Audio Creative Groovemaster 4 tonearm
I love tonearms. To me they are the access point for getting that magical stuff called music out of the grooves in a vinyl record in such a way that we can become immersed in it. I know that the turntable and cartridge are integral parts of that process, but the arm is the bit you touch, carefully align over the lead-in groove, and gently lower into the vinyl. It’s the human interface.
Designs these days vary enormously, even within the pivoted genre (let alone parallel trackers) with some classic shapes being revered, and some approaches preferred simply because. The Groovemaster 4 is the latest and greatest iteration in a long line of rather fine arms. With a banana curve, gracefully exiting the pivot bearing housing and swooping towards the headshell it’s a thing of utter beauty. The Groovemaster 4 can also be specified with S-shaped arm tubes should you so desire. The fit and finish of the component parts is of the highest order, and the arm itself has that silky feel to the touch which exudes quality. Utterly.
Although the Groovemaster 4 looks quite similar to the Groovemaster 3, which remains in production, it is in fact totally re-engineered with all alloy parts now replaced by machined stainless steel, and with a shorter, more ergonomic counterweight composed of stainless steel and bronze. One feature of the Groovemaster 4 that is quite rare and very useful is matched bearing and headshell offset angles, which means headshell azimuth does not vary with arm elevation.
I opted for the 12” version as this is preferred arm length given the option. My gut feeling is that 12” arms offer a slightly more relaxed and perhaps more poised result than some of the shorter options. We shall see. Others, I have no doubt, will prefer the shorter arm for a tad more verve perhaps, or immediacy But fear not, the Groovemaster is available in shorter lengths too, namely 9” and 10”.
The arm is basically a conventional set-up, with a single-pivot pillar, and a set of very high quality lateral and horizontal half-ceramic bearings sitting inside a beautifully-machined housing. The Groovemaster 4’s curved arm wand is very solid in feel, and the whole arm weighs in at a staggering 950 grams. Please bear this in mind if you choose to use it on a suspended turntable – setting things level with this behemoth succumbing to gravity in one corner might be an interesting challenge.
Anti-skate is very neatly done magnetically, with a knurled knob on the arm pillar, nicely and clearly calibrated with the added bonus that you can adjust it on the fly half-way through a side, and define for yourself the best setting for any particular vinyl record. The headshell is mounted via a rather high-quality version of the SME 4-pin collar, and as with many arms you can gently twist the headshell once in place to adjust the stylus to be absolutely vertical in the groove. The headshell collet also has an additional slot which means EMT fixed shell cartridges can be used without any need for an adapter: the collet is just rotated by 45 degrees and its ready to go.
Materials used in the Groovemaster 4 are mainly bronze, titanium and stainless steel, chosen primarily because they all minimise their own resonances – the end result being an arm with an exceptionally quiet background. The lift/lower is a simple damped lever with adjustable height capacity, and to stop the arm skidding across the lift arc there’s a thin rubber insert which does the job elegantly and simply. Audio Creative have apparently improved the lift/lower device, but I can’t really understand why that was necessary.
A quick word about the bearings. Despite the massive size of the counterweight balancing the arm was very easy to achieve. However, what surprised me was how smoothly, and how slowly the arm can move until it settles, no notchiness, no hint of play and yet gossamer-smooth. Divine.
The arm-mount supplied was suitable for an SME cut-out and enables the arm to be eased back and forth to set alignment null points, arm height is adjusted via a locking Allen screw. Again, easing the arm up and/or down was carried out with ease. For those who want a finer approach, there is a substantial screw collar which can be used to set arm height, with a very handy lever on the side to assist in really fine increments. This can then be locked in place once the sweet spot has been found. Audio Creative call this the Rotary VTA Lift (below), and it does allow VTA to be adjusted on-the-fly.
No arm would be complete without a cable, and a rather lovely (and good-sounding) Phonolink cable was supplied, along with Groovemaster’s HS-01 cast headshell which has nicely elongated mounting slots that make setting up almost any cartridge very easy.
Cartridges
The cable supplied was from Audio Creative with a five-pin arm connector on one end and rather lovely phono plugs on the other. Compared with other arm cables I have used the Audio Creative Phonolink sounded very neutral in the context of my system, being open, satisfyingly dynamic, very quiet, yet none of the smaller signal nuances seemed to be lost in translation between arm and preamp. All in all a rather good match for the arm. Throughout the review process I used a number of cartridges ranging from my Audio Note Io, an Audio Technica AT-OC9, a decidedly budget-friendly Goldring 1042 and Skyanalog P-1G.
Sound quality
First to hit the platter was a year-old recording of Scheherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov) on Mike Valentine’s Chasing the Dragon label. I was fortunate enough to be at the actual recording session, and to say this was a faithful capture of the event would be a massive understatement. The Groovemaster 4 made very light work of the dynamic contrasts and allowed all the cartridges to do their work, confident in the arms ability to provide a stable platform from which they could retrieve the signal from the grooves.
The Groovemaster 4 being as quiet as it was, there was far more of a feeling that here was an orchestra performing in a holographic space. In other words it was decidedly not 2D, but enormously 3D. There was a real front-to-back depth, a feeling of spaciousness and an holistic presence to the presentation. It was as if the listener was really right there, fairly close in to the action. The recording is particularly good, and the tiniest nuances were absolutely not over shadowed by louder more strident elements of the score.
A couple of other interesting classical recordings have come my way recently too: Beethoven’s Complete Works for Cello and Piano, in this iteration played by Margarita Hohenreider and Julius Berger on the Solo Musica label (SMLP463). This heavyweight three-LP set is so wonderfully recorded, quite close-miked (you feel as if you’re in about row three or four of a salon audience) and there’s a real earthiness, yet gentleness about the performances. The playing is superb, and the sound quality really good. The piano and the cello have been beautifully captured, and if you listen to more than a couple of sides you are really put through the emotional wringer as Beethoven (via this performance) takes you on a magical if exhausting journey. The Groovemaster 4 coped effortlessly with this as if it was a walk in the park. Nothing was lacking; there was clarity, exquisite resolution at the top end of the piano keyboard, amazing weight to the cello’s lower regions and a superb acoustic which, as I said, put you as a listener in the third or fourth row of the audience. Definitely worth hunting out and listening to.
The other is a LP of Mozart’s Concertos for Two Pianos. There’s inevitably something of a paucity of recordings of anything needing two pianos – tuning them together, and keeping them in tune is always an interesting exercise, as is finding a venue which can cope with that and an orchestra. Orchid Classics’ LP (ORC100316) is also beautifully recorded, with a great sense of the acoustic. Both pianists approach complements that of the other, so the transition from one instrument to the other can only really be discerned by the superb stereo separation – with one piano on each side. Nothing false about the presentation; that’s how it was recorded, and that’s how (naturally) it sounds. Fiammetta Tarli and Ivo Verbanov are to be commended for their magical performance, as is the English Chamber Orchestra for their support under the baton of Muhai Tang. I think future releases from Orchid will be well worth waiting for.
Consternation
Anyway, there’s far more to listen to than simply classical fare. Houses of the Holy is a renowned album, famed for both good and not-so-good reasons. Released in March 1973, it was Led Zeppelin’s fifth album, and the cover caused quite some consternation at the time. There’s quite an edginess about the opening of the first track The Song Remains The Same, and with the almost arhythmic beat of the drumkit, the strident guitar and then the almost ethereal vocals which emerge some way in, it was quite ground breaking. The Groovemaster 4 kept everything in proportion, with the drums tightly drawn, the guitar never losing focus and the vocals almost floating through. If rock music can be poised, then this was – everything in its place, and each line, each attack, each nuance just where they should be.
Mono is always a good test of an arm/cartridge combination. Will the Groovemaster 4 keep the image central? Will it still make music? I thought, aptly, perhaps, I’d play Art Tatum’s Discoveries from 1960 (Fox 3029). Admittedly a pseudo-compilation album, it nevertheless has some superb performances and the sound quality is also commendable for that era. Begin the Beguine and Someone To Watch Over Me are beautifully recorded, and despite the slightly old fashioned sound, are really rather more than just listenable. They engage, they beguile and its easily possible to get lost in the whole album. Just one track, maybe two, and then you suddenly realise you’ve been hoodwinked and let the Groovemaster ease you right through the whole side before you know it.
As for the aural image, it was 100% rock steady. Even though the LP was slightly off-centre (there was a bit of eccentricity-induced wow), the image didn’t shift. It sat firmly and resolutely between the speakers. Testament to the quality not only of the horizontal bearings but also the vertical ones too. Super smooth, and nothing to upset the movement of the headshell under the stylus’s guidance.
It probably won’t surprise you to learn that a couple of what were intended short listening sessions turned into, well, not quite all night ones, but certainly well past midnight. I don’t know about you, but I find I can listen more deeply, really get into the music later in the evening, when the world starts to go quieter.
At that time of night you really can hear what the Groovemaster 4 is capable of. The arm is amazingly quiet. The lack of anything in the background (with no record playing) was quite astonishing, and the structural integrity and massive nature of it also contributed to it being such a stable and almost resolute performer. That having been said, it was not without the ability to play material with a lighter touch, where there was more sparkle and zing going on, but then it didn’t short-change Eartha Kitt or Boris Christof either.
Groovemaster verdict
I’ll draw to a close by heading for some schmalzy Norah Jones. Perhaps rather typecast in a soft-vocal-jazz genre, her voice really is quite addictive, beguiling, and I have always found her LPs to be particularly well-recorded. Her self-titled album is now quite long in the tooth, but has elements which are really quite important in music. The main one is the gaps between the notes. They are just as, if not more, important than the notes themselves. Once a note has been sounded (by whatever instrument), it’s there. But the sense of anticipation, the timing, the knowing just when to bring that note into existence is crucially important. Delay a bit and we have the epitome of a laid-back performance. Keep hustling it on, and things change mood rather.
The Groovemaster 4 gave Norah Jones her spaces back. There they were, in all their glory, and sometimes, waiting for that next aural happening was the key to how well, how realistically, how totally absorbingly the Groovemaster could help the cartridge, and ultimately you, the listener, into the music. Not just the sound but the essence, the soul, the very being of it.
It was there with the Scheherezade, the Beethoven Cello, the Houses of the Holy and the Art Tatum, and so many more that were explored and enjoyed throughout the process of evaluating the Groovemaster 4. If you want to enjoy the very essence of music, become engrossed in it, and end up spending far too much time exploring your record collection, then the Groovemaster 4 is definitely the way to go.