22 Oct 2011

Onedof turntable spins your vinyl for a cool $150,000

The One Degree of Freedom turntable features new technology to help keep system-related acoustic blurring or distortion from spoiling the enjoyment of the audio - at a cost of $150,000 (Photos: Onedof)
Colorado aerospace engineer Aleks Bakman has created a vinyl-loving-audiophile-pleasing precision turntable that benefits from virtually resonance-free operation. The utterly gorgeous One Degree of Freedom (Onedof) system features a massive sound-dampening platter that is suspended on a specially-developed self-centering bearing in a non-resonant liquid suspension, that's claimed to eliminate the kind of shift or wobble common to all cylindrical bearings. There is, however, a very high price to pay for keeping the signal free of pleasure-spoiling audio distortions - the Onedof turntable is priced at an eye-popping US$150,000.
The resonance-free liquid suspension Onedof platter bearing is said to completely eliminate any acoustic blurring or distortion caused by microscopic spindle shaft instability, and makes its first appearance in Bakman's pricey, belt-driven turntable. 
The engineer - who once received a special award from NASA for supporting experiments on board the Space Shuttle Columbia - states that the only degree of freedom that the bearing leaves to the 50 pound (22.6 kg) aluminum alloy platter is a steady rotation about the vertical axis.
The weighty platter assembly features six chambers that are filled with a mixture of viscous oil and solid matter to dampen platter resonance, further protecting the signal from unwanted coloring to the audio output.
A microprocessor-controlled, noise canceling brushless drive adjusts its vertical motor position on-the-fly to cancel out any possible resonances in the three o-ring drive belts. Using similar technology to that seen in noise-canceling headphones, if the microprocessor detects any distortion from the mechanical system, it generates a counterphase signal to block out unwelcome sonic impurities. The drive is also said to be extraordinary precise - with velocity error reported to be less than 0.00001 percent of velocity value per revolution.
The tonearm tower will work with any tonearm/cartridge combination and provides continuous, smooth vertical tracking angle adjustment over three inches, and can support up to three tonearms.
Even though audiophiles are accustomed to parting with vast quantities of cash in the pursuit of the Holy Grail of pure audio, stumping up the $150,000 asking price for the Onedof turntable may well prove be a quest for only the most dedicated purists.
Source: Dvice

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