The World’s Most Expensive Turntables
With the recent comeback of vinyl some quite impressive (and expensive) turntables have started to come out. As a follow up to last week’s post on vintage turntables we have put together a list with some of the most extraordinary turntables money can buy.
Continuum Caliburn
The Continuum Caliburn should do the job for those aiming for audio perfection. The price starts at $90,000 and climbs up to $112,000 depending on the preferred finish. Needless to say at this price Continuum Caliburn comes with some pretty cutting edge technology. It uses a magnetically evitated magnesium platter suspended in a vacuum to make sure there are no vibrations and the tonearm itself sells for a whopping $12,000.
Clearaudio Statement
This fellow, made of wood and aluminum, weights in at 770-pound and has a magnetically driven sub platter that eliminates contact with the main platter and a nifty real time speed control. A 176 lb pendulum does the job of ensuring that the platters are always level and to make sure the records are spinning properly the Clearaudio Statement has a a high speed microprocessor-controlled motor drive unit equal to that used in nothing less than the Mars rover. It all comes at a price of $125,000.
Basic Work Art
The Basic Work Art ($150,000) should satisfy the most demanding audiophile with its “mass-spring-dampener” suspension system, which is used to isolate the turntable from the listening environment and the AC synchronous instrument motor, which provides superior speed-stability. When it comes to high-end turntables mass is king and the support structure on the Basic Work Art is so solid that audible resonance is completely eliminated.
Goldmund Reference II
This is the successor to the 25-year-old Goldmund Reference and its dynamic balance should be pretty close to perfect with a level calibration to less than 1/100th of a millimeter and a perfectly aligned stylus, pivot and counterweight. To make sure there are no vibration from the wires three tefon tubes are used and it comes with a digital processor that provides RIAA correction (well, not that RIAA). The fun comes with a price tag of $300,000 and is limited to 25 units with 5 units being made per year.
Avid Acutus Reference Turntable
The Avid Acutus Reference Turntable is for sales at $24,000, and although not being the most expensice one in this category, it’s nothing to joke about. It sports a new custom designed power supply, which drives the hand made motor with an extreme level of precision. The motor used on Avid Acutus Reference Turntable is 10 times more powerful than motors normally used in turntables and it easily drives the massive 10 kg platter. The affluent music lover in this case also has the option to choose between a polished chrome finish or take it a notch up and go for the plated gold version.
Laser Turntable
The Laser Turntable ($14,000) is the outsider and needless to say quite unique. Instead of using a needle to read the sound this one uses a laser to read at a higher level of quality than what previous has been possible (possibly room for argument here) and the tear and wear factor is highly reduced. A sweet extra feature is the ability to read broken and or worn records that normally would not be possible to play on a regular turntable.
Montegiro Lusso Turntable
This one is is built upon polished layers of aluminum and black acrylic and is driven by a recently developed and extremely precise high-end synchronous motor, which is suspended within one of the cones. However, it comes at a price though with a starting price of $47,000 for the “basic configuration”.
Montegiro Legno
This beauty is created by the German based company Montegiro and is made of bamboo and high-grade steel, and has four adjustable and high-grade steel feet with rubber O-rings. Bamboo is used because of its ability to stabilize and reduce resonance. It’s available for the painful price of $13,240.
ClearAudio Master Reference Turntable
Yet another turntable made it Germany. The ClearAudio Master Reference Turntable ($19,000) is hand made and has quite a few innovative features such as an APG motor control system, master reference chassis, a master TQ-I tonearm and unique ‘Side-Force-Free’ triple motor and belt drive system. This one is by many considered to be the best turntable on the market.
DaVinciAudio Labs AAS Gabriel
The AAS Gabriel looks expensive and it sure is. The design is inspired by the the same process that is used to cut grooves into masters for vinyl discs and helps to reduce noise and vibration to an absolute zero. It sure also has the right stuff on board with a highly stable drive chassis, silent bearings and a stable power supply. The AAS Gabriel is available in the 24-karat gold and white Luxury Edition for $41,250 and a black version at “only” $35,400.
Tags: Turntables
