SME Model 12 MK2 Turntable Review

https://www.hifinews.com/content/sme-model-12-mk2-turntable

Marshall’s higher, quieter organ notes seemed to be floating up in the air, rising behind and between my loudspeakers from an eerily quiet background. As things picked up in both pace and level, however, I could easily pick out the different location of the big organ pipes, as well as the sound bouncing off the cathedral walls. The Model 12 MK2 placed me in the centre of the action – if you took me to the venue itself, I’m pretty sure I could tell you the row, if not the seat, I had been ‘sitting’ in my listening room!

This degree of openness and detail made everything sound crisp, clear and lifelike. The deck cut though the crackles on my old 45rpm copy of Charlie Dore’s ‘Pilot Of The Airwaves’ [Island Records WIP 6526] to pull an unexpected level of detail out of the grooves. Dore’s vocals were proudly centre stage and the music around him bounded cheerily along, just as it should.