ANALOG CORNER

THIS ISSUE: Mikey auditions SME’s almost plug’n’play record player and Boulder’s almost budget phono preamp.

Since acquiring SME in late 2016, Ajay Shirke’s Cadence Group has moved cautiously. First, it revamped and cleaned up the company’s somewhat chaotic worldwide distribution. More recently, the new owners eliminated from the bottom of the line the SME Model 10 turntable, introduced in 2000.

The Model 10 was the first SME turntable to not use the company’s familiar O-ring suspension, as well as the first to use the company’s M10 tonearm, which was not available separately. The M10 was said to be a derivative of the tapered armtube 309 and, according to SME, a superior performer—though it certainly didn’t look better (or even as good). That combo, which I reviewed 19 years ago,¹ then cost $5500 without arm or $5995 with the M10 (about $9000 in today’s dollars). In other words, SME threw in the arm for $495, which made it a very good deal.

At the 2018 High End show in Munich, SME introduced the Synergy, a $22,995 luxury plug’n’play turntable; this year, at High End 2019, they debuted the $10,900 Model 12A turntable, which looks very much like the Synergy, minus its full-feature plug’n’play capabilities and fitted with the 309 arm: less costly than the Synergy’s Series IV arm. Everything about the 12A shouts “SME” in ways the Model 10 only whispered—and for not that much more money, adjusted for inflation, than the original Model 10.

SME’s first-ever integrated turntable

In creating the all-in-one Synergy, SME partnered carefully with three outside suppliers: Nagra supplied the player’s built-in MC phono preamplifier (a mains-powered version of their $2395 battery-powered BPS); Ortofon supplied their $4390 Windfeld Ti moving-coil phono cartridge company, since Siltech’s Edwin van der Kley is married to Crystal Cable’s Gabi Rijnveld.)