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- Jan 3, 2011
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Andre Hanekom and I were being excessively polite to each other. Of course this means we were thoroughly p*ssed off with each other.
After years of bugging him to repair some or other cartridge for me,he finally agreed to rebuild something. It was the worst possible candidate. A totally trashed naked EMT cartridge that I had bought almost 20 years before ,used for 10 years until it was finished then thrown away ,minus stylus and then rediscovered in an old fertilizer bag with the fertilizer virtually destroying what was left. Andre took the challenge and after 100s of hours delivered what looked like a brand new EMT.
On arrival I fitted the cartridge only to find the stylus missing! Not blaming each other but? Instead of rebuilding the cart yet again , I asked Andre what , with all his experience,what he now knew about the hitherto mysterious EMT and an unlimited budget would he build ? Andre,being Andre accepted,quoted what I felt was a ridiculously low amount and started work.
In the classic 1930 German film,The Blue Angel,one professor Rath falls madly in love with a cabaret singer,Lola (Marlene Dietrich). He becomes so obsessed with Lola that this leads to his fall and eventual descend into madness.I wanted to call the cartridge Lola. Prickly,as always, Andre demurred and just called it ?Gogga?
So what is Gogga like? Win Tinnon,builder of the famous Saskia turntable warned me beforehand: A Blue Angel cartridge hides nothing,romanticizes nothing, just gives you what it got from the record.
Gogga was always intended for the legendary EMT ?Banana? arm,the 12 inch 997. Over the years its ancillaries have changed .Remarkably all attempts to ? sweeten? its somewhat acerbic qualities with cables,step up transformers and even phonostages have failed. Gogga wants,neutral,fast,transparent just like itself. Today it still rides in the Banana on the old faithful Thorens Reference but tonearm cable is now the equally prickly Audioquest Leopard, Air Tight SUT, then Cardas Neutral Reference phono cable into a custom built all tube cascode phono stage. It shares the turntable with 2 Fidelity Research 64S arms with a plethora of other cartridges and a special Whisper phono stage but with its current friends Gogga still rules supreme ,provided the listener is up to it!
Tonight Gogga sailed through some early Myles Davis ,with Myles?s horn sweet and sparse as ever, Coltrane soaring, stabbing piano and precision acoustic bass,no BS just pure reproduction. Creedence?s debut ,bought from and old hippy under a tree. He actually bought it in Height Ashbury on its release. Scratched and noisy but rumbling ,rolling bass, screaming quitar and Fogerty?s voice as good as it ever was going to be. Cat Stevens, Teaser and the Firecat :Voices in spaces, steel strung guitars and Bouzouki chords fired at you like bullets. This is not softy Cat Stevens of matric close dances, this is what it was supposed to sound like. I have this on Reel to Reel tape but even a big Studer can?t quite get to the soul of this music like Gogga can.
There only ever was one Gogga and as we all know there can never be another one. I am quite familiar with the Mantis and it is lovely but Gogga,man ,o man what an honour to have been entrusted with this. True there are days when the voluptuosness of the stone body Koetsu entices one away, the shear heft and enormously wide soundstage of the Fidelty Research FR7 scratches a certain spot or the utter simplicity of a Denon 103?s reproduction pulls me away but a flick of a switch and it is the relentless Gogga forcing you to sit down,shut up and pay attention. Bit like its creator really.
Gogga meets its inspiration. EMT TSD 15(Bottom) Gogga (top)
DSCN5799 by jdza, on Flickr
After years of bugging him to repair some or other cartridge for me,he finally agreed to rebuild something. It was the worst possible candidate. A totally trashed naked EMT cartridge that I had bought almost 20 years before ,used for 10 years until it was finished then thrown away ,minus stylus and then rediscovered in an old fertilizer bag with the fertilizer virtually destroying what was left. Andre took the challenge and after 100s of hours delivered what looked like a brand new EMT.
On arrival I fitted the cartridge only to find the stylus missing! Not blaming each other but? Instead of rebuilding the cart yet again , I asked Andre what , with all his experience,what he now knew about the hitherto mysterious EMT and an unlimited budget would he build ? Andre,being Andre accepted,quoted what I felt was a ridiculously low amount and started work.
In the classic 1930 German film,The Blue Angel,one professor Rath falls madly in love with a cabaret singer,Lola (Marlene Dietrich). He becomes so obsessed with Lola that this leads to his fall and eventual descend into madness.I wanted to call the cartridge Lola. Prickly,as always, Andre demurred and just called it ?Gogga?
So what is Gogga like? Win Tinnon,builder of the famous Saskia turntable warned me beforehand: A Blue Angel cartridge hides nothing,romanticizes nothing, just gives you what it got from the record.
Gogga was always intended for the legendary EMT ?Banana? arm,the 12 inch 997. Over the years its ancillaries have changed .Remarkably all attempts to ? sweeten? its somewhat acerbic qualities with cables,step up transformers and even phonostages have failed. Gogga wants,neutral,fast,transparent just like itself. Today it still rides in the Banana on the old faithful Thorens Reference but tonearm cable is now the equally prickly Audioquest Leopard, Air Tight SUT, then Cardas Neutral Reference phono cable into a custom built all tube cascode phono stage. It shares the turntable with 2 Fidelity Research 64S arms with a plethora of other cartridges and a special Whisper phono stage but with its current friends Gogga still rules supreme ,provided the listener is up to it!
Tonight Gogga sailed through some early Myles Davis ,with Myles?s horn sweet and sparse as ever, Coltrane soaring, stabbing piano and precision acoustic bass,no BS just pure reproduction. Creedence?s debut ,bought from and old hippy under a tree. He actually bought it in Height Ashbury on its release. Scratched and noisy but rumbling ,rolling bass, screaming quitar and Fogerty?s voice as good as it ever was going to be. Cat Stevens, Teaser and the Firecat :Voices in spaces, steel strung guitars and Bouzouki chords fired at you like bullets. This is not softy Cat Stevens of matric close dances, this is what it was supposed to sound like. I have this on Reel to Reel tape but even a big Studer can?t quite get to the soul of this music like Gogga can.
There only ever was one Gogga and as we all know there can never be another one. I am quite familiar with the Mantis and it is lovely but Gogga,man ,o man what an honour to have been entrusted with this. True there are days when the voluptuosness of the stone body Koetsu entices one away, the shear heft and enormously wide soundstage of the Fidelty Research FR7 scratches a certain spot or the utter simplicity of a Denon 103?s reproduction pulls me away but a flick of a switch and it is the relentless Gogga forcing you to sit down,shut up and pay attention. Bit like its creator really.
Gogga meets its inspiration. EMT TSD 15(Bottom) Gogga (top)
DSCN5799 by jdza, on Flickr
