GOODBYE LENCO – HELLO LOKUM G-88

Done… sure I’m very, v e r y slow with my own business… yet, nonetheless, I finished the Goldring G-88 idler-wheel turntable with James Grant’s Siggwan Cocobolo arm from New Zealand and… thanking my pal Eckart, a pristine Signet 7 LCa moving magnet cartridge I got after reading a review about this marvellous cartridge, previously unknown to me.

I doped the slate and bronze arm pod with a couple kilos lead shot-balls to further improve vibes taming… the Siggwan 12″ arm is a beauty and it deserves all action on my part!

Slow, I told… would add incredibly, painfully slow, as I got the Siggwan from New Zealand about two years ago and, for several reason (being incurably busy the first reason it come to my mind…) I only opened and briefly handled to appreciate the building quality and… nothing!

I simply stored it on a shelf…

… like a good red wine.

… and time came, at last.

I did all my homework in setting up the wooden arm and also if I was previously planning to mount a Leonid Sinitsin restored Lumiere DST, I someway wished for something different – i.e. an MM cartridge to go straight into Thomas Mayer Tango LCR Western electric 437A phono stage and into e Serge Schmidlin Silver Rock TVA passive preamp and…

… I choose a seldom seen Signet’s.

Has been such a wise, coo, choice that, after listening to a couple of discs, I finished with an Hungaroton’s disc I recently wrote about, Turkish music.

So sweet, so smooth and detailed… natural… sweet? Turkish?

Lokum!

The well kept secret candy found in Turkey and all Arabic Mediterranean area…

Thus the name… Lokum.

Lenco is dead, welcome to Lokum G-88.

Dedicated to who claims the best MM cart isn’t comparable to an average MC, without having never, ever personally experienced any good (Grace F9E, Signet 7LCa… without quoting my beloved Decca SC4E;-))

This Signet is simply up to par to a good moving-coil!

Stefano Bertoncello