Michell Orbe SE turntable
Here’s a question, in which year did England win the World Cup? That’s right, it was 1966. I suspect that the majority of you reading this will have known the answer even though you were as yet not even a gleam in your parents’ eyes when it happened. Similarly, in what year did the late John Michell found Michell Engineering? As you may have guessed it was that same year, which means that next year the company that proudly bears his name has been in business for 60 years. Sadly, John passed away in 2003 but the company stayed within the family and continues to build brilliantly engineered audio products, with turntables and vinyl replay being the primary focus.
Why the history lesson? Because the subject of this review, the Orbe SE turntable, has all that history and expertise behind it and has been in continuous production since its introduction in 2006. In the intervening years there has been no need to tamper with the overall design of this mighty disc spinner. I came into hi-fi retail three years after its launch and after seeking the advice of more experienced colleagues I bought myself an Orbe SE. I coupled the Michell Tecnoarm with an Ortofon Bronze moving coil cartridge and very quickly fell back in love with playing my records on it.
The current Orbe SE is visually almost indistinguishable from my 2009 version, although there have been some significant developments in the interim, in particular in the Tecnoarm which is now the Tecnoarm 2. Based on a Rega design the Michell team have made it their own and it feels exceptionally well-engineered.
On the rack, the all black Orbe SE looks and feels like a heavyweight piece of kit. Beauty is of course subjective but I love the look of it. I would describe it as elegant but purposeful. The motor is housed in a cylinder which stands away from the main plinth and platter, located by its own circular collar on the plinth. The drive belt is placed around the very substantial platter and then over a capstan atop the motor housing. Speed changes between 33.3 and 45 rpm. are achieved by the simple act of moving the belt between two pulleys on the capstan. Very easy, although I always wore white gloves when doing this to avoid getting any oil, dirt or other debris on the belt.
The platter itself has no mat but it does come with a clamp that screws onto the spindle and thence onto the record label. On one occasion of dumb thoughtlessness I forgot to set the clamp in place and spent a few minutes wondering why the sound had become so poor. As soon as I rectified my error all was well and the lesson was learned; never walk away from the turntable without having installed the clamp.
You can of course purchase the Orbe SE without a cartridge but the review model came with Michell’s own Cusis S installed. I had not heard this before so I was very interested to see how it performed. It retails for £1,500 here in the UK, so it has no shortage of competition.
Set up in my system was actually done for me by Steve from Michell, and it was interesting to observe his meticulous attention to detail, especially when it came to making sure the the Orbe SE was perfectly level on the top shelf of my Quadraspire XL rack, the very same rack which had been home to my own Orbe SE all those years ago. We placed the substantial power supply on the floor behind the rack. The Michell arm cables and grounding wire (the latter being fitted with a spring clip, so no more fiddling with spades and screw down terminals, which I never enjoy) were fitted to my Gold Note PH10 phono stage, which in its turn was connected to my Prima Luna EVO300 Hybrid integrated amplifier. The speakers were my own Harbeth Compact 7 ESRXDs.
Listening to the Orbe SE
Once Steve was completely satisfied with the set up he left me to get acquainted with Orbe SE. The Cusis S cartridge had enough hours on it to be considered ‘run in’, but I wanted to give everything time to settle in after its journey from Hertfordshire to Devon. I picked a record at random from the storage cube nearest to the rack. This happens to be where I keep most of my Rolling Stones and Beatles albums, and it was the latter’s Rubber Soul. I lost my original copy of this great record many decades ago, so this was the remastered version that I bought in 2016.
I carefully placed it onto the Michell’s platter, screwed down the clamp and lowered the stylus gently down onto the record’s surface. Turning around, I was almost at the door, fully intending to do something useful with my time, when Drive My Car burst forth from the Harbeths. Holy moly!
Good intentions were melted in a second, and I swerved to sit in my listening chair instead. By the time we got to track four I had to laugh at myself; I was the Nowhere Man, making his nowhere plans for nobody. And to be honest with you, I have replicated that behaviour almost every day since the Orbe SE arrived. Like any addict, I promise myself that today will be different, today I shall listen to just one album, but it never works out that way. The Orbe Se with the Cusis S is addictive. In the many weeks which I have spent in its company, it has completely captivated me. In one marathon extended session, spread over a number of days, I played every Pink Floyd studio album that I own – which is all of them except for The Final Cut with which I have never bonded.
Now I am well aware that not everyone shares my enthusiasm for this music, and at the outset I wondered if I might regret embarking on this extended marathon, but au contraire. I absolutely lost myself in the musical journey from the Syd Barrett era whimsy to the magnificent proggery of The Division Bell. The Orbe SE and the Cusis S managed to dig out huge amounts of detail without ever losing the flow of the music, and I would finish a whole day of listening without feeling the slightest aural or mental fatigue.
After that I realised that I needed to mix things up a bit more, and went to every corner of my record collection, digging out gems that I had not heard for years as well as things that seem to join the play pile far more often. Of the former category, I shall name a few, the Beach Boys Surf’s Up, my original copy purchased in the autumn of 1971 at little record shop in a basement in Earls Court, London. The first track is Don’t Go Near The Water, an early ecology song, beautifully sung by Mike Love, Al Jardine and Brian Wilson eased its gentle way out of the Harbeths and pulled me about 6,000 miles westward. The last track on this often overlooked album is the title track, Surf’s Up.
At the risk of slipping into pomposity, which I abhor, I think this is 4 minutes and 12 seconds of musical magic, a mini symphonic masterpiece that stands comparison with any of the great works of the rock era. That it was cobbled together from snippets of recordings made over several years then overdubbed in the studio for release on this album makes the fact that it hangs in the air above, behind, beside and between the loudspeakers all the more remarkable. Bravo to the Orbe SE and its team mates in the system for delivering as good performance of it as I have yet heard.
I could write pages and pages about all the music in which I have been immersed since this wonderful turntable arrived, but that would bore you as quickly as your neighbours’ pictures from their cruise of a lifetime would. Suffice it to say that the Orbe SE is completely genre agnostic. I played everything from the Allman Brothers to ZZ Top with plenty of classical, choral, solo piano and piano concerto, jazz, reggae and blues as well, and every great recording gave a great performance.
I do have in my collection some not so great recordings, I am not naming names, and the Orbe SE and the Cusis S did their best to put lipstick on those pigs. Likewise, I have some older records that have seen better days (Dansettes and teenagers fuelled with alcohol may not have helped) but there was only one with which the Michell team could not cope, which is better than my Linn Sondek can manage.
The only change I made to the Orbe SE during its extended stay with me was to exchange the standard feet for the new Levis magnetic levitation feet, which Steve had left with me to try. The clue is in the name here. Like any mag-lev device, opposing magnets cause the turntable to effectively float above the surface of the shelf. Any vibration through the system rack is eliminated and I could hear a difference right away. There was a subtle improvement in the way notes started and stopped but the overall impression was of an even greater sense of realism. Once heard this cannot be unheard, making the Levis a strong recommendation for inclusion in the initial purchase of the Orbe SE. If you already own an Orbe SE (or Gyrodec), this is one the very few upgrades you can make to an already superb machine, but one that you really should consider.
Towards the end of my time with the Orbe SE I received an alternative phono stage for review. Off the system rack came the two Gold Note boxes and in went the tiny iFi Audio Zen Phono 3. I had configured it to the mid-range choice of moving coil settings. Somewhat to my surprise the Cusis M still sounded pretty good, despite playing through a device almost one tenth the price of the Gold Note. I would not recommend such a pairing in real life, but I would say try your existing phono stage (assuming it is moving coil capable) before splashing the cash on a new one.
Conclusions
Talking of that, the Michell Orbe itself celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, and is still the flagship Michell turntable. The SE version is eleven years younger but is very much on a par with its illustrious large plinthed sibling, except for its smaller footprint. The greatest designs must have longevity, and these Michell products most certainly have that. They deserve to be spoken of with the same awe and respect as other more famous products, because, as I have re-discovered during my extended time with the Orbe SE, they have earned their place at the top table.
Anybody who is considering making the move from their current record player owes it to themselves to seek out a Michell dealer and book an audition. That dealer will know their craft, and will match the player with an appropriate system which should blow your socks off when the Tecnoarm lowers the stylus onto the first record that you have brought to hear.
Does the Orbe SE have ‘character’ in the way that some other renowned players are said to have? Actually I think the answer is no. I believe that all the music I have heard through it probably sounds very close to what the team who produced it heard when they listened to the final mix, including the little tiny details which lesser record players may overlook.
The Cusis S is an extraordinarily good moving coil cartridge and despite the enormous number of alternatives available at its not inconsiderable price point if I was buying a Michell turntable I would look no further. That said I would be very interested to hear the top of the range Cusis M, which is the most expensive of the three Cusis models, coming in at a cool £1,000 more than the S model.
So what have the past weeks with the Orbe SE taught me? First, that I was a fool to part with mine all those years ago. I was beguiled by newer, shinier things, which is one of the hazards of working behind the counter in the industry, but none were better than what I let go. Second, if you buy an Orbe SE you will deal a death blow to the dreaded GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) at least as far as turntables are concerned; a Michell product will probably outlast even a young purchaser. There is a reason that there is not a whole sub-industry offering after-market add-ons for the Orbe, it doesn’t need them. Third, and this is really a corollary to the last point, in the long run you will buy more records with the money you save on upgrades. That said, I would strongly recommend investing in the full Secure Cover. I chose to lightly dust the machinery every day before starting a listening session, just to be sure that there were no bits of debris that could work their way into the precious grooves of my records.
Some of you may baulk at the purchase price of the Orbe SE, but for the reasons I have outlined in the previous paragraph, and because of the incredibly high level of engineering and audio capability that it delivers, I think it actually offers great value. If you are only an occasional vinyl user it may be slightly overkill, but on the other hand it might also convert you to playing records more and more in which case it will more than justify the initial outlay.
I doff my hat to John Michell’s heirs and successors. They have stayed the course, and continued in the tradition that he started, building the very best products that they can and offering them to discerning buyers at prices that are a fair reflection of the engineering excellence that goes into everything that they make. Having lived with and used the Orbe SE for many weeks now I can honestly say that it has no vices, only virtues. It has been a real joy having it here and I shall sorely miss it when it goes home to Hertfordshire.