Turntable design has always been open to new ideas, the variety of approaches to the apparently straightforward process of measuring modulations in a groove is quite extraordinary. And one of the more left field approaches is that taken by American designer Bill Firebaugh, creator of the Well Tempered turntable, a design that’s been around since […]
What do you do after you have set up a vinyl mastering studio using vintage hardware and established its credentials with some truly great sounding records. If you’re Darrel Sheinman founder of Gearbox you decide to make a turntable using the brand that’s been so carefully nurtured. And not just any turntable, the Gearbox Automatic combines technology […]
A few years ago Rega set out to build the ultimate turntable, they looked at completely new ways to create a plinth with massive stiffness and negligible weight and used technology from F1 and aerospace to create the Naiad, the only cost no object product the company has ever built. The research that was done for […]
It’s about time Rega incorporated a phono stage into its entry level turntable. With the world awash with cheap, flimsy turntables that are more likely to destroy vinyl than do it any justice the market is crying out for easier solutions. Unlike all other forms of music players in the home the turntable is the […]
As the title of the company’s book suggests Rega treats the turntable as A vibration measuring machine, a seismograph for the tiny variations in a vinyl groove. That doesn’t sound very romantic but it’s what you need if you are going to turn those undulations into a musical signal that resembles the signal that was […]
I immediately recognise Danish design. The well thought out minimalist looks, the neat and elegant lines, the use of colour… it draws me in like a magnet and just because of that I promised myself that one day I would listen to a Bergmann Audio turntable at home. It took a few years, but recently […]
Rega turntables are like buses it seems, you wait an age then two come along at once! It’s been a while since Rega made a Planar or P2 but back in the day there were only two turntables in the range and this was the more affordable option. The last P2 was introduced in 2000 […]
It has been a while since Rega used this name on a turntable but in the seventies, eighties and nineties the Planar 3 was considered the next best thing to a Linn LP12. The company built its reputation on the Planar 3 and cemented it with the RB300 tonearm, a turntable and arm that remained […]
T+A stands for Theory + Application, this German company has done just that with its transmission line loudspeakers, electronics and mechanics since its foundation in 1978. The amplifier and record player in front of me, the first I’ve tried from the company, prove as much. The dual mono PA 2500 R amplifier is part of […]
The RP10 is Rega’s latest and most ambitious turntable aside from the as yet to be finalized Naiad. It features many of the ideas developed for Naiad yet costs considerably less than the £20k expected price of that model. It is a bargain in both technological and sonic terms. The RP10 is built around a […]
Turntables have come in many shapes and sizes since the transition occurred from cylinder to disk replay. Technology has changed too, with the advent, firstly of clockwork platter mechanisms and acoustic recording, followed by electrically-powered and amplified audio systems, and later with contactless direct-drive platters and pick-up arms with non-contact main bearings. The player footprint […]