The story behind Helix, the most accurate audio playback device today?

[What Hi-Fi?]

If it's good enough to have been adopted by Stanford University as its audio reference to analyse vintage recordings from the Smithsonian archive, it's good enough for us!

The story behind Helix, the most accurate audio playback device today? : Read more

 

[Navanski]

I'm sure this is a superb piece of engineering. To call it the 'most accurate audio playback device today' however is surely a step too far.
I'm sure you are now expecting me to wade into the ongoing debate regarding the virtues of
hi-res digital music versus vinyl. I could extol the virtues of both vinyl and digital but why stoke the fires of a discussion that's already well ablaze.
My issue with this turntable's accuracy is the use of a fixed pivot tonearm. Record masters are made using a cutter which travels a tangential path across the disc. If you don't adopt the same methodology when reading a disc for sound reproduction then you will inevitably encounter errors.
I bet the Helix sounds incredible but to label it 'most accurate' I believe is inaccurate and just hype.

 

[Audiohead]

I'm sure this is a superb piece of engineering. To call it the 'most accurate audio playback device today' however is surely a step too far.
I'm sure you are now expecting me to wade into the ongoing debate regarding the virtues of
hi-res digital music versus vinyl. I could extol the virtues of both vinyl and digital but why stoke the fires of a discussion that's already well ablaze.
My issue with this turntable's accuracy is the use of a fixed pivot tonearm. Record masters are made using a cutter which travels a tangential path across the disc. If you don't adopt the same methodology when reading a disc for sound reproduction then you will inevitably encounter errors.
I bet the Helix sounds incredible but to label it 'most accurate' I believe is inaccurate and just hype.

If you look a little closer, you'd see both of the turntables pictured have tangential tracking tonearms fitted.