The first time I heard Bernard Li’s new Reference One ($1975 USD), it was at the 2014 TAVES show, where Charisma Audio shared a room with one of its’ dealers, Update TV & Stereo. While many (MANY) rooms had static analog displays, Bernard had not one, but two Well-Tempered turntables spinning out the glorious sound of music. The demos were superb, as I noted at the time – these were some of the best sounds to be heard at the show. For the Reference One, his new flagship cartridge, Bernard decided to demo it with the cheapest phono stage he had available, the C$1325 Audio Exklusiv P 0.2, and the lesser of the two WTL’s. He did this to demonstrate the performance of the cartridge itself – and the results were stunning. Fast forward a couple of months, and I (very happily) ended up with almost this same entire front end to review for Wall of Sound — the Reference One MC, Well-Tempered Amadeus GTA Mk2, and the AE P 0.2. More on that later; this review is concerned with the Ref One cartridge. Bernard delivered the setup already set up, so once I had put some very enjoyable [...]
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