Comments from the prestigious Italian magazine "Fedeltà del Suono"

Leading reviewers are those who tend to get it right most of the time and are largely respected for this ability. The following is a resume given by the Italian equivalent of Michael Fremmer. I am told that Bebo Meroni is not just any reviewer but a leading light of Italian writers, founder or co-founder of all the Italian audio magazines. He is highly experienced and a great vinyl lover, hence the extracts below carry a great deal of weight.

The most significant extracts of the SovereignMk2 turntable / Illustrious MK3 tonearm review are outlined below.

"An elegant turntable, it's massive, heavy and quite different from contemporary turntable designs, by being both rigid and yet highly decoupled "

"One of the most attractive aspects apart from looks and performance, is the semi-suspended (or seemingly non-suspended) design. The decoupling is unique in consisting of a single elastic central point (the plinth is basically rigid). This makes the deck very easy to set up with just a few adjustments to level the platter"

"The Illustrious MK3 tonearm has the same arm tube as the former version but adds the "Dual Pivot" bearing. This partially implements the concept of unipivot arms and acquires the benefits without sharing the undeniable problems"

"The Sovereign has the typical characteristics of the best belt drive turntables: deep soundstage, bass extension and substantially sweet sound, together with fast rise and decay times, yet the pitch precision and amazing dynamics compare with a great direct drive turntable"

"The width and stability of the soundstage, achieved with the help of the Illustrious tonearm, can be observed again and again. The purity of the musical message is at such a high level, that I am obliged to think the vibration management implemented by Origin Live is damn efficient"

"The bass is definitely full, controlled, never overly damped and very deep; these aspects, together with extraordinary dynamics, give the impression of power and realism - absolutely remarkable. The mid and high frequencies are clear as crystal. This contributes to achieve an extremely airy and brilliant sound from the Sovereign (or more accurately, from the combination)".

"All in all, this combination of turntable / tonearm is so close to the absolute, that I just can't find any critisism, not even a very minor one; I would just like to have had more time to discover further possibilities to achieve the extreme musical pleasure available with this pairing"

"At the moment I hold the Sovereign at the very top of current production turntables, up to the price point immediately before craziness and I can say nothing less than excellent and "bravo" to the Illustrious tonearm"

Bebo Moroni - Fedeltà del Suono magazine

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