Avid Diva II SP - CONCLUSION |
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CONCLUSION The Avid Diva II SP is a fine turntable and, the doubling of price it commands over the standard Diva II is well worth the extra outlay. The Diva II is certainly an absolute bargain at its £1,000 price point and punches well above its weight sonically, but listening to the Diva II SP, it's easy to pick out the extra sophistication and musical insight that the superior engineering has brought about. Add in a versatile new power supply that will undoubtedly be making its influence felt elsewhere, and you have a very fine vinyl spinner indeed that promises a high standard for the other forthcoming models. REFERENCE SYSTEM Garrard 301 turntable Alphason HR-100S arm (Cardas wired) Audio Technica AT-OC9MLII cartridge Anatek MC1 phono stage Naim Supernait amplifier Ferrograph S1 loudspeakers MEASURED PERFORMANCE The SME309 tonearm supplied uses a tapered, cat magnesium tube with detachable magnesium headshell. It is internally damped to suppress vibration, SME say. Our vibration analysis, made with a Bruel & Kjaer accelerometer, shows two well suppressed modal peaks, at 400Hz and 650Hz from the arm in its basic bending mode, something all arms suffer to a greater or lesser extent; usually a greater extent because the 309 puts up a good performance here, with accelerations of 0.1g, although it does not better the Rega RB1000 or one-piece SME V. The detachable headshell may well have some impact, but the 309 is still reasonably clean. There is a large 0.35g peak at 1200Hz but narrow peak containing little energy. There is a cluster of high frequency peaks above 5kHz, a common pattern, but these are also slightly lower than is common. So the 309 puts up a good performance in terms of arm vibration.
The Avid Diva II SP itself ran at exactly the right speed. An unweighted wow value of around 0.2% (0.22% in our analysis) is a little below the best and this was likely affecting the weighted value which at 0.076% was satisfactorily low, if not quite as low as is possible (0.06%).
So the Avid Diva SP with SME309 tonearm package measured well all round. There are no weaknesses, and both items are very well built. NK
A detailed and punchy musical performer, the Diva II SP fills the logical gap between the Diva II and Volvere perfectly. AVID DIVA II SP £2,000 Avid Hi-Fi Ltd. +44(0)1480 457300 FOR - superb midrange detail - depth perspective - taut, tuneful bass - versatile new PSU - build quality AGAINST - occasional compression |
