SOUND QUALITY

With the facilities on offer you’d be forgiven for thinking that sound quality might have taken a back seat. Fortunately, it hasn’t.

   Its amplifier section is conservatively rated (see Measured Performance for full details) yet has a big, clean and exuberant quality to it.

   Playing back a 24bit/192kHz rip of Mark Knopfler’s ‘Kill To Get Crimson’ the quality of the production on this album was more than evident. Here, the leading edges of guitar notes rang true while the subtle rhythm section was projected tightly between the loudspeakers.

   Moving onto something with more low-end power the Plato brought out decent bass from a pair of XTZ Master Series M2 standmounts (see review elsewhere this issue). If anything it tends a little towards the dry side – but that meant it gave a taut, tuneful presentation to King Tubby’s powerful ‘Dub Fever’ collection.

A full complement of digital and analogue inputs on the rear panel are joined,

unusually, by a pair of Neutrik-style loudspeaker connections.

There’s also drive and a fine sense of tempo on offer. Fed Led Zeppelin’s ‘Black Dog’ through the digital out of an Oppo CD player the Plato grabbed hold of the track and pushed it along with verve, without sounding congested or forced. Indeed, the DAC section is extremely composed and free from any digital harshness, meaning various instruments are easy to follow, even in the densest of mixes.

   If there’s any criticism to be made it’s that the software could be slightly glitchy at times – with an occasional lag between inputting instructions on the tablet and the player responding. Entotem do say, however, that this is a pre-production issue that will have been sorted by the time the first units reach the stores.

   Apart from that, though, there’s nothing not to like about the Plato. It’ll record your vinyl in high-resolution, play records, act as a music server and connect to your home network all in one package that is user-friendly and extremely easy to operate.