My NAS has just put on weight

It was recently my 40th birthday so seeing as I've no imagination I treated myself (or rather Mrs G treated me) to the Heavy Kit for the Spacedeck. Having been pretty much bowled-over at the improvement wrought by replacing my OL-modded RB250 with a Spacearm I felt the kit would be next on the list.

To the few people who don't know, the Heavy Kit consists of an 'extra' graphite platter which sits directly on top of the original and is about 25mm thick, weighing itro 4kg. This clearly helps the NAS's already superb pitch stability by adding more mass, plus according to Mr Fletcher himself it moves resonances even further out of the audio band. Fitting it takes 5 mins tops - a spacer is also supplied to raise the arm height.

So..to sit down and have a listen...

The Spacedeck does have a very large sound and a tonal richness which I find more and more enjoyable the more I listen to it. My admiration for this turntable has grown in the 5 months I've owned it to the point that I've become a bit of a NAS 'bore' (sorry!). However, it's just so damned 'right' in what it does - it has all the toe-tapping pace of an LP12 but it doesn't ram it down your throat in the way I've found many LP12 based systems do. Music which is laid back is just that, in-your-face stuff likewise.

Adding the heavy kit has taken these attributes and strengthened them further - bass is fuller and with more punch yet tighter, keeping time better with its colleagues higher up the stave. I've an old DG recording of Tchaik 4 (Abbado/VPO) which I put on this morning for the hell of it (plus the neighbours are away - in the last movement the 1st subject returns after a quiet interlude where the tempo eases slightly. A few bars of stringendo/cresc brings back the main theme with increasing excitement - listening to it now, that stringendo just builds so much more convincingly, in fact it really was one of those 'wow...never heard that before' moments. Delius' First Cuckoo in Spring has many inter-laying inner parts, each being a solo in its own right - I can now hear the rubato which each soloist employs where before it all sounded somewhat plain. Sure, the detail was there and the overall musical effect very convincing but now it's possible to not only hear what the musicians are playing but why and how. At the risk of sounding a tad cliched, it really just sounds like music.

Oh...and it does look rather smart too, making the Spacedeck look even chunkier

 

I too have recently been playing with the Heavy Kit on my Spacedeck/Spacearm/Ortofon KB, which already has the Wave Mechanic power supply.

I would agree with Gromit's summary of the benefits. I was initially a bit shocked at the change in presentation after fitting the kit (which incidentally is a doddle). The sound became leaner, with obviously better detail, but I could not decide whether I liked it very much; in particular I thought that some 'life' was missing. Reverting to the standard platter (with Ringmat) immediately produced a relatively bloated, chesty sound. After a few days of rediscovering LPs in my collection, I am in no doubt that the Heavy Kit is worth it. The Heavy Kit does not, however, make a Hyperspace on the cheap (you need that fabulous oil pumping bearing for that).

For those wondering about the Wave Mechanic v Heavy Kit argument, I would happily recommend both, but the Wave Mechanic does a subtle but appreciable job of improving the more intangible aspects of music, such as space, edge definition etc. After I got mine I was captivated by some female vocals that before sounded merely 'rather good'. Alastair Gardner at Signals summarises the Wave Mechanic (and the Heavy Kit) rather well on his website:

http://www.signals.uk.com/nottinghamatsign.html

Cheers

S

 

Shuggie - I too would concur with the Alastair's findings on the Heavy Kit. It certainly cools the sound as he says but I feel it's also made the musical portrayal 'bigger'. There's even more air and the bass goes deeper and with more 'grunt'. I'm really pleased with the results and consider it a definite upgrade - not cheap for what looks like a small collection of bits, although I have it on good authority that the graphite platter is a right ol' b*st*rd to manufacture.

From what you've said it looks like the WM will be next on the list then

 

The beast in all its heavyweight glory...

 

looks fantastic gromit, nice one.