SME Model 15A
SME has quite some pedigree. It was founded in 1946 and originally known as the Scale Model Equipment Company. As the name implies, the company designed and manufactured intricate models for the exhibition and model engineering trade. It then expanded into producing precision aircraft parts for the likes of Rolls Royce and Hawker, then later into the medical, automotive, Formula 1 and aerospace industries. This is no ordinary hi-fi company. Take the belt-driven Model 15A out of its wooden crate and there’s no mistaking that fact.
We can’t remember testing a turntable that was so well made or finished. The styling or ‘black with more black’ finish won’t appeal to all, but there’s no denying the hewn-from-solid-rock feel to the build or the feeling that this is something – all 20kg of it – that will still be working for your grandchildren.
Effective design
The Model 15 can run at 33⅓, 45 and 78rpm and SME supplies a strobe mat to check speed accuracy, which is adjustable. The overall design is highly effective, the deck barely registering footfalls that made Linn’s suspended LP12 jump grooves when playing. The Model 15 can accommodate a range of tonearms; the ‘A’ in the product name means our sample comes with the in-house, detachable-headshell 309 arm. It may not be the best arm the company makes but it’s still a lovely thing.
SME doesn’t make its own cartridges, so our review sample has a Clearaudio Concerto V2. By high-end standards, its £2000 price tag isn’t outlandish.
Like most high-end decks, this SME needs assembling. While we would expect the supplying dealer to do this, the instructions are clear enough.
All under control
We start off with Beethoven’s Fifth
Symphony and two words immediately come to our minds: authority and control. We can’t think of a rival that sounds so composed, or one that delivers the demanding dynamics of this piece in such an unflustered way. There’s huge scale to the presentation too, the various parts of the orchestra arranged with painstaking precision. We switch to Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds’ The Boatman’s Call and discover the SME can dig up plenty of detail, delivering Cave’s rugged vocals with skill, solidity and nuance.
It’s not all positive though. That sense of control we love with the Beethoven piece is a little overcooked here. It’s as if the SME never quite lets the music break free, preferring to keep it in a cast-iron grip. The result is a sound organised with OCD levels of neatness, but one that fails to involve us in the way we know it can.
Impressed, if not smitten
In many ways this SME is one of the most impressive products we’ve tested in years. There’s no doubting the engineering excellence and there’s much to admire in the sound too, yet the sense of control overplays its hand with some genres. For us, it makes the Model 15A combo something we can admire endlessly, but never quite love.