While many companies are jumping on the headphone bandwagon some others have seen an opportunity to join the new vinyl revolution. Norwegian electronics maker Elelctrocompaniet has launched the ECG 1 turntable which comes with a Jelco arm and an cartridge made by Soundsmith. The turntable is built out of an acrylic and aluminium sandwich on the premise that the different materials will damp internal vibration from the 24 volt AC motor. The platter is also acrylic and was chosen for its similarity to vinyl, no mat is used because their theory is that two elements will form a strong coupling. A two phase power supply is built into the chassis and buttons for speed etc are set into the top.
The arm is an S shaped Jelco SA-750EB and the optional cartridge is built by US strain gauge specialist Soundsmith, the Electrocompaniet model being a moving micro cross type (MMC). Turntable and arm retail for £2,890. To go with this is ECP 2 (below) a new MM/MC phono stage at £1,490. It’s based on the Norwegian Dynamic Precision design and has externally adjustable gain, capacitance and impedance in a fully balanced circuit with both RCA and XLR outputs.
