What Hi Fi Sound and Vision 26 MAY 2008

Audio Note AN-TT Two/Arm Two/IQ3 package

£ 1600 4

* * * *

Well engineered, versatile deck that works with any recording but falls short of what it takes to truly excite

For
Cohesive, tonally neutral sound; fully suspended, twin-motor construction
Against
Cosmetically not distinguished; performance lacks punch and sparkle compared with best in class

This combo is big brother to Audio Note’s Award-winning TT1 package, so it has a lot to live up to. It doesn’t start well: outwardly there’s nothing between it and its lesser sibling, while its basic cosmetics do it no favours next to style kings such as Pro-ject’s RPM 9 and Michell’s Gyrodec SE.

Get past appearance and things get interesting. This is a fully suspended deck, so it should be more tolerant of siting than any solid design. But the most unusual thing about this belt-driven player is that it has two motors, fitted on opposite sides of the sub-platter, the second being used to increase speed stability and torque.

Rega arm
The £349 Arm Two is a rewired Rega RB300 and uses Audio Note’s AN-AI 99.99-percent-pure silver cable internally and AV-V externally, to aid transparency. The moving-magnet IQ3 cartridge (£349) is a reworked Goldring, featuring an AN type-2 diamond/titanium cantilever to bump up detail resolution.

How does the package sound? Good – in some ways very good. There’s an attractive solidity to the presentation that works very well with Nick Cave’s Nocturama set: his gravelly vocals are forthright, full-bodied and separated nicely from the backing instruments. There’s a pleasing cohesion about the sound that focuses attention on the music, helped by the smooth tonal balance, which refuses to get ruthless even with borderline recordings.

But it isn’t perfect: the low-end has decent drive but isn’t as extended or defined as that of some rivals. And despite good insight into recordings, this package doesn’t match the class leaders in portraying vivid dynamics or low-level detail.

To sum up the pros and cons, while this TT2 package betters its little brother, it can’t take the crown at this higher price level. To do that, both its sound quality and its cosmetics need to improve.