December 2017

Great Audiophile Gift Ideas For The 2017 Holiday Season
Enjoy the Music.com celebrates our 12th annual gift ideas to give your audiophile!

Ginko Cloud 9S Platform For VPI Turntables

  When an audio buddy loaned me his VPI Scout turntable he delivered it with his Ginkho 9S platform ($399) which we set up on the wall mounted shelf that is normally home to my Linn LP12. I've always been a fan of suspended turntables because of the sense of air and liquidity a suspension brings to LPs. As for VPI tables, I've always admired their products from a distance and respected their American heritage, but never really warmed up to them. And from my early experiments with tennis balls and other forms of vibration damping contraptions, I also looked askance at the Ginkho platforms.

Suddenly, these two were on a shelf in my rig. With my philosophical roots in British empiricism, I had to deal with them. The context was to review the Audio Machina V8, but our first listening was to an LP without the V8 installed. I was impressed. The Scout on the Ginkho was not quite as wet and airy as my Linn, but it was headed in the right direction and I was very pleasantly surprised. Further trials with the Scout, first directly on the solid oak wall shelf, and then on the Soundeck Isofeet showed that my lack of interest in the VPI by itself was indeed justified (given my personal values), and the addition of the Isofeet took the sound in a more resolved, but drier direction–further away from what I like to hear.

So yes, the Ginkho was making a positive improvement for me, although the music was not quite as highly resolved as with the Isofeet. But I would sooner settle for liquidity and air over drier, higher resolution. But sometimes, if you apply your tweaks correctly, you can have your cake and eat it, too. We installed the Audio Machina V8 broad spectrum cartridge/tonearm vibration absorber and listened to more music.

The result was not a David and Goliath story; it was a David on steroids story with the V8 contributing much higher resolution in all but the bass. But without the contribution of the Ginkho 9S to impart the air and liquidity to the sound, the music would have taken an about face toward an analytical, almost digital sound. If you've lusted for the sound of a suspended turntable, but can't afford the lofty prices most of them command, consider adding a Cloud platform to what you have now. ~Rick Becker

Recommended by Enjoy the Music.com's Rick Becker.