At Munich’s High End 2024, I spent an inordinate amount of time browsing the European Audio Team display. Their booth was encircled with turntables and tube electronics, two 20th-century technologies with which I’ve had a long-standing love affair. My relationship with EAT goes back eight years, to 2016, when I reviewed the company’s C-Major turntable. I got a real charge out of that ’table, out of its combination of visual low-slung elegance and excellent sound quality.
A couple of years later, I reviewed EAT’s E-Glo S phono stage and found it similarly excellent. The following year I had the opportunity to evaluate their Jo N°8 moving-coil cartridge, which also left me with nothing but good things to say.
Since that time, I’ve often browsed EAT’s website and found myself intensely interested in their higher-end turntables, but for one reason or another, I never moved forward with a review.
But fortune favors the bold, or something like that. Not long after Munich High End, I received an email from Adam Sohmer of Vana, Ltd., the North American distributor of European Audio Team’s products. Would I be interested in reviewing EAT’s Fortissimo S turntable?
Oh boy.
Poise and grace
Soon after that and totally without drama, I received a big-ass pallet with a large, sturdy Raiders of the Lost Ark crate strapped on top. Inside that crate was the largest, heaviest turntable I’ve yet experienced in my system. The Fortissimo S is the second-from-the-top turntable in EAT’s lineup, a single-chassis version of their top-line Fortissimo ’table. The Fortissimo S is available without tonearm for $8000 (all prices in USD), with EAT’s C-Note 12″ tonearm for $10,000, or with EAT’s F-Note 12″ tonearm for $13,800.
What we have here is a well-constructed, handsome turntable that arrives in a class-leading crate. I related in detail my experience setting up the Fortissimo S in last month’s For the Record column, so head over and take a look.
And a great big hammer
The turntable itself has a large footprint. At 9.8″H × 21.6″W × 17.3″D, the Fortissimo S will dominate many standard audio racks, and may well not fit on some. My VPI Prime Signature is a large turntable, and the Fortissimo S makes it look svelte.
The platter is huge. At 15.75″ in diameter, it’s 3.75″ wider than the “standard” of 12″. (Please note that I put the word standard in scare quotes, as, for the most part, there are few consistencies in the world of vinyl playback.) That extra 1.875″ on each side results in substantially more rotating mass. Embedded on the platter’s periphery are 12 brass cylinders. The platter itself is internally damped with Sorbothane rubber. There’s also an additional brass insert in the top of the platter, peeking out from underneath the affixed vinyl platter mat.
The Fortissimo S’s bearing shaft isn’t exactly huge, but it is quite stout. The business end is topped with a ceramic ball that needs a quick dab of grease from the supplied syringe before lowering the platter into place. The bearing shaft is coated with Movic, a slippery vapor-deposited molybdenum compound typically used in aerospace applications. The female bearing inside the platter is made from Teflon.
There are powerful neodymium magnets in both the base of the male bearing and the bottom of the platter. The polarities are reversed, so they repulse each other and take a significant load off the bearing, likely decreasing rumble.
My review sample included EAT’s top-of-the-line F-Note 12″ tonearm. It’s a high-mass design with four low-friction pinpoint bearings riding on diamond mirrors. The tonearm base is massive, and the entire structure gives off a feeling of solidity and precision. EAT offers the F-Note in satin black as well as the polished chrome of my sample. Several different arm tubes are also available, both straight and S-shaped. The price is the same for any version of the F-Note arm.
Two onboard AC synchronous motors drive the platter. According to EAT, the use of two lower-torque motors helps reduce motor noise. The power supply is an in-line unit, roughly the same size as a laptop charger.
As I related in my editorial, the total shipping weight is 182 pounds (202 pounds including the wooden pallet), with the turntable itself accounting for 103 pounds of that. The EAT ’table is revealed in layers. First layer is the accessories and the power supply. Lifting that out reveals the turntable itself—tonearm already installed—protected by a cloth shroud. It’s not a bad lift to get that plinth out and situated. The magnetically damped feet are preinstalled, so we’re all straightforward up to this point.
Next layer is the platter in its dedicated wooden cradle. Getting it out of the crate isn’t exactly a backbreaker. But listen: EAT specifies that the platter alone weighs more than 22kg. That means you need to carefully maneuver the equivalent of a 45-pound Olympic weight plate at chest height and lower that sucker carefully over the bearing shaft. Make no mistake—this is a two-person job.
A few more things to do. The counterweight is a well-thought-out unit. There’s a gross adjustment process wherein you get the counterweight in the general vicinity and then fine-tune by rotating the actual weight itself. Anti-skate is a fishing-line-and-weight setup, and it’s an easy task to hook it up.
Attach the belts and plug in the power supply, and that’s the lot. Of course, that’s not really the lot. There’s still cartridge mounting and alignment, but that goes along with any turntable that doesn’t include a cartridge, right?
Vertical tracking angle (VTA) adjustment is very cool. Again, you get the height in the ballpark using the old-fashioned method of loosening two set screws and manually lifting or lowering the main shaft. Once that’s done, you can use the thumbscrew on the tonearm base to precisely raise or lower the tonearm. And yes, you can do this while a record is playing.
Of note here on this piece of mid-20th-century tech is the F-Note’s laser. Yes, an honest-to-god laser. It’s mounted in the arm pillar, and assists in VTA and azimuth alignment. Lower the arm onto the record and switch on the laser. Move the arm in a bit until the laser shines on the back of the headshell. VTA alignment—ensuring the top of the headshell is parallel with the record—is correct when the red laser dot lines up with a small divot on the back of the headshell. Likewise, azimuth is correct when the laser dot reflects equally from both the left and right sides of the headshell. Of importance here is that both VTA and azimuth are correct only from the headshell’s point of view. If the stylus isn’t totally square with the top of the cartridge, this method won’t correct for it. Still, it’s a solid starting point that I greatly appreciated. I was especially proud that I got the VTA correct on my first try, with the laser merely confirming my work.
A turntable such as the Fortissimo S is a statement piece. It’s more than just a machine that spins records. It’s large, beautiful, and physically impressive. I’m always conscious of my VPI Prime Signature whenever I walk down into my listening room, and each time I walk up to it to flip a side. I’m enamored of my turntable, and I think anyone who buys a ’table as substantial as the VPI is also buying into the bling factor. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’ll willingly confess that the appearance of a turntable is just as important to me as the final sound quality. That’s why a turntable such as the Thales TTT-Compact, as great-sounding as it is, as cleverly and brilliantly designed as it is, just isn’t for me. It’s too damn small.
My VPI is visually impressive, but the Fortissimo S eclipses it. The huge swaths of ebony, the chrome latticework of the tonearm, the brass accents of the platter (still visible when it’s spinning with a record on top!), the sheer bloody size of it—the Fortissimo S took my breath away.
In use, the Fortissimo S ’table and F-Note arm were an absolute pleasure. The speed and wow measurements remained totally consistent for the entire review period. The cueing arm rose and lowered at an appropriate drop-it-and-go rate, and the platter spun up and stopped with reasonable speed.
Throughout the review period, the Fortissimo S and F-Note combination radiated competency, solidity, and quality. The minimalist control panel resides underneath the headshell, in somewhat close proximity to the cartridge, but I did not find myself worrying about accidentally smoking the stylus—there’s enough room to operate the controls without risk of catastrophe.
I always give a platter a little helping-hand spin before engaging the motor. The reasons are twofold. First, that little giddyup decreases the time required to get the platter up to speed. Second, it lowers the stress on the belt compared to a “cold” start. I do this with my own VPI because I’m impatient and cheap. So it’s become a habit, and I help review ’tables along in the same way.
The Fortissimo S seemed to resist my assistance. I’d give the platter a little spin and then press the “33” button, and the platter would promptly slow down a little before appropriately gaining speed. I used the RPM Speed & Wow app and my watch to time both approaches to getting up to 33⅓ rpm. The result was a reasonable 12 seconds for both methods. So there’s no real value to giving the platter a helping hand, other than belt longevity. I still did it every time though.
After letting the ’table spin overnight, I checked the speed with the RPM Speed & Wow app (compared back to my consistent VPI Prime Signature for reference). The wow measured 0.05%, which is the best reading I’ve ever seen. The speed, however, was a bit higher than optimal at 33.9 rpm. A quick email to Vana, EAT’s American distributor, netted me the instructions on how to put the Fortissimo S into adjustment mode. This mode is accessed by pressing the buttons in a specific order while plugging in the power supply. In this manner, I quickly and easily adjusted the speed to 33.39 rpm. The Fortissimo S stayed at this speed, with this low wow measurement, for the duration of the review period.
The chunky record weight remained a pleasure. The rubber O-rings embedded in its perimeter provided a more secure grip than any other weight I’ve used. Good thing, too, because at 804gm, it’s also the heaviest I’ve used.
I used my EAT Jo N°8 cartridge for the entirety of the review period, at first because of the obvious synergy that I expected from this combination. I kept the Jo N°8 on for the duration because holy hell, did it sound great, and I just couldn’t bring myself to swap over to the DS Audio DS 003 that sat next door on my VPI Prime Signature.
Fire it up
Spending time with a new turntable is a deeply personal process unlike any other in the audio world. This cohabitation involves constant interaction, leading to a hands-on familiarity. Playing each album side requires many individual touches and precise movements imbued with care and focus. Listen through five albums in a day—that’s really only three hours of music—and you’ll end up laying hands on that ’table maybe 40 times.
It’s sometimes difficult to separate the physical component of a turntable review from the actual sonic impressions it generates. If a turntable is fussy to use but sounds great, it’s work. If it’s a wonderful physical experience but the sound quality isn’t the best, it’s work.
But when it all comes together, oh man—it’s a pleasure. The Fortissimo S was a pleasure to spend time with.
The first album that crystallized the Fortissimo S as a near-perfect blend of beauty, function, and sound quality was, oddly enough, a live LP by the Tragically Hip. Live at CBGB January 14, 1993 (MCA Records, 5889172) was a Record Store Day exclusive that I missed out on, but a friend picked up a copy and got it signed by Rob Baker, one of the guitarists. This is a straight-ahead playthrough of the Fully Completely session, which is my favorite Hip album.
The vibrant snare work of Johnny Fay on “The Wherewithal” leads into a fast-driving rocker, and it was here that I noted the EAT’s mastery of snap, the dynamic start-stop quickness that good analog can so readily reproduce. It’s a physical thing, the dynamic attack that—in my imagination, anyway—is a byproduct of the actual tracing of the hills and valleys, the miniature landscape that is the record groove.
Ever seen an extreme close-up photo of a tardigrade? These little beasties are around 0.5mm in length, but in electron-microscope scans you can see sharp details of folds in their bodies, of tiny, claw-like feet. This level of detail lurks in the grooves of our records, and it takes a precision instrument to dig it out. The Fortissimo S is such an instrument. In concert with the F-Note arm, the Fortissimo S revealed itself as a stable base, an inert anvil, that concentrated all of the groove’s energy into the stylus. Johnny Fay’s crisp drumming just rocketed up through the signal chain, with the Fortissimo S providing the perfect anchor for this event.
The Fortissimo created a startling feeling of weight, of power when the music demanded it. Swapping over to Slint’s Spiderland (Touch And Go, TG64), which is a post-rock masterpiece of tension and aggression, I could quite literally feel the intent of the musicians, especially through “For Dinner . . .,” where the sparse, loping drumbeat is interspersed by distant plucked guitars. The Fortissimo S enhanced the density of this track, delivering an absence of hash, a reduction of surface noise, a giant, open void that the music occupied.
Spiderland is a difficult listen. Like much post-rock, Spiderland relies on the buildup of tension and its subsequent release. A musical orgasm, if you’ll pardon my literary license. The talents of the Fortissimo S straddle both sides of the release. I found plenty of examples of this versatility in listening to “Breadcrumb Trail.” The slashing, clanging, dissonant guitars built up frenetically, assisted by the EAT’s tight control. As a side benefit, the Fortissimo S kept the top registers, the harmonic overtones of the guitars, from hardening beyond the natural aggression present in the actual grooves.
As the thrashing came to an abrupt end in “Breadcrumb Trail,” the EAT’s low noise floor helped the now-gentle guitars erupt from a background of silence. Again, it was all about the way the Fortissimo S gripped the music with a tight fist, but then let go just as rapidly. Depending on the music, it was either the crack of a whip or a gentle rain shower.
The Fortissimo S retains a neutral tonal balance, but it does a real favor to the low and mid-bass. There’s solid weight here, with crisp delineation of the subtle differences in notes and how they flow in time. But there’s delicacy here also. Spinning up Giant Sand’s Cover Magazine (THRILL 104), the EAT combo delivered a delightful rendition of the “El Paso / Out on the Weekend” mashup. It was a simple matter for me to hear the distinction between Michael Grimes’s upright bass and Howe Gelb’s low piano notes. The tail end of this track ratchets up the distorted electric guitars, but then fades out to a peaceful finale, with the upright bass surrounded by chirping birds—very spring-like. At the same time as it provided weight and definition to the bass, the Fortissimo S opened up the soundstage to give each bird its own position in space, along with a clear-sky background that generated an honest smile from me as I relaxed into its presentation.
Relaxed; yes. The longer I listened to the Fortissimo S, the more I came to appreciate how it provided an honest, neutral base, one from which the music could flow in an unforced manner. The Music On Vinyl reissue of Monk’s Dream by the Thelonious Monk Quartet (Music On Vinyl MOVLP842) is an exercise in time dilation. Monk doesn’t color within the lines, choosing to stretch his playing out to the edges of each bar. In “Body and Soul,” it seems like he’s actively trolling the listener—that’s how far out of time he plays. The Fortissimo S locked in each note, giving a base, a point in time from which it could emerge. What’s more, the perfectly defined dynamics provided a perfectly defined point in space to go along with the time component.
I can think of no recording that more completely reveals the Fortissimo S’s strengths than Vladimir Ashkenazy’s performance of Franz Schubert’s Sonata in G Major, D.894 (LP, London CS6820). Through the EAT, the first movement, “Fantasie,” which occupies all of side 1, sounded like it was coming from another dimension, through a portal in the front of my room. The Fortissimo S laid out Ashkenazy’s piano keyboard as a physical object in space, with the leading edges of his right-hand notes projecting bell-like—as they should—with authority and grace. Again, as I’ve said throughout this review, there’s a sense of power underlying the sound of the Fortissimo S. This power extends through the entire frequency range, allowing the music to spotlight itself by way of its existence as a discrete object.
The Fortissimo S has forced me to re-evaluate what a turntable actually does, and what it needs to do. Midrange, treble, imaging—all that stuff isn’t nearly as relevant as the concept of a turntable and tonearm as a stable, unflappable, inert platform from which to extract information. As I sat there, listening once more to that Schubert sonata, I was aware of the juicy sound quality of the Jo N°8 cartridge, the solidity of the Hegel amplifier and preamp. And I could feel the way the Fortissimo S and F-Note were giving the Jo N°8 a platform of bedrock on which to do its work.
Downsides? Deficiencies? C’mon, Thorpe—there must be something that’s not top-shelf here. There were only a couple of things I’d change. First off, the polish on the F-Note wasn’t an absolute mirror finish. The chrome had a very slight haze over it that I wanted to rub out with a cloth, being that I’m really fussy about such things. Viewed as a whole, the finish was just fine, but when I got my nose right in there, I could see that it was a touch cloudy in spots.
The only other issue I could find—and I looked, let me tell you—was that the bubble level in the tonearm base didn’t seem accurate. Once I’d leveled the ’table using two of my own bubble levels, the one on the Fortissimo S didn’t show as dead center. That’s it. The total laundry list of my complaints.
Like to like
Over the review period, my gaze repeatedly flipped from my VPI Prime Signature to the EAT, and I began to see the two ’tables as champions of their continents. The VPI is American to its core—a ’70 Corvette with an LT1 engine, all blasting torque; a bone-rattler with masculine charm. The VPI radiates strength and Death Star malevolence.
Then there’s the Fortissimo S, from European Audio Team. It’s a Bentley Continental GT: sleek and elegant in its own boxy way, but also larger than life. Hugely powerful, but undeniably elegant. Fat tires, squat to the road with unlimited torque, but so comfortable and silent that you don’t even know it’s running.
That said, visuals out of the way, from a sound-quality perspective, both the VPI and the EAT radiate neutrality and control, sounding more alike than they do different. The Fortissimo S edges out the VPI in its control of transients and isolation from vibration. A knuckle rap on my well-damped equipment rack elicits a clear thump from the VPI and absolute silence from the EAT. Those magnetic feet really do the trick.
The Fortissimo S pulls ahead in its presentation of dynamics and its crisp, precise way with timing. The noise floor of the Fortissimo S is slightly lower, with less emphasis on surface noise and complete absence of rumble. The advantages of the EAT ’table are small—matters of a fraction of a degree—but they’re important and come to the forefront the longer you listen.
Those advantages come at a price, though. The Prime Signature, now in its Prime Signature 21 configuration, retails for $8700, including VPI’s Fatboy Gimbal tonearm. That’s significantly less than $13,800, which is what the Fortissimo S–F-Note combination costs. So the EAT damn well should sound better than the VPI. The VPI is a fantastic turntable, one I’m proud and happy to own, but the Fortissimo S is better and is definitely worth the extra cash. That said, I’d be more than happy to listen forever to either of these turntables, as they both perform superbly, are each built to an extremely high standard, and look like they’re ready to go into space. There’s no loser here, only two winners.
Bury me with it
As I sit here writing this, the light above my audio rack is shining directly down on the Fortissimo S. The platter is spinning the latest red-vinyl reissue of the Tragically Hip’s Road Apples. The brass cylinders on the periphery of the platter are reflecting upward onto the ceiling, a spinning merry-go-round that’s also mirrored on the blinds over the window behind. I can just see the edge of the record in red, with a slice of brass underneath.
It’s a renaissance scene in Blade Runner lingerie.
It’s not often that an audio component hits all my requirements. Appearance? Check. Sound quality? Check. Ease of use? Check. I’ve said it before a number of times: a turntable has to inspire lust, it has to feel good in the hand, and it has to make you smile. These factors are as important as sound quality. The Fortissimo S checks all my boxes and gets my highest recommendation.
. . . Jason Thorpe
jasont@soundstagenetwork.com
Associated Equipment
- Analog source: VPI Prime Signature turntable; EAT Jo N°8, DS Audio DS 003, Charisma Audio Signature Two cartridges
- Digital sources: Logitech Squeezebox Touch, Meitner Audio MA3
- Phono preamplifiers: Aqvox Phono 2 CI, iFi Audio iPhono 3 Black Label, Hegel Music Systems V10, EMM Labs DS-EQ1, Meitner Audio DS-EQ2
- Preamplifiers: Sonic Frontiers SFL-2, Hegel Music Systems P30A
- Power amplifier: Hegel Music Systems H30A
- Integrated amplifiers: Hegel Music Systems H120, Eico HF-81
- Speakers: Focus Audio FP60 BE, Estelon YB, Aurelia Cerica XL, Totem Acoustic Sky Tower, Børresen X6
- Speaker cables: Audience Au24 SX, Nordost Tyr 2, Crystal Cable Art Series Monet
- Interconnects: Audience Au24 SX, Furutech Ag-16, Nordost Tyr 2, Crystal Cable Diamond Series 2
- Power cords: Audience FrontRow, Nordost Vishnu
- Power conditioner: Quantum QBase QB8 Mk.II
- Accessories: Little Fwend tonearm lift, VPI Cyclone record-cleaning machine, Furutech Destat III
European Audio Team Fortissimo S turntable and F-Note tonearm
Price: $13,800 (as reviewed)
Warranty: Two years, parts and labor
European Audio Team
Vajanského 2983/23
Lucenec
984 01 Slovak Republic
Email: eat@europeanaudioteam.com
Website: www.europeanaudioteam.com
US distributor:
Vana, Ltd.
66 Southern Blvd., Suite C
Nesconset, NY 11767
Phone:(631) 246-4412
Email: sales@vanaltd.com
Website: www.vanaltd.com
