“The Captain John Handy is one helluva fine turntable, easily matching far more expensive decks in drive, flow, sensuousness, soundstage, and ambience retrieval. It played music with such life force and dynamic power that I was consistently, totally captivated.” (Ken Micallef, AnalogPlanet)
“The sheer tonality of the Pear Audio Blue Kid Howard is what finally convinced me of its true worth. With the Koetsu and the ZYX Ultimate, this turntable is ideal for audiophiles who are always waiting to hear something that sounds utterly real, something that makes you jump up in your seat, something that makes you want to hear again just to make sure it was THAT real.” (Marc Phillips, Parttimeaudiophile)
“No-frills and kinda plain,” this turntable is based on the well-received Nottingham designs of yore and focuses on performance rather than frivolous bling. The double plinth contains a layer of Sorbothane, and the platter is a heavy monster, but the sound is “lovely” and especially dreamy with the human voice. Overall, we thought that the Pear Audio Blue Kid Thomas was the turntable that sounded most like a 300B vacuum tube, if that makes sense. It does to us.
If you want to play records, this is the way to go in my view. (If you are totally focused on correct pitch, you could look for a used Nakamichi disc-centering turntable; otherwise, this is the one.) All the Pear Audio designs of Peter Mezek aim at the same goals of silence, solidity, absence of micro-speed variations, and absence of grit, grain, and resonance effects. In short, they are designed to reproduce what is actually on the record—and, of course, there are some definite things on it. One of the less expensive Pear Blue setups will likely get you close to the ultimate that the Odar/Cornet 3 combination represents. But if you want to go for the best, here it is. Typical analog playback reviews are usually “yes and then again no.” This one is all “yes.” The Blue Odar is different and better at a price that is lower than other super-tables.
This one is different. Different and better. The different part is easy: Put on a record, listen to it with the same cartridge you listened to it with on some other turntable, and hear the difference. People who have written about Pear Blue turntables before noticed the difference, all right. The trouble is that sometimes they did not understand why the difference they heard—the less edgy, “softer” sound that they all commented on—was better, as, indeed, it is. This is one of the best turntables in sight.
I reserve the small handful of Publishers Choice Awards for the components that are my absolute favorites of the year, and the Kid Howard (turntable) is not only on my list for the year, but it’s also on my favorite tables of all time list. The KH is outstanding in all three categories. Time worn musical favorites reveal fine inner detail that I’d never expect a table at this price to expose. The sound field rendered is big, big, big; extending well beyond the speaker boundaries, all the way out to the side walls in the room.
The middle range Larsen 6 ($3800), with the Pear Audio Blue Robin Hood table and a Pear Audio Blue integrated amp. Thoroughly engaging sound, and more musical and natural in its presentation than many of the more traditionally placed speakers.
Striking is a fitting description of the player’s powers of scale: The Kid Howard and Cornet 2 created a soundfield that was engagingly, involvingly big. And the parts of that soundfield that weren’t music were impressively “black”: lots of big, black nothingness surrounding very colorful music. Very, as in very.
GamuT’s WormHole Signature bi-wire speaker cables, interconnects, and new power cord helped the system in GamuT’s room with the gorgeous GamuT RS3 stand-mounted speakers (North American premiere), D3i Dual-Mono preamplifier, D200i Dual-Mono power amplifier, and Pear Audio Blue’s analog front-end sound naturally detailed with beautiful timbre and outstanding clarity, focus, and dynamics. Indeed, it sounded so impressive that Chad Kassem used it to introduce his new Analogue Productions’ Roger Waters LP reissue of Amused to Death at THE Show to great acclaim.