Esoteric is well known for its sophisticated electronics packaged in exquisitely machined chassis, and perhaps best known for its SACD players and especially for its SACD transports, which premium companies like dCS used until Esoteric stopped OEM’ing them. Not that Esoteric is a stranger to the analog world. It’s also produced the highly regarded, fine-sounding E-02 phono preamplifier, which I reviewed a few years ago, as well as a series of vinyl LPs and SACDs sourced from the Decca/London catalog.

So, let’s start the Grandioso T1 review with this delightful fact: Mr. Takao Tanishima, the mechanical engineer who developed Esoteric’s original SACD transport, the VRDS-NEO as well as its newest VRDS-ATLAS, is also responsible for the new turntable’s unique “contact-free” MagneDrive system (I use “unique” only when something truly is). What a great way to keep a talented mechanical engineer busy!

Esoteric product development is the work of a collective engineering team, a company spokesperson was quick to point out, adding that “total engineering direction/clocking/sound making is done by…technical director Mr. Tetsuya Kato.” “But,” he concluded, “Tanishima is definitely a person who put his mechanical ingenuity to the T1.”

The turntable’s “contact-free” drive system consists of a three-phase, brushless D.C. motor, mounted independently to its own 6mm-thick brass chassis, atop which, instead of a pulley, is a cylinder in which are vertically aligned alternating north/south magnetic pole strips. As the motor turns, the magnetic strips induce platter rotation through interaction with the platter’s soft iron “Induction Wheel” magnetic system contained within a series of machined “vents” located around the platter’s lower circumference. There’s no belt, or rim drive or any kind of physical “touching” and, unlike direct drive systems, no multi-pole pulsing motor built within or just below the platter. “Unique” today, though many decades ago, B&O once manufactured a very different kind of induction-drive turntable with an under-two-pound platter.

The Physical Plant

The Grandioso arrived palletized in three cardboard boxes. One contains the base, another the platter and motor drive unit, and the third the power supply unit and tonearm (if manufacturer supplied). As expected, the machining is exquisite, the implementation ingenious and worthy of deep respect, and the mass high.

The base unit weighs 37.5 pounds, the aluminum-alloy platter 42 pounds, the motor unit 19-7/8 pounds, and the power supply 39¾ pounds. Despite the mass, the turntable is relatively compact and will fit on standard component stands. “This equipment is very heavy,” the instructions admonish, “so work with two or more people and take care to avoid injury when opening the packages and moving the parts.”

What’s an old guy closer to 80 than 70 to do with no one to help him? That’s right! I did it all myself, including, unboxing, carrying it into my listening room, hoisting the 42-pound platter (via attached handles) up and over the top of a tall HRS SXR rack stand and over the tall spindle bearing, and then lowering it carefully, while maintaining perpendicularity to the bearing shaft so it could be smoothly seated without even a single accidental bump. All thanks to Pilates core strength imprinting! Start now, kids.

The asymmetrical base unit (the front feet outer edges are 86mm further apart than the rear ones) incorporates four large suspended footers and the attached large-diameter, tapered inverted main bearing structure. The damped sandwich-construction base is of two heavy aluminum plates between which is a black lacquered MDF (medium density fiberboard) center section. The footer suspension incorporates a coil spring surrounded by an acrylic resin tube. When I asked about the suspension, I was immediately sent measurement graphs showing vibration transmission rates of conventional coil springs and typical anti-vibration rubber/elastomer feet versus Esoteric’s “Hybrid Damper” system and another graph showing damping time of rubber versus Esoteric’s system. The long and short of the graphs demonstrates that the peak resonance is 5Hz (coil spring: 4Hz, damping rubber: 8Hz), and the “Hybrid Damper’s” vibration transmission rate is approximately 1/5^th that of the coil spring alone. “Our hybrid suspension also stops vibration immediately as shown on below chart. (0.25–0.5 sec).” The visual is even more impressive than are the numbers. No part of this design was casually implemented.

The 42-pound aluminum platter rotates on a massive, cone-shaped, steel-ball-topped, inverted stainless-steel spindle bearing riding in a PTFE (Teflon) bushing. The PEEK (polyetheretherketone—a semi crystalline thermoplastic) thrust pad “sees’ but about 8.8 pounds of the platter’s 42 due to a shielded magnetic levitation system. Lessening contact weight is a far better idea than eliminating it; the latter produces a platter that behaves like a bouncy spring. It also eliminates a useful mechanical ground that this implementation maintains.

Inverted bearing designs have the advantage of mechanical stability by placing the spinning system’s center of gravity well below the point of rotation. The disadvantage of the design is that it places the major noise source—the ball thrust pad interface—close to the platter surface. Implementation is critical to quiet performance.

Esoteric says that the magnetic drive system is like two gears operating in “reduction ratio”—the smaller one atop the motor, and the larger one, the magnetic strip around the platter—and so it’s claimed, the two rotate precisely. The motor controller does not use a reactive “loop correction” servo system. Instead, speed regulation is current waveform controlled, using a high-precision 10MHz VCXO (Voltage Controlled Crystal Oscillator) clock in conjunction with the outboard power supply that delivers to the motor “pure” D.C. The system can be driven with rectangular pulses, said the company spokesperson, but to achieve smoother pole-to-pole transitions, the driver provides pure sine-wave current to the motor coils, using the same technology Esoteric uses in its SACD transport. In addition, the motor unit includes an external 10MHz clock input for use with Esoteric’s multiple-output Grandioso G1X higher-precision outboard clock, which can also be used with its DACs and SACD players.

The base’s top plate includes the three motor-mount platforms accessible under the screw-off tops of three of the four footers. The cantilevered armboards are securely fitted to a large diameter post and then locked down with a precision threaded mechanism.

The machining and “fit ’n’ finish of this turntable is as “grandioso” as I’ve experienced in all the years I’ve been doing this. The top echelon of current Japanese turntable manufacturing is up there with the best of the 70s and 80s. The Grandioso T1 was a pleasure to unbox and set up, thanks to excellent instructions. Esoteric supplies an extremely thin but durable platter mat made of “Washi,” a fine paper made from fibers sourced from various trees and shrubs. It’s like a finer weave version of what Lyra uses on the underside of its cartridges to shield the internals from dust and damage.

Esoteric does not include a record weight or a clamping mechanism, and the tall spindle means only a limited number of weights and clamps from other manufacturers will fit. Perhaps the Esoteric designers are with Rega in the “no weight” camp. However, I’m a strong proponent of a secure record/platter fit, so, while I Iistened without a weight, I mostly used a Massif Audio Design exotic wood weight that had sufficient clearance to fit and of course I played with various other mats.

The turntable without arm costs $72,500. With the Esoteric TA-9D arm, based on IKEDA Sound Labs’ IT-345 arm, $80,000. Add the external clock for $27,000 more. In today’s exotic turntable market, these prices are at the “moderate” price point.

Esoteric offers armboard kits for SME/Graham Phantom, SAEC WE-WE-4700, GLANZ, Primary Control FLC, Reed 5T/5A, and Durand Tosca tonearms. I was surprised not to see either Kuzma or SAT among the choices, but supply Esoteric with the needed armboard template and it can provide armboard kits for any arm. If you order without arm, you pay extra for even the first armboard.

Setup and Use

Once the base has been placed and leveled and the platter lowered atop the bearing, the internally suspended independent motor system is slid into place on supplied guide rails. The distance between it and the platter is precisely determined using a Delrin template that duplicates the platter’s curvature. Connect the umbilical between the power supply box and motor system connector, plug in the A.C, and at the push of a button you are ready to watch the platter, in fits and starts, begin to spin. It takes approximately 30 seconds for the platter to reach speed, so disco use is out—not that it would ever be “in”!

As the speed increases, the fluorescent control screen atop the motor unit monitors rpm progress until the platter reaches precise 33-1/3 or 45rpm. Measured using a variety of strobes and an on the platter-measurement device (the Shaknspin), the Grandioso T1 turns at the correct speeds give or take .01%. A pair of pushbuttons lets you deviate from standard speed ±12% in 0.1% increments. A built-in micrometer lets you alter the drive torque by manipulating the distance in millimeters between the platter and the magnetic driver, which produces subtle but noticeable sonic changes going from softer and more belt-drive-like as the distance increases to more idler/direct-drive-like as the distance decreases. Pressing the “speed” button takes you through the “housekeeping” menu tree, which I won’t describe.

What’s Not to Love Sound?

To accurately assess the sound of the table required using a known arm, though I did first spend some listening time with the supplied TA-9D IKEDA-based arm with a known cartridge: the $9000 one-piece diamond-cantilever/stylus-assembly-equipped Audio-Technica AT-MC2022. To borrow a news station’s slogan, it’s a “we report, you decide” reference-quality cartridge—about as neutral a transducer as I’ve heard, with an explosive dynamic character and precisely-drawn (but not unnaturally sharp) transients. Esoteric doesn’t include a DIN-to-RCA cable so I used a Helios from Stealth that costs more than the arm. Why not?

What I was expecting from a high-mass, properly isolated and damped turntable smoothly driven by a contactless system is precisely what I heard—and not due to “confirmation bias.”

I’ll long remember the first song I played: “The Healer,” the title track from the recent QRP-pressed Craft reissue (CR00467) of the 1989 Chameleon original. By the way, it’s sourced from the Classic Records reissue’s metal parts for which Bernie Grundman cut lacquers in 2006.

The sound produced from that very familiar record by this cartridge/arm/turntable combo was texturally supple and luxurious-sounding, with three-dimensionally drawn images and precise high-frequency transients on a wide and especially deep “we’re having a party and you’re invited” soundstage. “Dazzlingly precise, yet so smooth” was my first scrawled note. “Wrap around 3D soundstage” was the second scrawl. Black backgrounds indicated effective implementation of the inverted-bearing design.

I’d played this cartridge on the OMA and the Acoustic Signature turntables, so I was well familiar with its no-nonsense neutrality. Mounted on the TA-9D on the Grandioso, the MC-2022 delivered “The Healer” with an especially rich, delicate, and generous midrange with lingering sustain, fading into deep blackness. “Sensuous, graceful, and enveloping” was another scrawled note.

The bottom end though, was kind of soft and not at all what I had become accustomed to on that record and on all the subsequent records I played. That was the biggest noticeable difference, though not the only one.

Was it caused by the “old school” rigidity-reducing removable headshell? Or the multiple signal breaks from the headshell to the RCA plugs, which is two more breaks than my “straight shot” from pins to plugs on my reference arm? Or some other arm characteristic? Or were the turntable’s bottom octaves softened by the suspension? Suspended tables can trade some bass transient structure for effective isolation.

This is not a review of the TA-9D arm, so, to remove that variable, I asked Esoteric for an armboard cut for the SAT CF1-09 arm, which now costs a horrendous $50,000 (and well worth it, IMO), and while I waited, I found a way to “jury rig” the $22,000 Kuzma Safir 9 using the TA-9D armboard. It was not an ideal mounting scenario, but good enough with the MC-2022 on the Safir 9 to dispel any notions that the Grandioso T1 doesn’t deliver the bottom-end goods. It also confirmed for me what I wrote in the Safir 9 review about the arm’s abnormally outstanding, resonance-resistant, solid bass performance.

I re-played “The Healer” and it revealed the full weight and glory of the bottom-end synth lines (there’s no “real” bass on the track) that the TA-9D didn’t quite deliver. With the bass properly in its place, delivered as well with greater attack precision, the timbales’ hard percussive “smack” stood out in greater relief, giving the track the required sensuous rhythmic boast and transient snap. The midband suppleness, the textural resolve, the three-dimensional imaging, and the wide, deep soundstage remained, though as expected from the Safir 9, all was in far better focus and more precisely drawn. What a shot of musical adrenaline!

Record after record told me that this was the best performance I’d heard from the Safir 9, good as it was on the Acoustic Signature Montana NEO, and that was plenty good. This presentation had the rich, creamy midband textures delivered by my old Continuum Caliburn combined with the precise high-frequency transient attack and bottom-octave drive produced by direct-drive turntables like my new reference OMA K3 prototype. The OMA’s bottom end may deliver a bit more low-end punch, but its midbass is somewhat leaner and less generous and its sustain and, by comparison, its decay a bit miserly. However, is that the OMA table talking or the Schröder OMA arm? I don’t yet know. I’ve only heard the table with that arm!

In 1963 RCA Victor issued Music to Have Fun By (LSC-2813) a collection of well-worn classical “chestnuts,” “Flight of the Bumblebee,” “Troika; Kije’s Wedding,” and “Rodeo: Hoedown” among them. Craft just released a 4-LP boxset featuring Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis with Shirley Scott titled Cookin’ with Jaws and the Queen (Craft 00540), but it could have been named “Music to Have Fun By.” It’s like stepping into the swagger of a Quentin Tarantino movie.

These famous Prestige “Cookbook” albums were recorded in 1958 in Van Gelder’s small living room studio, so there’s plenty of microphone leakage and great “room sound.” The music is more “gutbucket” r&b than it is the cerebral jazz for which Prestige and Blue Note are better known. And it’s so much fun. Saxophonist Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis was self-taught and plays here with then 24-year-old organist Shirley Scott, along with Jerome Richardson on flute, plus George Duvivier on bass, and Arthur Edgehill on drums. The self-taught band leader paired with the academic rhythm section. On Volume 1, it sounds as if Rudy’s put the Leslie in the middle of the room and out of it comes juicy B-3 licks, with the other instruments spread across the room.

Digital has gotten so much better, I’m getting soft and accommodating about it, but putting on this AAA production had me thinking, “Sorry, no digitized version of this will sound or feel this way.” The presentation of these old recordings (they are in stereo though the cover art makes no mention) have the airy, enveloping, three-dimensional analog delicacy and bloom the digits to this day draw with an edge. The Kuzma/MC2022/Grandioso’s juicy yet precise presentation of the four-LP, easily-consumed-in-one-sitting set defines for me “Music to Have Fun By.” Crank it up on the Grandioso and it grooves deeply but doesn’t bite. Play at low levels, and thanks in part to black backgrounds, it still delivers the dynamic, spatial, and transient goods. Check out Jerome Richardson’s microphone-capsule-shaking flute trills on “In the Kitchen.” Your analog “front end” should move the air through your speakers in precise, cavitation-like shock waves. The pressurization here was intense.

Quibbles?

I’d sure like to have a washer/reflex clamp option to tightly couple the record to the platter, at least when playing warped records. I figure the omission is purposeful and the Esoteric team prefers it just the way it is. Based on the sonic performance who can blame them? Nonetheless, less-than-flat records need attention.

I also think constrained-layer armboards might produce a sonic upgrade, especially given the cantilevered board design. The supplied boards are of thick, nicely machined aluminum, and the support/attachment system is secure, so perhaps nothing needs to be done. But it would be interesting to hear a comparison between plain aluminum and a constrained-layer-damped board.

The Grandioso T1/SAT CF1-09 Show

The SAT armboard arrived a few days after I’d devoured the “Cookbook” box set and finally I got to hear a fully optimized setup with my reference arm on the Grandioso T1, though by this time I was certain of what I’d hear, and I did. I’d pretty much fallen in audio love with the table’s suave, stable, generously staged sound, especially its supple, delicate, finely drawn midrange. Blindfolded, you’d know you were listening to a big table, but one capable of both grand and miniscule musical gestures.

Though the Shaknspin (shaknspin.wordpress.com) isn’t a “lab-grade” test device, it’s 9 degrees of freedom sensor produces useful data. Better tables always produce better measured performance. Putting the OMA direct drive’s results side by side with the Grandioso’s makes clear that the MagneDrive system’s speed consistency (at least measured with this device) is comparable to the direct drive’s. Add the DS Audio ES-001 to cure record eccentricity produced “wow” and what’s-not-to-love vinyl playback.

The Clock

Oh, toward the end of the review the Grandioso clock arrived. The table without it was seriously great. With it, the sound took on an extra level of smoothness and especially transient sophistication. The clock eliminated an unnoticeable (until it was gone) bit of “tinkly-ness” to piano recordings, which was surprising because the reproduction of the instrument without the clock was so exceptional, I think I played more piano sonatas and other solo piano compositions during the review period than ever.

An original UK Decca pressing of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Wars with Zubin Mehta conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic (Decca SXL 6885) demonstrated the combo’s ability to play big will impressive dynamic slam. A package of Scarlatti piano sonatas performed by nimble-fingered Marcelle Meyer on the Les Discophiles Francais label reissued by The Electric Recording Company (DF 139,140) made clear both the combo’s microdynamic expressiveness and its speed accuracy.

Nimbus released in 1979 a set of Beethoven piano sonatas in two-box sets, recorded direct-to-disc performed by Bernard Roberts on a Steinway Model D concert grand in Nimbus’ studio—no added artificial reverb. It’s among the most natural-sounding piano recordings I own. The D2D process didn’t intimidate the veteran concert pianist. The table’s properly addressed high mass and smooth, quiet drive produced an engrossing, deeply involving, dramatically dynamic solo piano sound—as convincing a playback of that record as I’ve heard here.

Conclusion

The Grandioso T1 turntable’s design must be the result of both technical know-how, superior machining, and listening “tunesmanship.” Sonic performance this timbrally well-balanced and resonance-free, combined with relaxation-inducing speed stability and an inviting overall subtle musical personality that combines midband generosity with transient precision, which compliments every musical genre, cannot be accidental. The Grandioso T1 turntable is an absolute “must consider” in the $75k–$100k price point.

Specs & Pricing

Drive system: “Contactless” MagneDrive induction-based drive, using 3-phase, brushless D.C. motor, outboard PSU delivering “pure D.C.” to 10MHz VCXO (Voltage Controlled Crystal Oscillator).
Speed range: 33.3 & 45rpm
W&F: 0.06% or less (W.R.M.S.)
Dimensions: 19 5/8″ x 8½” x 17¼”
Weight: 138.84 lbs. (including 39 ¾ pound outboard PSU)
Tonearm: optional. Supplied with Esoteric TA-9D (based on IKEDA arm), auditioned, but not reviewed.
Price: Grandioso T1 turntable w/o arm: $72,500, with Esoteric TA-9D arm: $80,000
Grandioso G1X Master Clock Generator: $27,000

ESOTERIC COMPANY
1-47 Ochiai, Tama-shi, Tokyo 20608539 Japan
+81 42-3569156

11 TRADING COMPANY LLC (U.S. Importer)
3502 Woodview Trace #200
Indianapolis, IN 46268

Associated Equipment
Loudspeakers: Wilson Audio Specialties Chronosonic XVX
Preamplifier: darTzeel NHB-18NS
Power amplifier: darTzeel NHB 468 monoblocks
Phono preamplifier: CH Precision P1/X1PSU, Ypsilon VPS100, MC-26LS SUT
Tonearms: Kuzma Safir 9, SAT CF1-09
Phono cartridges: Audio-Technica AT-MC2022, Ortofon MC Diamond, Lyra Atlas Lambda SL
Cable and interconnects: AudioQuest Dragon & TARA Labs The Zero Evolution & Analysis Plus Silver Apex & Stealth Sakra and Indra (interconnects). Stealth Helios DIN to RCA phono cable, AudioQuest Dragon and Dynamic Design Neutron GS Digital (A.C. power cords)
Accessories: AudioQuest Niagara 7000 (line level), CAD Ground Controls; AudioQuest NRG Edison A.C. wall box and receptacles, ASC Tube traps, RPG BAD, Sklyline & Abffusor panels, Stillpoints Aperture II room panels, Stillpoints ESS and HRS Signature stands, HRS XVR turntable base, Thixar and Stillpoints amplifier stands, Audiodharma Cable Cooker, Furutech Record demagnetizer, Orb Disc Flattener, Audiodesksysteme Vinyl Cleaner Pro X, Kirmuss Audio KA-RC-1 and KLAUDIO KD-CLN-LP200T record cleaning machines, full suite WallyTools