My Take on the Walker Audio Proscenium Gold Signature Turntable System
by Rick Gardner

It was one of those rushed things ...all of us crowding around David's petite listening room, thoughts on dinner (at least for my part), and another wild-eyed inventor (Lloyd Walker) with his new esoteric toy requiring two rooms for set-up.

I shook my head sadly. I love David Robinson, but he has a penchant for the wild and woolly.

Lloyd and I eyed each other, warily. There were these THREADS sticking up from his gear, and HOSES, presumably hooked to PUMPS in yet another room. Some more of that jumped-up voodoo bullshit. I shook my head imperceptibly and rolled my eyes at Jennifer Crock, who was on her way to one of the good seats.

Lloyd was making the same old disclaimers I had heard a hundred times before; just getting it dialed in, cold from the trip, yadda yadda.

Gorgeous thing though. I mean, I am sucker for beauty too, and this is industrial art at its extreme.

But after all, I had recently heard the Rockport Sirius III and was unmoved (both by the Rockport and by the moment in general). I hate fussy stuff.

I don't remember the exact chain of events. I was talking, people were milling about, Lloyd was fussing—and then finally he started dripping what looked like salad oil (it turned out to be synthetic motor oil) into a reservoir (God grant me serenity) by the linear tracking arm while starting up a Led Zeppelin album, and...

BOOOOOIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGG.

Right between the eyes.

It took about fifteen seconds. Everyone in the room at the time reacted pretty much the same way. At least I assumed they did, if gesticulating wildly and shouting, "That's IT, that's IT!" over and over again, is any indication of how they were reacting.

This is the best turntable I have ever heard. Fact is, nothing I am familiar with comes even close. It takes about fifteen seconds to reach this conclusion, if you can hear.

I will never be able to afford one. (You would be surprised about how moribund the market is for 50+ year old kidneys). But if I were a rich man, I wouldn't hesitate for two seconds. I would know that this is the finest thing of its type in existence.

In the same way that Falling Water (Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece) is a house, the Walker Audio Proscenium is a turntable.