EAT Forte S Manual

EAT Pladespiller Forte S

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Side 1/5

EAT Forte S turntable

Oct 22, 2012

Kari Nevalainen

Before I say a word about Euro Audio Team's - EAT, for short - Forte S turntable, let me say this: It's never too late to acquire a new audio dream. That is, it's never t

oo late to buy a

turntable and a whole analogue music playback system. Why bother? Why? Because the vinyl sound is magical. It's pure and natural. It's 100% music. That's why.

Due to problems with the idler, I had to stay away from my TT for some period of time. In the mean time I got the box of remastered stereo albums. I focused on theThe Beatles

White double album especially, and got convinced that the remastering was skillfully done. It even occured to me that the sound quality could equal or surpass the one of

the origina

LP. What a fool I was! When I was able to listen to the original LP again, I couldn't believe the magnitude of the difference! There's no way the digital sound, no matter how well

recorded/remastered, could compete with the original vinyl sound, and that irrespectively of the format or resolution.

When I revived my TT system again, I found myself jumping, dancing, snapping, clapping, crying along with the music in a way that I hadn't behaved during the dry digital period.

And the same continued when I put the LP on the heavy platter of EAT Forte S turntable. Only a stone would have reacted differently. It's not that the digital sound would be bad as

such. Not at all. As we all know it can be great. But no matter how good or bad the digital sounds, it always sounds dead, as from the other world, when compared to a good vinyl

sound.

Although I've been a vinyl lover for all of my life, it still keeps amazing me how radically the two, digital and analogue, differ from each other. Consequently, it's a sheer mystery to

me why people go on listening to digital software as the only source for music. Inconvenience of the analogue? I'd not like to believe that.

Right. So let's move to the EAT Forte S turntable. I must admit that prior to the review I had some reservations: a vacuum tube specialist (see the Inner-Audio review of their 300B

here) mixes its labour into turntable manufacturing - isn't that a bit too adventurous? Not necessarily, if you come to think of it. Both the tube and the turntable are waterproof

analogue devices, both operate on a micro-mechanical level, and both require similar kind of knowledge and expertice. And patience. Also, when I first saw the Forte S face to face

my doubts were effectively dispelled!

The EAT Yosegi cartridge

The middleman here is the cartridge. Just like a vacuum tube (broadly speaking), the cartridge is in the delicate business of "mechanical modulation of an electric signal". The

cartridge in the Forte S that I got for a review was EAT's Yosegi: a 0,4mV MC cartridge made, with high precision, of a number of “micro-quadratic” pieces of various types of

natural wood glued together with special resins. Different woods have different, specific structures and densities, and therefore their own characteristic "sound". EAT strongly

believe that when it comes to dealing with small and weak signals, the choice of material really matters, ie. individual resonance characteristics are clearly audible.

The manufacturer writes: "At the heart of the cartridge are selected motors, cantilevers and diamonds, of the calibre expected of the very best Japanese-made pick-ups." It's a public

secret that the Japanese pick-up EAT is here referring to is Audio Technica. As far as I know the Yosegi is not identical to any AT model but a reworked version based on

EAt's own

specifications. The claimed frequency response is 15-50kHz; the channel separation: 30dB @ 1kHz, and the output balance 0.5dB @ 1kHz. On other specs, later.

EAT has a special headshell for the Yosegi cartridge, also made of natural woods. However, due to some unexpected practical adversity, Oyiade's headshell had to be used i

nstead fo

the review. For reasons of elegance and weight, it would have been preferable to have the Yosegi headshell. However, my estimate now is that the harm wasn't fatal.

1.12.2012 1:07

The EAT-312 tonearm

So now EAT would need a matching tonearm. By today EAT has three tonearms, none of which it has developed from the sratch. There's the new flat tonearm for the new EAT Flat

turntable. The tonearm that standardly goes with the Forte S and its tonearm base is EAT modified Project 12" carbon tonearm. The tonearm installed in the review individual was

EAT-312, apparently replacing their earlier Ikeda-based IT 407. Installing it requires an adapter but EAT provides adapters for various tonearms, also other than its own.

The EAT-312 is a 12", heavy aluminium tube tonearm with a low resonance and SME-type cartridge connection. The arm is said to be based on old Ortofon Studio tonearm. It l

ooks

like the vintage Ortofon RMA/RMG-309. It's different from Ortofon's modern "classic" tonearms: AS-309S or RS-309D. The new TA-210, although static, comes closer.

The EAT-312 features a ball bearing, dynamic stylus pressure spring, a huge counterweight (allowing 0-7g tracking force), adjustable height, a standard 5-pin DIN connecto

r and the

wire from the bottom of the tonearm base. The effective mass is 5g without the shell, the effective length 329mm. The total weight is around half a kilogram!

The EAT-312 has no anti-skating adjustment, or rather, preadjusted anti-skating is in-built. That's sufficient for majority of cartridges that go with it, such as heavy O

rtofon SPUs bu

also for somewhat lighter carts. When the tracking force is beyond 2,5 grams, it's arguable that anti-skating looses its importance.

But compliance is an issue. Normally such heavy classic tonearms prefer low compliance cartridges. The static compliance of the EAT Yosegi cart is 35×10-6cm/dyne; and the

dynamic compliance 18×10-6cm/dyne (100Hz). Staring at those figures only the Yosegi may not seem the optimal match with the EAT-312 but not an entirely impossible choise

either. At any rate, the way it sounded didn't give any signs of incongruence.

It should be noted that the EAT-312 and its counterweight are meant for heavy cartridges between 20-30 grams. The 6g Yosegi requires extra weight between it and the heads

hell, at

least if other than its own headshell is used.

All in all, for me personally the EAT-312 is a wonderful tonearm in many respects, and particularly for friends of Denon DL-103, Ortofon SPU's or EMT cartridges (the latter are

nowadays are available for SME connection without the EMT shell).

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