With the Ref’s output plugged into a Grimm PW1 phono stage with impedance set at 100 Ohms I was immediately struck by its vivid and open sound, it presents oodles of detail thanks to extended and very clean high frequencies that it finds in an awful lot of vinyl grooves. I happened to put on an album that I had only previously heard via a streamer, the contrast was shocking to say the least, there was so much vibrancy and life in the recording that the digital failed to reveal, it really made the music considerably more engaging, and the vocal was absolutely stunning.

Energy is a clear strongpoint with the Ref but this is achieved by its combination of finesse, speed and muscularity of bass. It’s a particularly entertaining cartridge with all manner of music, from the fast, fluent yet mellow shadings of Nils Frahm’s All Melody to the sense of life in the Keith Jarrett trio’s rendition of God Bless the Child. The latter is a live recording and you know all about it thanks to the way the Ref defines the space in the room with its broadband high resolution and gets into the power and dynamics of the playing from piano, bass and drums.

You don’t usually get this level of massively open, clean and powerful sound with an MC at this price, I wouldn’t be surprised if it could hold its own against competitors at close to twice the money. It seems to be able to open up almost anything the record player can spin, including MYT’s self titled debut which usually sounds a bit thick and shut-in. The character of the recording is still apparent but the Ref doesn’t allow this to get in the way of the music in the way that some cartridges can. It is a little fussy about the state of the vinyl and pristine is the preferred condition if you want to avoid clicks and pops, but that’s the price you pay for very high resolution.

With my Tom Evans Groove+ SRX MkII phono stage set to its lowest impedance (112 Ohms) the thrills did not abate, this is a particularly nimble preamplifier and when combined with the speed and dynamics offered by the Skyanalog Ref the sound was frequently visceral. It has a physical presence in the room that made voices and instruments alike sound like they were right in front of me. Detail resolution was also pretty spectacular with the Ref digging down into the groove and scooping out the smallest sounds to add to the fundamentals and giving the whole presentation a sense of vivid reality.

With a Michell Apollo/Muse phono stage the Ref delivered a lot of drive with plenty of power again and excellent imaging, vocals once again proving to be particularly well rendered in terms of depth and presence. This stage also picked out the quality of high notes, cymbals really shimmer and quiet notes are pulled out of the mix very nicely. Timing was also very strong, the Ref’s inherent immediacy proving very engaging with a wide variety of LPs, this seems to be an area where the Michell stage is itself very good so the pairing was highly entertaining.

Link do recenzji: Skyanalog REF – The Ear

To appreciate just how adaptable and even-handed the Skyanalog REF can be, I put on The Replacements' post-punk masterpiece, Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash [Twin Tone/Rhino R2 659038]. Here, subtlety and finesse leave the room - the bass on 'Johnny's Gonna Die' is, er, to die for. The REF delivered a wall of sound with such force - thanks in no small part to the glorious bottom end and red-hot attack - that its Janus-like duality was confirmed. This cartridge really is something else. It rocks.

Paul McCartney's 1982 set Tug Of War [Columbia 7464-37462-1], despite the lame title track, is an exemplar of vocal textures and - as Macca is a bassist of the highest order - rich bottom octaves. For sheer mass and freedom from artifice, the lower registers could not be faulted. The virtuoso percussion on 'Take It Away', courtesy of not one but two drum gods - Ringo Starr and Steve Gadd - came across as, yes, reference level.

I was hard-pressed to think of a cartridge of similar merit at the Skyanalog REF's price point, the foundation it creates exhibiting the substance of a DS Audio optical cartridge , if less dry. This aspect, as you've surmised, will require demonstrations through your speakers of choice, in my case DeVore O/93s versus myriad LS3/5As , as each creates quite different conditions.

Better still for me, as I obsess about vocals, were the ways distinctive voices were delivered so realistically. We are talking here about guests including Stevie Wonder ('Ebony And Ivory') and Carl Perkins ('Get It'), plus harmonies from Linda McCartney and Eric Stewart, as well as Paul himself. All five are familiar, all unique, and the interplay was damned near perfect.

Considering that the REF (indeed, the entire system) only had to reproduce a lone voice and piano, mono would have sufficed, but another area where Skyanalog's golden MC needs no excuses is its massive - and I mean Denon DL103-grade massive - soundstage. The delight in picturing what is as familiar as a human being at a piano, as opposed to a gigantic orchestra, with such convincing presence in one's listening room must surely be what we're all pursuing?

This applied, too, to Lightnin' Hopkins, again with a gravelly voice, but with blues guitar twanging just so. Atmosphere? My room turned into a juke joint, minus the audience, and the way the resonances of the guitar were handled added a verve which made this 55-year-old release sound as fresh as last week.

Link do recenzji: Skyanalog REF – Hi-Fi News

The Skyanalog Reference accompanies this highly accurately and shows me even the smallest sound events and individual notes without becoming a “dot on the i”. Rather, it is its remarkable ability to hold everything together without underplaying anything that makes it so convincing. This equally applies to the next recording: Rick Wakeman with his 1973 LP The Six Wives Of Henry VIII is on the turntable. The downright wild sound passages on the track “Anne Of Cleves” make me laugh from the heart – “Really great, this system”, my cerebral unit reports. Dire Straits with Brothers In Arms has basically been a legend for a long time, the half-speed version of Abbey Road Studios is playing here – really good (“really cool” would be the correct term at this point, but we are a serious magazine after all …).

Let’s stay with the music of Mark Knopfler & Co. This time with the LP Going Home, reinterpreted with incredible sensitivity by Arne Jansen on guitar and Stephan Braun on 5-string cello and double bass. A musical delicacy that Skyanalog Reference performs with great ease. With such instrumentally reduced music, it is also particularly noticeable how little groove noise the pickup transmits. Finally, the LP Slow Train by Hans Theessink catches my eye, and just like that, the disk is already spinning on the turntable – the recording qualities of this musician are always (!) outstandingly good. It’s not just the particularly thought-provoking “Old Man Trouble” that completely captivates me, it’s the whole LP, which impresses with its many small musical details. Do you notice anything? I’m writing about the musical impressions, but the review is supposed to be about the Skyanalog Reference … Exactly, and this is where we come full circle to this report. This pickup system is an outstandingly good purveyor of music. The craftsmanship and the resulting sound quality are the essential points for a long analog life, and it is precisely such details that I greatly appreciate. I consider this cartridge to be one of the analog discoveries of the year! So, is it still just marketing gobbledygook after all? Not at all, because as already mentioned – I’m warning the curious!

Link do recenzji: Skyanalog REF – Fidelity Magazine

Link: Skyanalog Ref – Hi-Fi News – Outstanding Product

Link: Skyanalog Ref – Fidelity Magazine – Fidelity Award 2024

Link: Skyanalog Ref – The Ear – Editor's Choice