well as an opening for removable armboards, which OMA CNC-machines from torrefied (ie, thermally modified) Pennsylvania ash wood. (Torrefaction involves heating the wood in the absence of oxygen, which removes from it residual water and volatiles, to produce a material with no biological activity—ie, it will never rot or soften.)

OMA claims that torrefying ash wood produces a material that is both extremely dimensionally stable—it won’t warp or swell or shrink with changes in temperature and/or humidity—and has “superior acoustical properties.” The armboards can accept tonearms with pivot-to-spindle distances of 9″ to 12″ or longer, and can be precisely swapped out in minutes.

Holes in the plinth’s feet are tapped for M6 hardware. OMA supplies “basic leveling feet,” but of course your every footer fantasy can easily be fulfilled. The plinth, available in clear lacquer or black powder, weighs 110 lb not including the turntable, and it’s big: 26 1/8″ wide by 4 1/8″ high by 20 3/8″ deep. The price has yet to be determined but will be under $10,000, which means that the combined price with SP-10R turntable will be under $20,000.

Footnote 1: OMA/Oswalds Mill Audio, Fleetwood, PA, with a showroom in Dumbo, Brooklyn, NY. Tel: (917) 743-3789. Web: www.oswaldsmillaudio.com

NEXT: Page 2 »

ARTICLE CONTENTS

Page 1
Page 2

Click Here: new zealand blues jersey