ON TEST
26 Australian Hi-Fi http://www.aushifi.com
contactdetails
Brand: Mag-LevAudio
Model: ML1
RRP: $4,895
Distributor: AudioMagicPtyLtd
Address: 482HighStreet
NorthcoteVIC 3070
T: (03) 94895122
E: [email protected]
W: http://www.audiomagic.com.au- Silentoperation
- Wowfactor!
- It’ssocool...
- Sensitivitytoaircurrents
- Cartridgechoice
- Turntablemat
After first letting the vinyl cool down
and re-form, I played Dark Side through
again using the 2M Blue and was even
more blown away. Now I was totally happy
with the stereo imaging, and the midrange
clarity had improved even further and now
the extreme high-frequencies had just that
little additional bite that I like. This little
experiment left no doubt in my mind that
the Mag-Lev ML1 will be able to extract the
highest levels of performance from high-
er-quality cartridges. That said, Ortofon’s
OM10 is a great cartridge, with a beautifully
neutral midrange sound, solid and extended
bass and a very sweet treble. No doubt Mag-
Lev chose this particular model in order to
keep the total ‘system’ cost under a certain
price-point, but it was a good choice.
When building a turntable, ensuring low
levels of rumble is important, and speed
accuracy is also important (though not so
important as you’d imagine!). However,
probably the most important thing to get
right is minimising variations from the
correct speed, both slow (wow) and quick
(flutter). Sustained notes on a piano are the
best material to use when listening for the
tell-tale sounds of wow and flutter. As it
happens, my favourite album for evaluating
wow and flutter is also one of my all-time
favourite records, period. It’s Michael
Nyman’s stupendously good album ‘Decay
Music’. It’s aptly named, because it’s full of
simple and complex chords where he strikes
the piano keys, then lets the sound decay
into silence, very often for periods of up to
ten seconds. It’s beautiful, meditative music,
and nothing at all like the soundtrack he
wrote for Jane Campion’s film, ‘The Piano’,
which I can’t stand.
Anyway, there I was listening to Decay
Music, with my eyes closed in absolute rev-
erie, and marvelling at the lack of wow and
flutter, when I suddenly heard both wow
and flutter suddenly introduced. Opening
my eyes, I saw that the platter was rocking
every which way, like a drunken sailor, and
it was these gyrations that were causing
the wow and flutter. I also saw immediately
what had happened: a door that I’d left ajar
had been blown open by a gust of wind,
and it was this wind that had caused the
unwanted platter movement. I closed the
door to see what would happen, and after
about five minutes, the gyrations finally
died down, after which normal playback
resumed. I then tried to re-create the event
by puffing a breath of air from my mouth
down at the surface of the LP. I thought
I’d blown quite gently, but I’d obviously
overdone it, because the resulting gyra-
tions were so severe that I triggered a safety
mechanism built into the Mag-Lev ML1 that
caused the tonearm to lift away from the LP
(also revealing one reason Mag-Lev has fit-
ted an automatic lifter to the 9cc tonearm).
I thought that when the gyrations died
away the tonearm would be automatically
returned to the record surface, but this did
not happen. Instead, the platter slowed
down dramatically, doing about one rota-
tion every five seconds (see my earlier note
about the ‘crawling’ phenomenon). I let this
slow rotation go on for some time to see if
there would be any change in speed—ei-
ther faster or slower—but there wasn’t, so
I eventually gave up on waiting, returned
the arm manually to the tonearm rest, and
switched the front panel control to ‘Off’. I
subsequently discovered that any air move-
ment in the listening room (even walking
quickly past the turntable) tended to induce
some degree of platter wobble, which will
then result in increased levels of both wow
and flutter until the ‘wobbles’ have almost
completely gone.
Initially, I thought that this Achilles Heel
was the reason Mag-Lev offered a turntable
cover as an option, because I imagined such
a cover would prevent air movement in the
room from affecting the platter’s rotation.
However, when I looked at the Owner’s
Manual, it specifically states that the cover
should not be used while the Mag-Lev ML1
is operating.
Since there must be some good scientif-
ic reason for not using a cover while the
turntable is operating, I refrained from
experimenting with any type of makeshift
turntable cover, in case I inadvertently
caused some damage. Instead, I made sure
that every time I listened to an LP, all the
doors and windows were closed, the air-con
was off and that, after setting the record on
the platter, I had moved back to my listen-
ing chair so I could be seated and still before
the platter started ‘floating’ and therefore
susceptible to air movement caused by my
movement. You won’t have to rush to your
chair to do this: it takes a full seven seconds
before the support pylons drop away from
beneath the platter.ConClusion
The Mag-Lev ML1’s flying saucer-like
abilities—and its non-contact platter drive
system—are so amazingly ingenious—and so
amazingly effective—that I would not have
believed any of it was possible had I not wit-
nessed the Mag-Lev ML1 in operation myself.
Indeed every time I used the ML1, I felt
like a magician performing his best trick! But
of course that magic trick costs money, and it
introduces issues that don’t affect boring old
bearing-supported turntables—the wait-
ing times, the limited cartridge choice, the
restrictive operational prerequisites and the
difficulty of keeping the platter entirely stable.
All of which means you might well find better
performance at the price amongst the conven-
tional competition. But it wouldn’t levitate!
Of all the hi-fi components I have ever
seen or heard of, the Mag-Lev Audio ML1 is
by far and away the most impressive. Abso-
lutely every person who saw it in operation
exclaimed ‘Wow!’ and followed up by adding
a comment to the effect of ‘that’s incredible’...
which is a perfect summation:
The Mag-LevAudioML1is a truly incredi-
ble turntable! Steven Roland