I am already familiar with the cartridge, the phono, and the preamp. The chain is completed by the tonearm named—you surely will have guessed its name—The Tonearm, with the OTL mono amplifiers, The Silver Bullet, and the semi-active three-way loudspeakers, The Pure. The latter were introduced during last year's High End show and are now available. Regarding the tonearm, we got one of the first available copies. That's why I have decided to take only a brief look on the already known components, but review the tonearm and speakers a little more in detail. Technical explanations of the OTLs that are being built in this form already for quite a while I gladly leave to colleague Jürgen Saile—which is justified by the fact that I'm not a proven tube expert. From this consideration up to the question whether Rolf Weiler or Volker Bohlmeier are well versed in all kinds of component types, it's not that far. Rolf Weiler is a well-known electronics specialist well beyond the hi-fi sector, and has also gained a vast experience with analogue turntables. But for the development of The Pickup cartridge, Volker Bohlmeier relied on the experience of an external specialist. In cooperation with Leif Johannson, who replaced Per Windfeld as chief designer at Ortofon, he has put his very specific sound concept into practice. If the EMT derivatives TU-2 and TU-3 were primarily driven by dynamics, the Pickup would have liked to have a little bit more of that plus a higher resolution, a broader spatial imaging, and better fine detail. Dynamics and the greatest possible proximity to the live experience have always been the first priority for Volker Bohlmeier. Components with an appealing smooth sound character weren't his cup of tea 35 years ago, and still aren't up to now.

The reason for his choice of a classic nine-inch tonearm did not really surprise me:  In all the testing it has been clearly superior in terms of the joy of playing and vibrancy, compared to the 10 and 10.5 inch versions. The twelve-inch version, which will be presented at the High End, exudes a great sovereignty, but when the passionate guitarist and guitar collector has the choice between sovereignty and dynamics, he doesn't have to think for too long for which one to go—and that's why the nine-inch has become part of the complete system. By the way, the arm is manufactured in Japan by one of the most experienced specialists:  Ishiama san not only builds them, but also has built the arms for Ikeda and Fidelity Research. In the case of Einstein's The Tonearm, he uses a straight tube for the first time. At first glance, the tube is entirely made out of stainless steel. After having performed a series of experiments with steel, aluminum and carbon tubes, eventually a stainless steel-aluminum sandwich was chosen, with the inner aluminum tube being full-face glued to the outer steel tube to optimize the resonance behaviour of the arm. The Tonearm comes up with a very complex bearing: Relatively large ball bearings are mounted to a solid bearing block, which has been designed to ensure a quiet, extremely resonance-free and precise operation.

As with arms deriving from Japanese tradition, the Einstein also comes with a detachable headshell, allowing the adjustment of the azimuth after loosening two Allen screws. Fortunately, Volker Bohlmeier and Ishiama san paid particular attention to the alleged weak spot:  Instead of using the usual single guide pin for defining the position of the headshell in the arm, two are used here instead. In addition, rhodium contacts are used for signal transmission, which are located in a Teflon cylinder specially made for this arm. After roughly adjusting the height of the arm, the extremely solid, mechanically fascinating base allows the fine adjustment of the VTA via a lever—as it used to be with the Micro Seiki. The effective mass of 18.5 grams makes the arm an ideal matchmaker for systems with medium and low needle compliance. Since Einstein – as already mentioned—also offers high-quality cables, it was no problem to get balanced cabling for The Tonearm. The Pickup's unusually thin connector pins—at that time my only point of criticism of this so vividly and homogeneously performing cartridge—are no longer a problem if you are a proud owner of an Einstein tonearm: there is a set of wires with extra-tight receptacles that perfectly match the pins of The Pickup.