Analog Corner

Do good things come in small packages, or is bigger better? Your call.

- Michael Fremer

Big!

But regarding the products they’ve sent my way for review this month, designers Franc Kuzma, Kiyoaki Imai, and Velissarios Georgiadis are all in the latter camp. Kuzma’s Stabi M, designed to accommodate the 14" version of his 4Point tonearm, is a massive turntable with a big footprint. Imai’s Audio Tekne TEA-8695 tubed phono preamplifier has 11 Permalloy core transformers and weighs nearly 100 lbs. And although it uses just four signal-path tubes and a pair of rectifier tubes, Georgiadis’s Xactive Argo phono preamplifier fills the full width, height, and depth of a Harmonic Resolution System shelf—and not because it’s a big but mostly empty housing.

KUZMA STABI M TURNTABLE AND 4POINT 14 INCH TONEARM

DEEPER INTO DARKNESS: I’m very familiar with Franc Kuzma’s expertise in design and machining. I’ve reviewed his diminutive, pipe-bomb-like, lower end Stabi S turntable, with Stogi S unipivot tonearm;1 his top-of-the-line Stabi XL, with high mass, a minimal footprint, two motors, and Air Line air-bearing tonearm;2 and his unique 4Point tonearm, which I bought and continue to happily use.3 I’m a fan.

Unlike Kuzma’s earlier, minimal plinth turntables, the Stabi M has an old-fashioned, maximum-plinth design with a solid-aluminum outer frame measuring 23.6" wide by 11" high by 19.7" deep. The look, in solid black, is oversize and imposing. Included is a large, spring-hinged, thick-acrylic dustcover whose vibration-resistant design made it among the most difficult to engineer of the Stabi M’s features, according to Kuzma. (It was too large to use in my system.)