There is a wealth of information in the grooves - and the cartridge. The arm and the turntable dictate the foundation and the resolution upon which the rest of the playback system is built upon.

I am continuously amazed at the ability to open up (read, observe, feel and "see"), the recorded ambience, stage dimensions, timbre, decay, and the ability to decipher the recorded clues that the microphones picked up and how they picked it up - all, by designing and manufacturing those mechanical wonders, turntables, arm and cartridge, that can do the tricks. Actually, those aren't 'tricks' at all; they are sound-concepts, executions, and way of manufacturing...

SpJ La Luce Turntable

La Luce turntable is the smallest of the Spotheim SpJ La Luce series.

La Luce turntable is a low energy storage, direct-coupled, non-suspended design. The transparent acrylic platter's mass and inertia is increased by the embedded stainless steel weights around the platter periphery.

SpJ Alba Turntable

The newest edition to the SpJ turntable family is the humongous Alba turntable:

The Alba design has two platters:

The top (the record platter equipped with the record spindle and the clamp system) is made of two layers: the top layer is a 42-mm thick acrylic disk bolted to a soft aluminum disk platter of the same 330-mm outer diameter. That aluminum disk platter has three stainless steel spikes that sits on top a seperate carrier, underneath platter; Only the carrier platter makes contact with the belt. The carrier platter's mass is encreased by thirty stainless steel vertically placed cylinders.

The Alba turntable rests upon three stainless steel contact points and is leveled by the two knobs on either side of the T-bar support.

A symmetric ground-base aluminium plate 41-mm thick.

Stand-alone motor house: 8-Kg stainless steel.

Driven by a semi-soft single belt and a Direct-coupled Synchronous AC motor. (Separate switch on the motor house reduces the running motor voltage).

One-piece sintered-bronze bearing: 7-Kg.

Platter's Outer Diameter: 330-mm.
Platter's Height: 185-mm.
Platter's Total Revolving mass: 30-Kg. (7.5-Kg of the peripheral weight revolves below the centre of gravity).

SpJ La Luce CS Centoventi turntable

La Luce top of the line, the C.S. Centoventi, is low energy storage, non-suspended design, driven by a soft belt and a stand-alone motor set inside a 9kg stainless steel cylinder-house. La Luce C.S. Centoventi features a 120-mm thick platter with an outer diameter of 330-mm. The transparent acrylic platter is machined from one solid block.

Platter mass and inertia is increased by embedded stainless steel weights around the platter periphery. The ideal mechanical impedance match of the acrylic material and record vinyl allows stylus-induced resonance to pass smoothly into the mass of the platter and platform.

La Luce C.S.Centoventi platter weighs 18 Kg and the platter's massive, one-piece 3 Kg sintered-bronze bearing, is hand matched to the chrome-hardened steel, spindle shaft. A central, asymmetric, thick solid acrylic block holds the bearing house and the arm ground plate.

An acrylic cylinder is bolted to the underside of the central block and this forms a broad, T-shaped support. The La Luce rests on three contact points and levelling is accomplished through adjustment polished stainless steel knobs on each side of the support.

In addition to the on-off switch, a separate optional switch allows the motor to run on a reduced AC voltage.

SpJ Lyla Pick-up Arm

The SpJ Lyla pick-up arm has been designed in the manner of a precision instrument, and has been manufactured to extremely fine tolerances out of materials chosen to insure neutral and accurate playback of analogue records.

The SpJ Lyla pick-up arm is made of Titanium; it is a uni-pivot " I "- shape design that places the stylus tip in a straight line with both the arm wand longitude and the arm's pivot. The SpJ Lyla carries a minimal lateral mass.

The SpJ Lyla Offset-Angle is appropriate for an effective length of 312-mm - according to the classical Bærwald tone arm geometry calculation, which places the Null Radii at 66 and at120.9-mm from the turntable's spindle center.

VTA height setting is made possible even as the stylus tracks the grooves.• Spindle to pivot gauge to set the arm's pivot distance from the turntable spindle is supplied.

Gauge to set the stylus effective length is also supplied.

Template engraved with Bærwald two Null Radii, to check setting of the cartridge offset angle is supplied with the SpJ Lyla. The template can also be used to check setting of the cartridge azimuth.

The SpJ Lyla pick-up arm may be used with cartridges weighing from 3 to more than16 grams, due to add on or interchangeable stainless steel counterbalances.

SpJ Ebony MC Cartridge

Made by Benz, Switzerland, to SpJ specifications,
And based on the advanced Ruby MK 3

Cartridge weight; 10.7-grams.
- Body: Vented machined Air-dried African Ebony wood.
- Stylus: Fritz-Gayer Nude-Line-Contact diamond mirror polished.
- Cantilever: Hardened solid Boron.
- Vertical Tracking: 20 - 22 degree.
- Cartridge top metal plate: Cross-Form, Aircraft aluminum.
- Mounting: 2 X M-2.5 threaded holes.
- Output: .38-mV. (Utilizing .25mV output coil) at 3.54 cm/s.
- Coil former: Square Hollow Ruby Plate.
- Frequency response: 10 - 50,000 Hz (+/- 1dB)
- Balance: better than 0.5dB.
- Minimal Separation figure: 1000Hz: 38-dB
- Compliance: 13um/mN
- Recommended Loading: 500-47,000-ohms
- Recommended Tracking force: 1.8 - 2.2-gram
- Recommended tonearm mass: Medium to High mass.

Click here to read about my interview with Jonathan Skull, Stereophile Magazine.

Click here for some additional Stereophile Quotes.

Click here to read a press release from the Vinyl Anachronist.