In the beginning of 2024, an old acquaintance came to visit. While we have known each other for quite a while, I am afraid I only know him by his nickname of "What If." Some days my friend What If drops by for an evening to chat, other times it becomes a weekend stay. Well, in this case, What If was making this an extended visit, much like Cousin Eddie visiting Clark Griswold in the National Lampoon's Vacation movie series. I suspect most seasoned audiophiles know someone like What If, who can bring either chaos or fantastic discovery, depending on how the visit is managed. In this situation, my old friend wanted to help discuss the quality of the tonearm on my Sota Sound Inventions Cosmos Eclipse turntable. What currently resides on this table is a vintage SME V tonearm, which can be a polarizing component these days. One group of vinylophiles feels this arm is long in the tooth and past its prime, while others deem it an iconic classic built with timeless engineering principles. Conceivably, one could ask, "Are we dealing with a Jaguar XKE or a Triumph TR7?" For a number of weeks, my good friend What If and I continued this conversation, and we looked over various options on what could be fitted to the Cosmos. Now, the architectural layout of the Sota top plate creates a few challenges that must be navigated. The tonearm should be in the 9" range, although certain 10" arms can fit. The weight of the arm should not exceed 2.2 pounds, although there is some wiggle room that we will talk about a bit further down the road. Finally, the compact footprint of the arm-board makes it problematic to use certain tonearms that are built with a VTA tower and separate pivot platform. In this case, visualize a Wheaton Triplanar or the Reed tonearm. As time passed, my friend What If adamantly refused to leave, and I needed a solution to move him down the road. So, I picked up the phone and gave Christan Griego at Sota a call to see if I could develop a shortlist of candidates that would work on his tables. Christan is a wealth of knowledge, and his problem solving techniques are practical and straightforward; you will not get a serving of mystical pseudo-science from him. Eventually, Christan mentioned, "Have you considered Origin Live?" While I knew of their entry-level arms, I will admit I have never closely looked at their upper-tier offerings. Since there is no time like the present, I let Christan go about his day and started my research. I narrowed down my list to two arms, the Enterprise and the Agile.
Later in the week, I rang Christan again, fully expecting to work out the details for procuring the Enterprise. The deciding factor is the weight of the arm, as the Enterprise tonearm came in under the upper limit of weight at 750 grams or 1.65 pounds. On the other hand, the Agile fell just outside of the accepted range at 1050 grams, or 2.3 pounds. However, all is not lost, as the good people at Sota had a trick or two up their sleeve, and the shop is able to custom-build an arm-board that sheds the necessary weight and still functions as a solid platform. With assurances from Christan that this combination is appropriate, I agreed to the Agile tonearm being sent out for review. The process took a few weeks to conclude, and eventually, I got notification from Alison at Sota that a package was en route. My good friend What If had been checking in occasionally, so I took the opportunity to ring him up and invite him over for some listening sessions.
Unboxing the Origin Live tonearm is a straightforward process. It is securely packaged but in a sensible manner that is not an exercise in ostentatious showmanship. A perfect example of form follows function. The Agile arm itself is robust, and while understated in appearance, there is no doubt that this tonearm was created by a team of dedicated craftsmen. The Agile resides in Origin Live's highest tier of tonearms, nestled between the Enterprise and Renown. This trio of tonearms are the finest examples that Origin Live can manufacture, and clearly showcases their manufacturing prowess. The arm yoke that contains the dual pivot assembly can only be described as monolithic, and it is clearly evident that great care has been taken to eliminate all resonance traits which leads to sonic degradation. The rear of the arm tube is strengthened with a metal sheath, featuring a decoupled and under hung counterweight arrangement that shifts its mass lower to the plane of the record. The dual pivot vertical bearing Origin Live designed is unique and provides the benefits of the uni-pivot architecture, yet maintains a stability that is absent from conventional uni-pivot architecture. A pair of tungsten carbide points ride in hardened and burnished steel cups. The horizontal bearing assembly consists of a ceramic bearing assembly that complements the quality of the dual pivot assembly and works in tandem to complete a low-friction bearing assembly. The arm wand is formed from an aircraft-grade alloy tube and undergoes a painstaking process to alleviate resonances that will plague an arm wand. Advancing stiffening techniques that rely on carbon fiber and an array of damping coatings are a proprietary solution that Origin Live has developed. The internal wiring loom is composed of a silver hybrid wire, as is the DIN-terminated tonearm cable. Speaking of the tonearm cable, this is a substantial bit of wiring, and it resembles a standalone interconnect more than any other wiring I have seen attached to other tonearms. Do not worry, as this cable is still flexible and easy to dress and is not overly weighty. VTA adjustment is handled by a wheel that traverses a series of threads machined into the arm pillar. Once a desired position is reached, the arm can be secured with a small grub screw that sits just under the disc. The whole process is uncomplicated and easy to accomplish, which reflects many of the engineering solutions employed by Origin Live. Even the anti-skate assembly represents this thought process, as it uses the time-honored design of a hanging weight, yet it can be precisely adjusted by a sliding anchor assembly, which lends itself to being easily fine tuned. To put it simply, Origin Live uses innovative engineering solutions, takes great care in machining and assembling their arms, and recognizes when classic design elements provide an uncomplicated solution for achieving excellent results.
Ordering a custom arm-board from Sota does streamline the tonearm installation process. As previously alluded to, a standard Cosmos arm-board is too heavy in this application. Fortunately, the fabrication department built one that was concave underneath, and had the appearance of a breastplate in a suit of armor. The end result is the combination of the Agile tonearm and arm-board meets the weight requirements of the Cosmos suspension perfectly, and the sub-chassis is properly balanced without the need for additional steel shot to counterbalance it. Those folks who build the arm-boards at Sota are fantastic! I installed a Transfiguration Audio Proteus cartridge onto the arm while it was unattached. I then fitted the Agile to the arm-board, dressed the tonearm cables, and bolted the board to the sub-chassis. This is as easy as tonearm installation gets. Cartridge alignment now begins, with 1.8 grams tracking force, Lofgren A alignment, and the VTA setup is quite simple with the wheel adjuster. The Agile is capable of optimizing azimuth with a pair of grub screws located in the yoke assembly, and the Proteus only needed a slight correction in this area. I finished the setup by spending some time fine-tuning the setup with the Ortofon and Cardas test records and then spent two weeks casually playing the table to ensure the arm wire is settled in. Now my good friend What If and I were ready to seriously listen to this combination.
First off, I want to say the Origin Live Agile is a remarkable tonearm that is faithful to the music in the way audiophiles expect a reference-level component to perform. This tonearm excels at extracting the finest details from the record groove, yet does not sacrifice the soul of the music to the altar of ultra-high resolution. I find music has wonderful tone and texture, yet still able to easily flow from song to song with impeccable timing. Comparatively, the SME V presents as a gray or monochromatic personality, with a flat effect of dynamic expression. This type of presentation literally robbed the life from music and forced the use of a cartridge with a bold and larger-than-life personality to balance the clinical nature of that arm. With the Agile, there is no need to do so, and in later listening sessions, when I installed an Audio Tekne MC-6310, I found a consistent result with superb sound from an alternate cartridge. This arm extracts a greater degree of information from the groove and uses it as a road map to portray the essence of music. I have a Japanese pressing of Freddy Hubbard Hub-Tones (Blue Note ST84115) that exemplifies the strength of this arm. On "You're My Everything," Freddie's trumpet has a burnished warmth and rich tone, yet it is dynamically expressive in a manner that is authentic and believable. Certain passages have runs of notes that feel unhurried, yet are lightning-quick with no discernible overhang. This arm does not editorialize the sound; instead, you get what the recording has to offer. The acoustic bass also has lovely body, and yet is lithe, and the resonant character of the plucked notes is clearly heard. In the background, we have James Spaulding on alto saxophone, and even the quiet passages of this piece come through with wonderful clarity. With the Agile tonearm, everything about the music is just right, not overly detailed, nor is it smoothed over. Instead, the portions of the music are properly balanced.
A few years ago, Bernie Grundman remastered Prince's album Sign of the Times. This album is nothing short of amazing, and I wish the rest of his catalog could be brought up to this quality level. The title track "Sign of the Times" (Sign of the Times; NPG Records R125577) has a number of elements that stand out. Starting with the bass region, the combination of kick drum and electric bass are primal and mighty. The drum strikes on the snare are sharp, and the decay is clearly resolved. Prince's vocals are remarkable, with a natural presence and authenticity that is the best I have heard. Finally, the space presented by the Sota/Origin Live combination is outstanding. The sound-stage covers the entirety of my front wall, extends out in front of the speakers, and into the front wall. Personally, I value a well-defined sound-stage as it is a critical underpinning to the illusion of a performance in my space. The Agile tonearm does not excel at a handful of areas, but it is the complete package that deftly handles every element of the music it is tasked to play.
One weekend during my listening sessions, I turned to my friend What If, and he posed the question of vocal reproduction and does the Agile bring anything magical to the show? I remembered I have acquired a reissue of Hounds of Love offered by the label A Fish People. Now this label has been run by Kate since 2011, so in essence, this album is a reissue by the artist. The second side is titled The Ninth Wave, and this contains superb compositions, with some of the finest vocal work Kate has crafted. The piece "And Dream of Sheep" (Hounds of Love, A Fish People FP5LP) has a delicate and deeply layered texture that ebbs and flows with a wistful emotional sheen. The Agile tonearm presents the beauty of this artist's vocals, where the upper registers of an inherently dark voice contain wisps of ethereal beauty juxtaposed with underpinnings of a fundamentally dark, but with an introspective inner light. Shading and texture of Kate's voice is first-rate, and the dynamic contrasts are nicely balanced to where her vocals have a natural element that is so incredibly difficult to replicate. Transitioning to Suzanne Vega, I selected "Fatman and Dancing Girl" (99.9F° Rubellan Remasters Test Pressing) from the 99.9F° album. Vega's vocals are dark and brooding, and once again the Agile tonearm is capable of capturing all the subtle nuances of her performance, and in this process, it unearths every slight inflection or turn of a phrase that provides a deeper hidden meaning to the passages. The remarkable ability of this tonearm is on one hand to have an overarching presentation that is refined and graceful, but still has the ability to present to the listener a second composition that is buried deeper in the composition by bringing forth all the subtle inflections and textures that are the underpinnings of the artist's carefully crafted vocals.
The Agile tonearm also excels in the realm of dynamic expression. Macro and micro dynamic information are deftly resolved. In "Vision of the Andes" by Joakin Bello (Beyond the Rainbow; Gala Records 13-9012-1), there is a wide array of instruments that present a formidable challenge. Non-Western string instruments such as dilruba, Andean bone flutes, recorded animal samples from Chile, and vocals performed by the Benedictine Monks of Munsterschwarzach, Germany are some of the instruments that the Agile is tasked to recreate. The Origin Live tonearm handles this diverse array of instruments with aplomb, and its rare abilities allow for a complicated and layered performance to come to life. The challenges presented by the micro-dynamic elements this arm successfully resolves create haunting flutes, edgy and sharp string passages, and ethereal vocals. In the macro-dynamic realm, cymbal crashes are vivid, and the bass lines created by the synthesizers bring an earthy fullness that underscores the whole performance. These competing sonic signatures are all clearly heard and reproduced with precision, yet never cross into a clinical dissection of the music.
In conclusion, the Origin Live Agile tonearm is a revelation in high-fidelity. The combination of excellent engineering, superb materials, and artisan level craftsmanship delivers an arm capable of achieving reference level performance. Whether it is delivering vibrant detail, rich tonal color, or accurate timing, the Agile tonearm accomplishes these goals with ease. For anyone seeking a superb tonearm to complete their high-end turntable system, the Origin Live Agile is an outstanding choice.
Origin Live Agile tonearm
Retail: Approx $12,000
Origin Live
