Rock V Record Player

The Townshend

Music played on the Rock V is characterized by its incredibly low noise floor and a sense of calm stability. The carefully sculpted phrases and heavily shaped notes of Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game’, their stretched and contorted length laid over the chuggy insistence of that infectious bass line thrive on the ‘table’s easy, unforced sense of space and timing. The measured pace of the track and the slow, elongated delivery of the vocals can easily lag if they’re allowed to, but the lock-step quality of the Rock’s low-frequencies keeps the rhythmic momentum and signature clear and precise, perfect foundation for the beautifully resolved reverb and effortlessly separated backing harmonies. It’s no one-pace wonder either. ‘Heart Shaped World’ runs it through the gears, its rhythmic hesitations and changes of pace, together with its fast-fingered, undulating bass line demonstrates the sure-footed solidity this deck instils in music’s nether regions. Even the life and energy of the kick-step tempo of ‘Heart Full Of Soul’ is encompassed with ease. If you are worried that “damped” means “dead” – don’t be. The uncluttered transparency of the Rock V’s lower registers keeps things clear and perfectly placed, its low noise floor delivering the dynamic goods, both in terms of nuance and absolute dynamic range.

allowing you to concentrate on the performers. It’s a quality that’s especially apparent on less than wonderful recordings, where the deck’s poise and control seem to iron out some of the disc’s worst excesses without stamping on the music. Playing a recent repressing of Neil Young’s After The Gold Rush, a record marred by splashy upper-mids that infect the singer’s nasal drawl, the Rock cleans up the hash and renders Young’s voice both more pleasant and more accurate, a neat trick indeed if you can do it…

Much of the listening was conducted with the Wilson Duette/ WATCH Dog combination reviewed elsewhere in this issue, both with and without the sub. It was an interesting match, as it underlined the extent to which the cleanliness of the turntable’s lower register opened out the Duette’s Okay, so we’ve dealt with that: There’s nothing slow or lifeless about the Rock’s reproduction. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. There’s a naturalness to recordings that is quite uncanny and which seems to push the system into the background, placement, the shape and duration of notes as well as their harmonic structure in much the same way as the sub-woofer does. Likewise, the stability of the platform provided by the tonearm allowed the Lyra Skala to deliver greater resolution and detail to go along with its customary presence and dynamic contrast. This was never more apparent than in the flourishes and decaying arpeggios so often used by acoustic guitarists to close a song. The turntable’s grasp of each note’s tail, its shape and duration, the growing space between it and the leading edge of the next note, was held with such poise and delicately textured definition that it becomes a tiny, poignant microcosm in itself, with its own accent and emotional slant, the perfect parting shot; just as it should be.

This ability to separate and preserve micro-dynamic information and the temporal terrain of the music translates just as effectively to largescale works. The Reiner/Chicago Lt. Kije is reproduced with a beautifully tangible acoustic and a stability to the placement of instruments that escapes all but the best (and often the heaviest) ‘tables. Individual separation and tonality is again superb, as is the portrayal of Reiner’s masterful control over pace and tempo. The orchestral climaxes are kept in rein, never tumbling out of the speakers or stepping forward in the stage, although here the more fulsome lower end of a deck like the TNT delivers a greater sense of physical presence and explosive power. That’s a call you’ll need to make for yourself, trading definition and separation against the sheer gusto that comes with the VPI. Likewise, although there’s plenty of air around instruments the Rock has less obvious high frequency energy than other ‘tables. In part that’s a function of the cleanliness it brings to upper registers, rather like the apparently subdued performance of a diamond tweeter. But there’s also a lack of extension and resolution of absolute detail, especially when it comes to the shimmer and rattle of beaded cymbals, the crisp snap of wood blocks or the upper harmonics of violin. I’d point a finger at the Rega bearing assembly and arm-base, having heard a similar loss of detail with Rega’s own arms, but that is just supposition on my part. The loss is subtle enough to be pleasant rather than debilitating and again contributes to the Rock’s forgiving way with less than perfect discs. Considering that the Rock V is very much a work in progress, the musical results are extremely impressive as well as artistically beguiling. There’s no missing the natural, unforced quality or easy pace and separation, sweetened top and solid bass that this ‘table delivers. It’s a sound I could easily grow to love and a sense of poise and unexaggerated clarity that I’ll miss when it goes. So why not install it on a permanent basis? The lack of real interchangability in the arm (meaning no mono replay), the lack of interchangability of arms full stop, and the lack of VTA adjustment on the fly are all issues for me. The lack of a lid – given the amount of silicon fluid around – is also a problem (albeit shortly to be solved) and I’d like to see a more sophisticated power supply. Most of these things are possible future options, especially the VTA adjustment and external power supply. Until they arrive however, the Rock V is remarkable to me for the performance it achieves without these refinements. This early sample also lacks the levels of fit and finish that you get with more expensive and longer established designs, but then, they don’t have a trough and once you’ve heard what a trough can do, you might just become addicted too. That’s when concerns about the way a product looks recede into the background (besides which the latest units are far prettier than this early, well travelled sample). Because one thing’s for sure: the engineering basis that’s under-pinned every single Rock design is alive and kicking in the V – and so is the music it plays.