Because there is no place for Eddy Driessen's mighty support stand in my quite moderate listening room, he brought just a light carbon fiber platform, surrounded by layers of carbon plates, which he also uses in his support stand, puts it on my Pagode rack and places his turntable on it. Including a precise alignment and control of tracking force, the whole set up took no longer than half hour. My first approach to the turntable was a few days later – as so often – with Art Farmer and Jim Hall's Big Blues, 7083, CTI: The unspectacular recorded LP offers pleasant melodies, a compliant instrumentation and a relaxed style of playing. And all this reproduces the Pluto-van-den-Hul combination one of the finest: There's no thought about the technical aspect of reproduction any more. The listener in drawn in the flow of the music, it makes him revel in timbres and wander through the imaginary spaces created in the studio. Here the term "easy listening" with no negative connotations would fit best. It seems that the fast sparkling runs on  trumpet, vibraphone and guitar are played with big ease. The turntable, tone-arm and cartridge transform the information in the grooves completely effortlessly into musical enjoyment. That there is a little larger space as usual, there are many detailed informations and a tremendously solid low foundation you will realize only, if you force yourself into analytical listening. But I would rather devote myself to the new fascination of this well-known-disc.

For me Four Drummers Drumming, Riff-LP 902-1, is none of the usual test records too. Again, this isn't about flashy effects, but the melodies of vibraphone and marimba are flowing, percussion instruments shimmer in rich colors. The Pluto is reproducing it completely naturally and with emotional appeal –  and a little extra boost of energy in the deepest octaves. Nothing sounds bloated or even fat. But timpanis get  that certain something. The Pluto 12A Cobra offers a solid base for tonearm and cartridge to perform on highest level. I gladly admit that I had not expected a so rich, round and harmonious sound before my first hearing impressions. According to my experiences so far, nearly a decade ago, van den Hul cartridges, were always rather on the quick, light and bright side of sound, what does not fit in any set. But the Dutch trio now matches nearly perfect with my not to bass-driven, high-resolution Lumen White transducers. Simply fascinating! Because I do not want to tear apart the so homogeneous trio, I just guess that the turntable and the arm have a tremendous high degree of freedom from resonances and vibration which enables the Colibri to reach sonic heights.