Kuzma Stabi XL Turntable/ Air Line Arm, Walker Proscenium Black Diamond Record Player

Kuzma vs. Walker: The Title Bout in Analog Playback

When it comes to the performancerelated details that describe how the instrument is being played—one of the twin heartbeats of Quasi una sonata— the Kuzma is superb. It gives you the full articulation of each note, no matter how loudly or softly or lengthily or briefly it is sounded, regardless of pitch or register. If, for instance, pianist Andrej Gavrillov pedals a G minor chord, you hear harmonics fill the air for as long as the pedal is depressed. (And the Kuzma will tell you exactly when he lifts up on the pedal.) If, on the other hand, he plays an arpeggio staccato in the top octave, you hear each sparkling sixteenth note distinctly, without any blur or slur. Resolution of this order cannot help but clarify style, tempo, and line.

(What is true of this smaller piece is just as true of larger ones. For example, on Peter Maxwell Davis’ parody mass Missa Super L’Homme Armé for chamber orchestra and speaker [L’Oiseau Lyre]—another postmodernist prank that, like the Schnittke piece, deconstructs a traditional form of tonal music [in this case, the mass] and derives much of its wit and expressiveness from its unusual timbres and outlandish dynamics—you hear the performance style, tempo, and inner voices somewhat more distinctly through the Kuzma than you do through the Walker. For instance, the Kuzma makes Alan Hacker’s flutter-tongued bass clarinet whirr like a card in the spokes of a bicycle wheel. Through the Walker that whirr is just a bit less crisp and clear. Ditto for the individual strokes of percussionist Gary Kettel’s drum rolls, which the Kuzma preserves intact and the Walker slurs just the slightest bit.)

When it comes to timbres—the other expressive pole of the Schnittke piece— the Kuzma sounds just plain gorgeous, without sounding just plain real. It persistently adds a slight voluptuous darkness to the timbres of the violin and piano. In the treble, the Stabi XL consistently sounds a bit quicker and slightly more extended than the Walker, but also brighter, less airy, and more forward. In the bass, it is just a bit “faster,” leaner, and tighter. (Because of its speed, definition, and reach in the bottom octaves—and because of the overall way it clarifies rhythms and tempi—the Kuzma is simply a killer on beatdriven music like rock.)

You’re probably thinking, at this point, that all of these “little bit fasters and clearers and better defineds” should add up to a clear victory for the Kuzma. And were we talking about the Kuzma versus the Walker Proscenium Gold—my analog reference for the past four or five years—I’d be tempted to agree. Certainly the call would be very close.

However, we’re not talking about the Kuzma and the Proscenium Gold; we’re talking about the Kuzma and the Proscenium Black Diamond. And to me, the call, though a bit of a split decision, isn’t finally all that close.

Here’s the difference between the Kuzma Stabi XL/Air Line and the Walker Proscenium Black Diamond on Quasi una sonata (and everything else): The Kuzma reproduces the violin and piano on the Schnittke piece like the best possible hi-fi—everything you could possibly want to know about how they are being played is there for the hearing. All the Walker does, by comparison, is make that violin and piano sound a bit less like superb reproductions and a bit more like real instruments playing in your room. That’s all.

Returning to Quasi una sonata, the very first thing you notice when you switch from one ’table to the other isn’t what’s gone missing with the Kuzma but what’s been added by the Walker. The change isn’t subtle—not something you need “golden ears” to hear. It’s as if some of the air from the Walker’s massive airsupply box has been piped directly into the soundstage. The space between the violin and the piano—and the sense of space around both instruments—grows much larger; the stage “walls” seem to move considerably farther back and farther apart; and the instruments themselves sound bigger, as if some of that same air has been pumped into them, blowing them up and filling them out more fully in three dimensions. As a result, you suddenly realize that this is a live recording, made in front of a real audience in a real space. You also realize that part of what makes Quasi una sonata work is the way that the violin and piano bisect that space—each owning (and holding) its own ground in this contest of musical wills.

Then there are the changes in the timbres and dynamics of the instruments. The Kuzma’s slight overall darkness vanishes, replaced by a neutrality that simply sounds “right.” No, the violin’s pizzicatos and collés aren’t quite as fast as they are on the Kuzma (though still plenty fast), but its fundamentals and overtones are considerably more realistic; no, the piano doesn’t have quite the articulation of the Kuzma in those top-octave runs, but it has more of the color, authority, and solidity of an actual grand piano from bottom to top. That hard-to-find but essential quality that I call “action”—the way instruments change their size, shape, and projection with changes in register and intensity, making them seem to “bloom” out towards you and recede back away from you as the pulse of the music rises and falls—is much more clearly in evidence. Indeed, through the Walker both instruments sound less like superb two-dimensional reproductions, and more like living, breathing, three-dimensional semblances of the real things.