Vinyl LP Turntable Lust Pages
Ahhhh, beauty in music meets
beauty in design. Welcome to Enjoy the Music.com's Turntable Lust pages! Below will appear
various turntables where form and function unite. Beauty is in the eye of the
beholder of course. Well, enough of my rambling...
DaVinciAudio Labs began in the 1980s as music lovers and engineer Hans-Peter Gabriel was in search of a suitable turntable. A precondition was that his turntable must be able to play all kind of music genres in a perfect way. At this time he owned three tonearms and few cartridges, with an idea to have three tonearms bases on one turntable. Add to that, the idea of a magnetic bearing fascinated him, and so the first Analog Audio System (AAS) Gabriel turntable was born. The current Model 3 has been largely developed by DaVinciAudio that features special bearings, motor, motor controller and feet. The advantage of the magnetic bearing is that the 57 lbs platter of the vertical bearing will 'float' and, thus, the noise transmission is largely avoided. The base and tonearm pillar are built of specially-filled plywood board while the motor is milled from aluminum block. The entire system rests on carefully developed vertical damping feet. The entire system weighs in at over 300
lbs!
DaVinciAudio Labs GmbH
Derrière les Maisons
2716 Sornetan BE
Switzerland
Website: www.da-vinci-audio.com
Kuzma's Stabi XL is the company's latest offering and represents a culmination of more than two decades of research and development. The base is of solid brass, which is clamped together from two pieces and has good damping properties. The 28mm in diameter main shaft is fixed into this base while the platter is a sandwich construction of aluminum and acrylic plates screwed together in pre-stressed form to damp unwanted vibration. Hard non-metallic material is used for the bearing which, together with a ruby ball, is lubricated in an oil pool to provide one point contact with minimum vibration and noise. As for rotating the platters mass, two motors are mounted separately in their own heavy brass towers and a pair of pulleys via two belts provide stable symmetrical drive to the platter. Kuzma's tonearm tower is a massive brass unit while the armbord can be exchanged to accommodate various tonearms plus allow for VTA adjustment during normal use without loss of rigidity or azimuth.
Kuzma D.O.O
Hotemaze 17/a
SI-4205 Preddvor, Slovenia
Website: www.kuzma.si
Car audio rocks! Once
upon a time, in a car far far away you could play vinyl! For it was none
other then Norelco who offered us the Auto Mignon. Simply slide in your
45 rpm disc and enjoy the music! The great part is that it
generally did not skip while you drove around playing the latest tune for all
the groovy chicks!
The Klangtraum DL2 is a hand-built product
with a chassis made of Neroassoluto and MDF. The platter is precision-made of clear
acrylic that is driven by a regulated DC motor. A thin string keps the motor
spinning the platter. The weight on this unit is an hefty 88 lbs!
Klang + Raum
Friedrichstraße 110
D 42551 Velbert
Germany
The Avid Acutus turntable was designed without the thoughts of previously designed turntables. Still, it uses the usual belt drive, three-spring
sub chassis design. Using a unique matting platter material and clamping system, it is said to greatly reduce the
vibrations of the room and stylus from adversely affecting the music reproduction. The external vibrations are isolated by a
proprietary suspension system. Meanwhile Avid uses a power supply coupled to a custom motor that is said to be ten times more powerful than those normally used in other manufacture's turntables. Seen above in chrome, other finishes include polished chrome or gold plated.
AVID
26 Canterbury Road
Flitwick,
Bedfordshire.
MK45 1TZ
England
Website: www.avidhifi.co.uk
The good folks at Lyra have long been known to offer outstanding cartridges. Seen above are the Helikon, Parnassus D.C.t and Lydian Beta. The Helicon is a medium output MC cartridge. The Lyra MC phono cartridges are designed and manufactured by Scan-Tech of Tokyo, Japan. Each Lyra model is designed by Jonathan Carr in collaboration with Yoshinori Mishima, the artisan who also hand-crafts each piece. The ultimate goal is to accurately reproduce the exact contents of the record grooves without adding any signature of the cartridge itself. The entire range employs modern
high-technology materials and are constructed to stringent high-precision standards. As these are handcrafted, each unit is voiced, like a fine musical instrument, by its builder Yoshinori
Mishima.
Scan-Tech Co, Ltd
3-53-14-102 Daita
Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 155-0033
Website: www.immediasound.com
Using a substantial platter made to ultra-precise accuracy, the Thorens
Prestige offers incredible speed stability. A center vinyl hold-down clamp is
standard to insure the vinyl is firmly flat during playback. The ability to
use two tonearms is an added bonus for those who may prefer using certain
cartridge/tonearm combinations for various vinyl records.
Thorens Export Company Ltd.
IM Junkholz 44
CH-4303 Kaiseraugst-Basel
Switzerland
Website: www.thorens.com
The tonearm specialists Mørch offer many different
configurations for vinyl record lovers. Seen above is their UP-4 (24 carat
gold-plated) and DP-6 (chrome). A high-quality arm base can hold any one of
the four thin tonearms. From lightweight at 3.8 grams to heavy at 13.1 grams,
there is a specially designed tonearm to match virtually any cartridge. A
special unipivot design with hardened steel pivot rests on a concave polished
sapphire that is dampened with silicone fluid.
Mørch
Website: www.moerch.dk
Presenting the Micro Seiki DX-1000 turntable.
From the hands and hearts if the
turntable genious' at Basis comes the Basis 1400. Celebrating their 12th year of turntable
manufacturing turntables in the New England area now make their new Basis 1400 Record Player with the Basis RB250 tonearm.
The Basis 1400 is claimed to produces natural, open, and extremely focused sound.
Components include a 1" thick acrylic subchassis and 1" thick uniblock acrylic platter.
The platter's bearing is specially designed for low noise and long life. The motor assembly, a Swiss sourced AC synchronous motor identical to the unit used on our $10,600 Debut Gold Vacuum, sits totally independent from the turntable on its own sorbothane leveling feet.
Basis turntables are hand assembled in New Hampshire and feature a 10 yr. warranty.
Website: www.basisaudio.com
The good folks from Benz Micro have
been crafting cartridges for many years. When they wanted to find a more
economical way to produce their cartridges, they went to Japan and found a
factory which could automate the making of their cartridges. Enter the Benz MC
20E, MC Silver and MC Gold. To quote their literature "To best convey the expression and message of a musical performance, an audio playback system must be free of the mechanical colorations and distortions of the system itself... A moving coil cartridge also uses similar techniques because the cartridge is like a miniature modern loudspeaker acting in reverse. Thus, the moving coil cartridge outperforms other cartridge designs in its ability to resolve the musical nuances and soundstage information encoded in your record collection."
All three of these cartridges use a cross coil design, an aluminum
cantilever tubing and an elliptical diamond stylus.
USA Distribution by
Musical Surroundings
5856 College Avenue
Suite 146
Oakland, CA 94618
Website: www.musicalsurroundings.com
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