About Origin Live

Origin Live is a privately owned British company with fanaticism to reproduce music as played originally, live – hence the name Origin Live. We design and manufacture in-house which has many advantages for innovation, production costs and quality.

 

Origin Live Turntables

 

Aurora MK 4 Turntable

 

The Aurora MK4 turntable offers genuine high-end performance at an affordable price point, comfortably outperforming much more expensive decks.

Details and technical specifications: Aurora Turntable | Origin Live Award Winning Hi-Fi

 

Calypso MK 4 Turntable

 

For out-and-out performance, this deck has all the attributes you could ask for. Strengths lie in superb transparency, timing, musicality, dynamics, and tangible soundstaging. Capable of outperforming much more expensive, respected decks, the Calypso MK4 is not going to disappoint you. Also, being neutral and system-friendly, it suits most applications very well.

Details and technical specifications: Calypso Turntable - Origin Live Award Winning Hi-Fi Manufacturer

 

Resolution MK 4 Turntable

 

One of the highest performing turntables on the market regardless of price, the Resolution is radical not only in its performance but also in its fabulous appearance. This turntable has already featured in a number of style magazines due to its eye-catching finish and sheer good looks. Combining superb sound quality and aesthetic elegance, the Resolution MK4 turntable is designed to recreate the original musical performance in its entirety – Excellent dynamics, transient speed, definition and tonal accuracy.

A true high definition instrument, Resolution stands high above its price rivals with a performance that reminds you why vinyl is held in such high esteem. Every aspect of its audio performance is extremely strong, making for an unerringly enjoyable listening experience. Experienced high-end dealers rate the performance of the Sovereign 3.2 (introduced in July 2016) above decks in excess of 100K. The Resolution with multi-layer platter option comes very close to Sovereign performance – it’s that good.

Details and technical specifications: Resolution Turntable - Origin Live Award Winning Hi-Fi

 

Sovereign Mk4 & Sovereign Special Turntable

 

The Sovereign deck is a true high-end design. Extremely well specified, it looks and sounds fantastic – simply a near ultimate deck. The award-winning Sovereign Turntable is a favourite of many audio experts – and is owned by Hi-Fi magazine editors and reviewers alike.

The “Sovereign Special” Platter
The Sovereign Special differs from the Sovereign MK4 by virtue of its remarkably upgraded multi-layer platter. As a rule, the closer a part is to the cartridge the more it affects the performance. You can’t get much closer to the cartridge than the platter and this is where a lot of the magic happens in the highest performing decks. This particular version of the Multilayer platter features some of the key components present in the top of the range Voyager turntables. The result is a huge increase in detail, dynamics and clarity. Music comes alive in a way rarely heard even among the highest end decks. This version of the Sovereign is a highly worthwhile acquisition over the standard Sovereign.

Sovereign MK4 Standard Multi-layer Platter
Better specified than decks lower in the Origin Live range, the Sovereign boasts improved decoupling of the main bearing and armboard. The previous MK3-2 version introduced a complex multilayer platter designed to dissipate energy in the most effective manner possible. This proved to be a huge upgrade and resulted in more outstanding comments from the press.

Details and technical specifications: Sovereign Turntable - Origin Live award winning Hi-Fi

 

Voyager Mk4 Turntable

 

The Voyager platter uses intricate and unique mechanisms to create the equivalent of mechanical diodes. Traditional heavyweight platters are inadequate as they reflect vibration from the cartridge to the record. Crude felt mats can only transmit certain frequencies which will cause timing problems. The Voyager uses a multi-part platter designed to transmit energy at all frequencies without the reflection problems encountered in many platter designs. Energy is controlled by a series of shock absorption mechanisms created from long experience in controlling micro shock waves. Key components are made from highly specified alloys to achieve the highest energy transmission speed and low ringing effects. Material composition, profiling and the right damping methods are critical to accomplish this.

You will notice that the Voyager has many seemingly insignificant details. For example, lightening hole profiles and part shapes are all carefully derived from experience of structural analysis – vital for the correct management of micro-vibrations. This is not the brute force approach adopted by some spectacular decks where energy reflection seems to produce a lack of musicality and subtle mis-timing in micro dynamics.

The Bearing in the standard Voyager has been developed over two decades to yield extremely low levels of friction and vibration. Features include, micron precision, large diameter for absolute rigidity, and special oil.

The motors are specifically developed for powerful smooth rotation whilst maintaining very low levels of vibration. The drive belt consists of a low stretch, high grip material which is now widely recognised (in the form of our “upgrade belt”) as a significant advance over ground neoprene belts.

Up to three, 9 to 12 inch tonearms can be mounted at the same time. Armboards are easily changed and adjusted to make a deck that is customisable and can be personalised to you.

The result is a deck with astonishing speed, clarity and accurate tonal balance. It will spoil you for all other decks.

Details and technical specifications: Voyager Turntable - High-End Design by Origin Live

 

Comparison of Origin Live Turntables: 

 

 

Origin Live Tonearms

 

Onyx MK4 Tonearm

 

The Onyx was designed as an affordable performance benchmark – a tonearm that would flatter any budget or mid-price turntable and still be happy on a high-end deck. The Onyx was only possible thanks to Origin Live’s decades of tonearm design expertise. It’s difficult to design a great high-end arm, but harder still to do a brilliant budget product. Knowing where to spend the money in the overall design is why Onyx sounds so good, and that knowledge doesn’t come easy.

Details and technical specifications: Onyx Tonearm - Origin Live's Award Winning Hi-Fi Budget Tonearm

 

Silver MK 4 Tonearm

 

The Silver Tonearm has a wide range of strengths which make it a great all-rounder. Highly musical, it tracks dynamics accurately and gets right into the groove of the music. You will expect to hear improved speed, dynamics and separation in the music over the Onyx due to its sophisticated tonearm tube design. The Silver also includes a higher grade external cable which improves bass weight in comparison to the Onyx. It has a natural tonal balance with excellent transparency and fine performance at both frequency extremes.

Details and technical specifications: Silver Tonearm - Origin Live award winning Hi-Fi, Made in Britain

 

Zephyr MK 4 Tonearm

 

The Zephyr is a considerable advance on the Silver arm. A stiffer arm tube and higher-grade materials in the yoke and arm base improve the definition and impact of notes, particularly in the bass which is tighter, lower and weightier than the silver. However, all aspects of the music are improved by a more sophisticated costly approach to each component.

Details and technical specifications: Zephyr Tonearm - Premium Range from Origin Live

 

Encounter MK 4 Tonearm

 

The Encounter arm introduces dual-pivot bearings to the Origin Live tonearm range. Dual Pivot bearings decouple the arm from its environment in a far more competent way than conventional bearings. The result is similar to Uni-pivot arms in terms of a natural fluid-like quality to the sound. However, this comes without the drawbacks of Uni-pivot arms – namely the fiddly setup, wobbly cueing and decrease in bass performance.

Dual Pivot bearings have the advantage of very low friction which helps give the encounter greater transparency and musicality than the Zephyr arm, allowing you to hear previously unnoticed details in your music. It’s also fast and enables musical rhythms to keep in time with one another. As with all our arms, tonal balance is neutral allowing it to work well in all types of systems.

Details and technical specifications: Dual-Pivot Tonearm Encounter - Origin Live Award Winning Hi-Fi

 

Illustrious MK 4 Tonearm

 

This tonearm sounds astonishing, compared to Origin Live arms further down the range, and its commercial rivals. The ground-breaking design and meticulous attention to detail result most noticeably in an improvement of bass performance. However as always, when you go higher in the Origin Live range, every other aspect improves, notably definition, deep powerful bass, transparency and dynamics.

The result is a tonearm that has been widely acclaimed as a performance benchmark. Both reviewers and enthusiasts love the Illustrious for its outstanding bass power, superb dynamics and consummate musicality. It has supreme transparency too, allowing the finest cartridges to be used. Few designs better this brilliant device.

Details and technical specifications: Tracking Tonearm Illustrious | Origin Live Award Winning Hi-Fi

 

Conqueror MK 4 Tonearm

 

One of the very best tonearms on sale at any price aptly named the Conqueror. Yet, this isn’t an overblown or showy performer – it’s not voiced to impress some of the people, some of the time. Rather, it’s exceptionally even-handed and balanced in its presentation and sounds sublime across a wide range of music. An immensely high resolution measuring instrument, it is nevertheless consummately musical and organic sounding. A real ‘fit and forget’ product, no matter what you play, it just dissolves away.

Compared to more affordable Origin Live tonearms, there’s an obvious increase in transparency, and with it a heightened sense of realism. Music sounds more natural and less processed as if a bright light has been shone on the recording and it’s there in front of you, in all its glory. Yet it confers an uncanny smoothness on the music, too; there’s a wonderful sense of ease and rhythmic ebb and flow. Bass is yet more powerful and defined than Illustrious, which is no small feat. Vocals shimmer with natural timbre and stereo imaging is almost holographic.

Details and technical specifications: Award-Winning Conqueror Tonearm | Origin Live Award Winning Hi-Fi

 

Enterprise MK 4 Tonearm

 

Hearing an Enterprise is an unforgettable event. Breathtakingly realistic, it simply lets the music flow out to the listener in an unmediated way. Although it deserves the very best turntables and cartridges that money can buy, it unlocks huge performance gains from lesser ones and makes mediocre recordings positively sing. From its massively powerful and highly tuneful bass to a treble that is gorgeously silky yet amazingly spacious, it’s a sublime performer. The mineral clarity of the mid band is uncanny, and the sound staging profound. Prospective purchasers of a high-end tonearm owe it to themselves to audition this seminal design.

Details and technical specifications: Enterprise High-End Tonearm - Origin Live Award Winning Hi-Fi

 

Agile Tonearm

 

The Agile tonearm comes from an ambitious undertaking: to create a high end tonearm which improves on all that came before it. To achieve this it would have to surpass tough competition from within our own ranks, that of the Enterprise.

To deliver this definitive performance we scrutinised every aspect of design — Design that has been world-leading before* and is now. The Agile has undergone lengthy experimentation to achieve the lowest resonance possible, with every component tested, redesigned and revised to bring you an arm that is truly capable of getting the best from your music.

The thing you first notice is a remarkable increase in definition and clarity. Singers are more tangible. Instruments have more texture. There is less overhang in the bass so the mid-range becomes even more transparent. We are happy to present a high-end tonearm to lead the market and to bring the original sound, that much closer to you.

The Agile improves significantly on the Enterprise by: - Higher grade materials in the arm tube, rear stub, counterweight and turret plate. - More advanced stiffening techniques employed within the arm tube itself. - Larger Yoke with greater energy absorption capacity. - S-version Silver Hybrid cable on internal and external wiring.

Details and technical specifications: High-End Tonearm Agile - Award Winning Hi-Fi Origin Live

 

Comparison of Origin Live Tonearms: 

 

 

Turntable Motor & Power Supply Upgrade

 

Origin Live Motor Kit

 

Speed control box, Main Transformer, DC Motor and Pulley, Mounting Plate and Lead

Below are the options for Origin Live Motor Kits:

1) Advanced Speed Control Box | DC100 Motor | Wallwart

2) Advanced Speed Control Box | DC100 Motor | Fully balanced round Mains transformer (not available in US)

3) Advanced Speed Control Box | DC100 Motor | Fully balanced, low noise Large Upgrade Transformer

4) Ultra Speed Controller Box | DC100 Motor | Fully balanced Upgrade transformer

 

Origin Live Phono Stage

 

Discovery 1 Phono Stage

 

The Origin Live Discovery 1 phono stage is designed to vastly improve on integrated preamplifier limitations by virtue of innovative circuit design, the use of high-grade audio components and a significantly over-specified external power supply. It amplifies the output from moving magnet (mm) and moving coil cartridges (mc) and couples exceptionally well with coil impedances as low as 4 ohms.

Unlike many other phono stages, the Discovery 1 connects the cartridge directly to the amplification circuitry. There is no initial DC blocking or filtering in the electrical path to degrade the audio signal before it undergoes enormous amplification close to 100dB at 20Hz.

Details and technical specifications: Discovery 1 Phono Stage - Origin Live

 

Discovery Ultra Phono Stage

 

The most universal linear tracking airbearing tonearm.

The Discovery Ultra is a high performance stand-alone phono pre-amplifier, meticulously designed and packed with innovative thinking. It exhibits unrivalled sonic qualities with low noise amplification. The fully balanced design works with both single-ended and balanced output capability which will suit whatever system you have. The enviable level of performance includes low noise, superb accuracy and adapts for all types of cartridges due to a comprehensive array of setting options for Gain, impedance and capacitance.

When vinyl is played up to 90% of the total voltage amplification takes place in the phono stage. This logically establishes the phono stage as supremely important in the electronics of the audio chain. Most integrated amplifiers and pre-amplifiers are unable to offer truly high-grade vinyl playback because they are built from an understandably small proportion of a total component budget.

Similarly, an integrated amplifier or pre-amplifier nearly always shares its internal power supplies with a number of analogue, digital and other control systems. It is not hard to see therefore how the tiny signal from a low output moving coil cartridge, which is 20,000 times smaller than a typical digital signal, can be seriously corrupted.

These reasons make investing in a dedicated high-grade phono stage one of the most effective system upgrades you can ever make.

Unlike many other phono stages, the Discovery Ultra connects the cartridge directly to the amplification circuitry. There is no initial DC blocking or filtering in the electrical path to degrade the audio signal before it undergoes enormous amplification close to 100dB at 20Hz.

Details and technical specifications: Origin Live Discovery Ultra Phono Stage | Origin Live

 

Origin Live Phono Cables

 

Linear Flow 2 MK2 External Tonearm Cable (Straight Din or L-Din to RCA or XLR plugs)

 

The influence of Linear Flow 2 interconnect yields truly spectacular improvements to every aspect of the music. Even inexpensive arms benefit enormously from this upgrade and the cost effectiveness is out of all proportion to expectations. The cables are balanced and shielded, as well as 1.2m long to suit all systems. High grade silver phono plugs terminate the cable for plugging into your system and these alone make a substantial difference. This is a simple and easy upgrade to fit and carries a 3 week money back guarantee if ordered from Origin Live directly.

 

Silver Hybrid 2 External Tonearm Cable (Straight Din or L-Din to RCA or XLR plugs)

 

Silver Hybrid cable makes a huge difference to any tonearm and is among the best arm cable available. Reveiw comments reveal what to expect:

“I then swapped Origin Live’s standard copper external arm leads for the Silver Hybrid S, built from copper and silver litz wires. This upgrade cable brought about such an obvious improvement in tonal balance, dynamic expression and bass power that I checked that the mains voltage coming into the house hadn’t suddenly increased (it hadn’t), or that I hadn’t changed the volume setting on the amplifier (ditto). Apart from its obvious sonic benefits, another feature of the cable that had my approval was the multiple earthing options it offers. Neatly finished wires and tags are attached to both channel screens, and to the fifth pin. This is a thoughtful move that will widen the appeal of the cable to owners of other tonearms. Why don’t more manufacturers do this?”

 

Silver Hybrid S2 External Tonearm Cable (Straight Din or L-Din to RCA or XLR plugs)

 

The S version of Silver Hybrid cable shares the same construction and qualities of Silver Hybrid but employs additional treatments to the Silver. This significantly improves performance in terms of a purer, smoother, more natural and articulate sound. As with Silver Hybrid cable the S version makes a huge difference to any tonearm and is among the best, if not the best tonearm cable available The result is a wonderfully transparent sound with high degree of definition and separation compared to all exclusively copper cable.




Engage with our audio specialist Martin Ng for more information on our price and services.

 



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