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I had a privilege to follow development of
SAFIR 9 for more than two years. Even in it’s earliest prototype stage it was clear that Franc set himself a goal, not only to construct the best tonearm he can, but also to raise the bar of state-of-the (tonearm)-art. I haven’t heard this new tonearm in my system (yet), so what follows are my impressions based on listening sessions at Franc’s listening room which I know quite well.
The main characteristics of
SAFIR 9 is a tape like lack of distortions with extremely high but unforced resolution. Music sounds much less reproduced yet you can hear so much more what’s on records or to put it differently, you get more resolution but not at the cost of musicality. I fondly remember lively reactions of my audio buddy when we left Franc’s place after the first introduction. He was shocked and couldn’t believe what we heard. There was a kind of calmness to the sound, instruments and their positions in space were breathtakingly convincing. Also, music in general was spectacularly fast. Of course not in the sense of turntable speed but in the sense of lighting fast reactions to signal changes.
When listening to systems with ultimate aspirations, I always listen (if it’s possible) to The Royal Ballet, the Arabian Dance from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker suite (RCA Living stereo/Classic Records reissue). My reference experience of this piece until I heard
SAFIR 9 was Audio Exotics system from 2016. Arabian Dance ends with a short, slowly fading clarinet line. Usually you can “see” more or less clear 2D image of a clarinet but in this case you can also see a realistic, full bodied 3D image of an instrument with all of it's subtle dynamic and timbral shadings.
SAFIR 9 evened the score. Even though this was a completely different system, the impact of this new Kuzma tonearm had the same effect.
I still think 4Point14 is one of the very best tonearms but
SAFIR 9 is simply in a different league. No point to compare. Some will say its ugly (not to me) but don’t forget Franc design approach is strictly form follows function and
SAFIR 9 is a purest result of that.
You will be able to see (and hopefully hear)
SAFIR 9 at Munich High End show in May.