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Music

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

By Paul Ridden
October 19, 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 (Photo: Onedof)
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 (Photo: Onedof)
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The system's tonearm tower will work with any tonearm/cartridge combination - shown here with a Tri-Planar Tonearm and Benz Micro LP cartridge (Photo: Onedof)
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The system's tonearm tower will work with any tonearm/cartridge combination - shown here with a Tri-Planar Tonearm and Benz Micro LP cartridge (Photo: Onedof)
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 (Photo: Onedof)
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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 (Photo: Onedof)
The 50 pound aluminum alloy platter features six chambers that are filled with a mixture of viscous oil and solid matter to dampen platter resonance (Photo: Onedof)
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The 50 pound aluminum alloy platter features six chambers that are filled with a mixture of viscous oil and solid matter to dampen platter resonance (Photo: Onedof)
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 (Photo: Onedof)
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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 (Photo: Onedof)
View gallery - 4 images

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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MusicTurntablesVinylAudiophile
11 comments
Paul Ridden
Paul Ridden
While Paul is loath to reveal his age, he will admit to cutting his IT teeth on a TRS-80 (although he won't say which version). An obsessive fascination with computer technology blossomed from hobby into career before hopping over to France for 10 years, where he started work for New Atlas in 2009. Now back in his native Blighty, he serves as Managing Editor in Europe.

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11 comments
Mr T
What\'s scary is that some rich beanhead audiophool will actually buy this and convince themselves it works. For those self-deluders who think I\'m wrong, thing about the equipment they disks were originally recorded on. Did it have this level of tech? No? Well then, the original recordings must have some level of rumble and mechanical noise as part of the recording...
Leon Radford
Oh! I would have loved to read a review by the Hirsch-Houk Laboratories of eras past about this pricey gadget (High Fidelity mag). I would like to know why this is not a direct drive device, which reminds me of the old and venerable, and today very rare, Gale turntable, also from eras past. BTW, isn\'t vinyl an eras past legacy too?
Mr Stiffy
No doubt that it\'s good.... and REALLY brilliant audio gear is like nothing else.
But my shitbox CD / MP3 player only costs $45 and it can take 32Gig USB sticks containing some 2000 + hours of lectures, podcasts etc., and not once do I have to ever get up and change anything.
I just play my 6 hours a day, every day for 340 days and hit pause when I want a break.
So the stupid person who buys THAT - I am about $149,965 in pocket, more than you and because my shitbox CD MP3 player comes with it\'s own amplifier and speakers - I don\'t have to spend even more to get them as well.
Bill Bennett
I have a Bang&Olufsen beogram 4002 turntable for sale that would spank this POS for $149,800 less, wood trim, stainless steel, aluminum, weighs about 60 lbs works great, call me
ClauS
This turntable is a far cry if you compare it to other turntables made by engineers not by salespeople. No linear-tracking air-bearing tonearm, no record vacuum hold down just to name few. If you want the best, try to find a Rockport Technologies System III Sirius, which in it\'s good times was at half the price. Or even better, go for a laser turntable like ELPJ, which runs at a fraction of the price, and you\'ll be able to listen to your favorite records for ever.
Stradric
The fact that there is a market for something like this shows that just because you\'re rich doesn\'t mean you have good common sense. Record players use needles, which damage the record ever so slightly every time they are played. So if someone has a collection that has been played on a needle at least once, the sound quality has already diminished -- making something like this a complete waste.
There are laser record players that would perform better than this. There are also lossless audio codecs like FLAC that encode source audio at exceptionally high quality and completely eliminate the need for records altogether.
I suppose if you\'re the kind of ass that likes to spend money just to show off that you have money, then this would be perfect. Let everyone know how much money you can waste on silly products like this.
Siddharth Mehta
Most people here don\'t seem to understand high end audio. They are arguing that their $10,000 car gets them to point B so there\'s no point spending $200,000 on a Ferrari.
Although, There\'s one issue with this turntable. The micro controlled electronics create an emf that causes grunge and harshness in the sound. Most can\'t hear it but many audiophiles can.
And if this is their first table they have a long way to go to get it right.
keithus
That\'s pretty crazy. I can\'t fathom spending that on a turntable.
sgdeluxedoc
There\'s another group that can hear.. that\'s those cursed with hyperaudio senses.. (i don\'t know what the correct term would be). Although I\'m not an \'Uber Audiophile\' I am overly aware of things like tonearm rumble, surface noise, and tracking distortion... Perhaps 35 years of experience in the music industry might have sensitized me, as I also have ultra-perfect relative pitch ( that is I hear an infinite level of tones within any octave) Even , say , on vinyl rips done by folks with really high - end equipment, that get raves from everyone else, i hear these things.. enough to completely put me off of vinyl unless it has been recorded on an exceptionally well designed turntable. I think if one of these noveau-riche internet billionaires also has an hearing issue like this, he would likely spend the cash.. After all , if you got it, what\'s it for but to spend it? Me.. i don\'t know.. as i will never be that rich it\'s an issue I will never need to consider!
Aleks Bakman
Dear sgdeluxedoc
You are closer than others to appreciation of my effort. The sound of Onedof really is rewarding for the people like you, who can hear more detail. However the musical content, that is the music itself, is much more important. Listening to the entire opera for 3-4 hours gives you the feeling of being involved with the live music 50 years after it was recorded. You have to be prepared to do that. Just playing music while you are working, or working out, or eating or doing anything else is not the same as the actual listening.
Dear Siddharth Mehta
You got it right. Back EMF is a huge control issue. I think that I had solved it, based on my instrumentation. The motor is really quiet and, most importantly, the sound is good.
Dear Stradric
I have explained here (http://www.onedof.com/sites/onedof.com/files/images/Slide1.JPG) how the lift is developing in the conventional cylindrical bearing. The same way the air, acting as a lubricant, separates the needle from the groove. The prove of this statement is the fact, that after I had played the same side of the vinyl record for hours and hours and no black vinyl dust had been generated. Of course the shape of the tip needle and the normal (tracking) force should be right. Vinyl records pressed in the 1930s still sound like new, but the CDs start skipping in 10 years even without being in any use. There are no lossless digital recordings. All digital data has jitter, that causes loss of information and introduces digital distortions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jitter. Oversampling and other correction measures do not eliminate the issue.
Dear Folks,
the Onedof turntable is expensive because it is expensive to make. The cars used to be not affordable before the production line with invented by Ford. What you compare my turntable to, are the production items, designed without real innovations, without real engineering, with mostly the cost reduction in mind. I have solved an engineering problem which I define like this: design and build a vinyl disk turntable, which rotates most steadily, does not shift, and does not wobble. In other words: one degree of freedom turntable: only the steady rotation. I had solved this problem the best I could. At least give me a benefit of a doubt before you actually listened to the music, played on my turntable.
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