The Lector Zoe - Lector-audio.com

The Lector ZoeGiven sufficient burn-in time (I’d sayabout 50 hours) and, later on, a littleexperimentation with different tubes(which I did not do for purposes of thissurvey), you’re going to have a ball withthis two-tubed unit from Lector. Andthe price, at a touch less than $2200,makes it a veritable steal.

The Cutting EdgeHP’S WORKSHOPLike its sibling, the CDP-7 compactdisc player, the Lector is dark inoverall tonal coloration, similar to thatof the Tom Evans Vibe, and not so verydifferent from The Vibe’s sound—withone striking dissimilarity. And that liesin its ability to reproduce a dynamicrange that is, by comparison to everythingelse in these evaluations, verynearly shocking, so electrifying is itsability to range from the pianissimo tothe sonic thunderclaps. Try the first fortissimoon the Reiner reading of Ravel’sAlborado del Gracioso. If you’re like somemembers of my listening panel, you’lljump (as did I). Indeed, you have to becareful how you set the volume levelwith the Zoe, so close an approximationit is to the real-life wide jumps of themacrodynamic in big-scaled music. Youmay feel, by way of comparison againstthe competition, that the contrasts arealmost excessive. One thing for certain:you’ll put a strain on your amplifiers ifthey aren’t monsters. The microdynamicsare just as finely gradated as they arewith the ART, and the transients soundedmost excellent.The bottom end is as solid andwell-defined as that of The Vibe andBurmester, but more engrossing,because of Zoe’s way with low-frequencyshifts in dynamic level. Thewidth of the soundstage, up front, issuperb, but there is some collapse ofthe field of depth when the going getsgoing—you’ll hear this as the brasschoir coming forward, instead of stayingfirmly in place while soundinglouder. There is a touch of brightnessin the upper midband at times,depending on the music. But, all told,this little sucker has the gestalt of themusic down pat.&