Does anyone have any opinions on the Michell Gyrodek ? I know that the presentation is different to an LP12 but does anyone have experience of it within a Naim system ?
simon

Simon,

I have been using a Michell Gyrodec for over a year now within the context of my 102/180/hicap/napsc/sbl system and am absolutely delighted with it. Indeed I will go so far as to say it is the only bit of the system I will never ever change. The difference between a QC'd Gyro and an Orbe is very marginal indeed and you can always upgrade to the Orbe platter at a later date if you wish (and don't mind losing the spinning gold of the Gyro!)

Mine is fitted with an RB600 which is a level above the RB300 with better bearings and high quality Klotz arm cable. For best results you could put an SME 4 or 5 on a Gyro but when I spoke to John Michell last year he indicated that the difference that made was relatively small over the mid-range Rega arms.

I also use the Gyropower QC which makes a significant difference to information retrieval and imparts a greater sense of PRAT and is worthwhile because it gives you electronic speed change as well.

The latest version of the Gyro (with the motor totally decouapled from the plinth) is a great improvement over the earlier type although all Gyros can be modified to incorporate this if you send them back to the factory.

The key attributes of the Gyro are its master-tape like neutrality, it presents the music in a very clean , fast and uncoloured way and its portrayal of dynamics is in the top division which in my view makes it highly synergistic with naim amps which also excel in these areas. Compared to a friend's Pinnk Link LP12 both with Dynavector cartridges into identical amplification the Gyro gives a much faster and cleaner rendition of the music. The LP12 sounds warmer and a little softer and slower but has marvellous bass power.

I have no doubt (and nor do several of my Linn owning friends) that the Gyro is one of the world's great turntables. It is superbly stable and not prone to going out of tune plus the engineering quality is fantastic.

One final point is that John Michell is very much an engineer rather than a businessman (in my view) - he doesn't price things at what the market will bear (Linn Akito anyone - which rose in price from £149 to £400 in about a year!) but rather what things cost to make plus an element of profit. The Gyro and the Orbe both undercut their quality rivals on price by some margin and their price rises have been nowhere near inflation over the past years.

Obviously you should audition the others and compare the Planar 9, Gyro, LP12, Xerxes and SME 10 to make up your own mind but in my experience I wouldn't buy anything else if I had my time again.

The Michell-engineering.co.uk website has a lot of interesting information plus some good product review links

Keep on spinning,

Jonathan

Jonathan,
Many thanks for the info - very helpful. What type of MC cartridge would you recommend to start out with to do justice to the deck ? Also, how fussy are they about set up and position ?
Thanks again
Simon

Simon,

I started out with an Audio technica ATOC9 which is available mail order and is about the minimum if you want to get something which won't compromise the deck too heavily - they are available for around £250. You might also want to look at the Dynavector DV20 for around £299. I now use a Dynavector DV17D2 which is around £449 and offers a worthwhile improvement over the AT - mostly at the low end where it has more bass power and equal speed.

If you can stretch to it I would also want to look at the Lyra range which starts at around £650. John Michell swears by Koetsu cartridges which run from almost affordable into the ludicrously expensive!!

I'm sure others will have other recommendations and Dynavector seems to find favour with naim fans for pace, rhythm and timing. I will just conclude by saying that I don't think there is a ceiling on Gyro performance - you can put a £1500 SME V and a £2000 Koetsu on it and the deck will not be out of its depth - it really is that good.

Even in my rather less esoteric set-up the Gyro still betters my equivalently priced naim CDi CD player by some margin - there is no contest on over 2/3 of the music I have compared and on the other 1/3 it's quite close. A musician friend of mine who only buys music on CD went white when I played him the same piece of music on both formats!!

The Instructions for setting up the Gyro are OK and they're not too picky but there are some great instructions for optimising the Gyro I found on the web - I will try and find them again and post the URL. My Gyro is on a Sound Org Z021 turntable table but in truth I plan to try a Mana Reference when I get the chance. I have heard tell that the Gyro isolation system is so good they are relatively unfussy about placement but I can't confirm this other than to say the sound is remarkably consistent acros the two rooms I have used it in.

The dealer should come to your house and set it up anyway although I wanted mine on a Friday night and so did the set up myself and then had my dealer come around the next week to check it over. Main thing is to get a good even bounce on the subchassis.

Hope this helps,

Jonathan

[This message was edited by Jonathan Gorse on MONDAY 21 August 2000 at 16:50.]

Simon,

I have been using a Michell Gyrodec for about 6 years, 3 of those with a 62/90, 18 months with an 82/hicap/250 and latterly with other amplification. I would endorse most of what Jonathan Gorse has said, but I do have one or two things I wouldn't agree with completely.

It's true that Rega arms are excellent and provide a better level of performance than any other arm at the price, but they do not allow the Gyrodec to really show what it can do. There are many people who buy Gyrodecs with RB300 and RB600 arms who never exact the full performance of the deck because John Michell has told them it's enough.

The extra scope afforded by a SME10 or SME IV is substantial. Also, we have tried the SME V on the Gyrodec and find that it's not as musical as a IV. Alternatively look for a second hand super arm such as a Zeta or a Mission Mechanic (what I use). These are excellent partners to the Gyro.

I would say the Gyro is only fairly neutral. It has a slightly high bass response - not bass heavy exactly but not as lean as something like a Planar 9. The Gyro is also not quite as fast as a P9, and is less rhythmical than an LP12, though choice of arm and cartridge makes a massive difference in this department! I maintain that mine is one of the best Gyrodecs around, even though it's the 'old' style deck. I believe this is the case because of the happy marriage of deck, arm and cartridge.

Where the Gyro really scores is in dynamics and scale. The scale of the Gyro sends the P9 screaming in a fit of frenzy and the dynamics has an LP12 wondering what the hell THAT was! Oh yes, if you like your classical orchestral pieces, or opera, you get vistas and soundscapes that leave the others at the price reeling - but only if you have a decent arm on there.

As to cartridge, I started out with the Dynavector 17D2 and was crestfallen when it died last year. Now I'm on a Dynavector Te Kaitora, which is like a grown up 17D2. I would recommend the 17D2 strongly. If you have the choice of SME10 arm and XX-1L, or SME IV arm and 17D2, I would go for the latter since you'll never change the arm, but the cartridge will eventually wear out. I am a Dynavector fan - they're well made, and give a great deal of performance for the money. However, there are others around such as Ortofon and Lyra who make good competitors. My feeling is you want to be looking at spending £450 upwards for an MC worthy of the name. But if it means spending less on the cartridge to get the arm I'm suggesting then do it! Get an MM for a couple of years. Cheaper cartridges include Dynavector 10x4 (£189, MM), 20XL or XH (£299 and in MC or MM form), Grado Reference Platinum (£250, MM), Ortofon MC25FL (£225, MC but not in the same league as the 17D2 thanks to treble harshness but times like nothing else).

When you've got your Gyrodec, you'll get mesmerised by the spinning weights. You should be able to snap out of that after a while, but it does get comments of 'pretty cake stand' particularly from LP12 and P9 owners, but at least you'll know they turn green because of the dynamics and scale that their reproducers don't begin to hint at.

Regards,
Frank.

Frank,

Interested in your views on the SME arms - if I'd been able to afford it I'd have put an SME IV on it but had assumed John's opinion about it not being much better than a Rega was accurate and as you know it's pretty hard to find a dealer to do any kind of comparison between them.

Looks like I'd better check out the SME's then - after a mains spur this could be my next upgrade. Does your shop have the facility to do Gyro/SME -v- Gyro/Rega or would I need to bring my deck in and pit it against your SME'd model?

Thanks,

Jonathan

We usually demo the Gyro with Rega arms! This brings down the price of the combination, giving us the rega P2/P3/P25 followed by a £1300 deck (Gyro/RB300/10x4), a £1900 deck (P9/10x4) and a £3500-ish deck (Naim armageddon/LP12/ARO/lyra-17D2-XX1L-MC30Supreme-etc.)

Having said that, we are capable of getting different solutions for the Gyro. The problem is that SME used to expect us to buy the kit (arms, decks, whatever) to demo them. They do not loan kit. Given that super-arms are not exactly common sales, this is a fairly expensive option for the shop. Lately however, I believe it has been possible for us to get a hold of some of these things from SME, so if you're interested, let me know.

It seems to me that the Gyro is quite partial to big arms. Hence the SME, Mission and Zeta work really well with it (Note: Mission Mechanic, not Mission 774. The Mechanic looks a lot like a Zeta). I've also heard (bizarrely) that the ARO works well on the Gyro, but we've not tried it. Using a super-arm on the Gyro raises its game significantly, bringing it into the league of the superdecks, and since it has different strengths from the other decks I feel it certainly has its place in the hall of decks.

I didn't mention earlier that I agree with you that the QC makes a huge difference and that it's a fabulously engineered deck as well:

It has one of the highest tolerance bearings in the world,
a sensible levelling system (though the new separated motor unit can cause height differential problems with the belt),
a perfectly balanced suspension system, which almost never goes out of tune (it also means that once you setup the deck to bounce properly, then when you transport it to a new place all you do is level the plinth and it'll work - no messing),
highest quality materials (perspex from Denmark etc.)
extremely low servicing requirements (once every 3 years, and that's only if you really want to).

In some ways it truly is a high end bargain, but it gets sold in poor man's clothes being saddled with bottom of the range Rega arms.

Regards,
Frank.

[This message was edited by Frank Abela on TUESDAY 22 August 2000 at 14:54.]

Thanks Jonathan and Frank
Very informative. I have already listened to the Gyrodec, but it was partnered with the RB 300 arm and cheap Goldring cartridge, which didn't do it any justice. I was still quite impressed and will now have a listen to a better matched Gyro.
thanks
Simon

Frank,

You're tempting me to buy a Gyrodec - I've even been enquiring about prices and availability locally.

I've also been thinking about the Delphini phono stage. Any thoughts on this? Particular the standard Delphini/PSU vs the Delphini Mono.

Ross

Simon,
I have a Gyrodec MKIV that I bought last year. It sits on a Mana stand. After working on the deck for a while I did finally figure out how the tuning should be done (with some help from other Michell owners) and it started to sound great.

I started out with a Rega RB300 arm and the standard psu. This configuration was great but did not fully match my CDS.

First upgrade was the QC supply and that improved things substantially. Some persons even prefered it to the CDS.

Back in July I replaced the Rega arm with an SME 309 (still keeping the Dynavector 20XL). Once again a different story with better bass and improved overall clarity. In this configuration I rate it as beeing equal to the CDS.

On top of the sound quality it is userfriendly and looks great. What else can you ask for?

Best regards,

Per

Just a note on some mail-order deals in the US (I'm sure international shipping is no problem). Www.needledoctor.com has the Ortofon MC25FL for $225 or $250 and the AT OC9 for $219.99 (also some of the upper Ortofon range are approximately half off list prices). www.amusicdirect.com has the AT for $199.99.

--Eric