Transducers are magical to me. The whole idea of converting one form of energy into another has been the subject of mystery and amazement since childhood. Electromagnetism was probably the most beguiling form of all. I was in love with all things sprung or motorized and then came the amazement of sound. My other older brother Joe was hunched up in front of a tape deck listening with headphones while I was casually doodling away as I often did when he called me over. He unplugged the headphones and stuck it in the microphone jack. He told me to talk into one of the earpieces. Like one would do with a phone, I said “Hello”: My first recording. Now that he’d gotten my attention he proceeded with my tutorial. He taught me how to work our mom’s linear tracking turntable and cassette deck, how to monitor and where to set level. He handed me a stack of records and a piece of paper with the song lists and times and a brand new cassette. He then gave me a deadline. That was my first experience as an abused intern. LOL. It’s really funny now that he went through all that trouble in return for slave labor from a minor, so sneakily at that, but all in all, I’m actually very grateful. That he only made me do it once helped too. In hindsight, my work was probably below his standards! I was all in for myself after that and we harmoniously scheduled our respective mixed tape sessions all the way to when we had our own little rack system we both pitched in for in the room we shared. Happy times.
Thirty-five years later, I’m in a cab in a foreign country on the way to the head office and assembly facility of one of our suppliers. It’s the first day of the workweek and there is no traffic, an alien concept for sure. The cabbie drives leisurely as I crack the window open a bit and in comes a blast of chilly air. What questions will I ask the man waiting for me there? I have many. I’ve admired his work for the better part of 17 years, the span of my vinyl reawakening. About four years ago I heard from a good friend, Gary Kho that Nishikawa-san was back in the game. I’ve come to learn over the years that when Gary talks, you listen. I did and the result was a letter of application for distributorship. The questions accumulated then curated now locked in my mind, I’m amused as the cabbie pulls over. Perfect timing. This is only my second time here but there is a sense of homecoming. In my possession is the air pump and motor control box coming in for repair and tucked beside it in the dry box, the control board to be replaced with one with the latest firmware. It’s certainly a homecoming for that.
So where is “here”? This is Stella Inc. the mother company of TechDAS. It is a distribution company that deals to some 50 stores in Japan. If we take a minute to ponder that, we will ultimately arrive at the conclusion that this is a major operation in a major market. The building is a modern steel and glass and stands out against the backdrop of more traditional structures. I go up dry box and wife in tow and we are greeted warmly by Motofumi-san, customer relations officer/interpreter. After quick pleasantries and greetings almost instantaneously all attention was on the dry box. It seems they had been anticipating the arrival of their prodigal box as much as they were expecting me. Before I could even get my bearings, I found myself opening the lock and in seconds the unit was on Engineer Yuya-san’s worktable. I was very distracted because behind me were a number of Air Force One Premiums in different states of assembly. One of them was mine as evidenced by the number of Titanium goodies I’d spec’d. We’re standing there half mesmerized by the guy’s dexterity as he opens the box and half by multiple platters spinning as Ones, Twos, and Threes undergo long term speed testing just as Nishikawa-san emerges from nowhere. A few seconds of smiles and handshakes and Nishikawa-san himself is inspecting the motor I so embarrassingly burned up by leaving the system on for an undeterminable length of time. I was campaigning for the House but of course that is no excuse! The verdict was, no problem. Yuya-san would test, refit and retest everything within the day. The new firmware would also make such a recurrence of such an accident impossible even for the most forgetful of TechDAS owners. I love these people.
I had a ton of questions but seeing the Premiums lined up had thrown me off. We entered into the conference room and we began to chat. Over the years I’d like to think we’d become pretty close. For anybody that knows me personally, quite a bit of laughing goes on whenever I’m around because for the life of me, I can’t stop myself from making side comments any time an opportunity arises. The TechDAS family is a happy one thankfully and fun is fun until serious talk began. With the Premiums still within view I ask my first question. Why the Premium and not the Zero? Motofumi-san translates both question and answer. The Premium is what Nishikawa-san intended the AF One to be but the cost would have been a no-starter. The problem wasn’t the projected selling price but rather the amount of capital on hand taken as a whole. There was still the need to make a predetermined number of units and to undertake a whole slew of activities a number of which entailed a whole lot of travel. This, to my mind, also answered how a company so new could barge onto the scene and change the status quo faster than any new company in audio that I can think of. Their precision extends beyond their engineering. I followed up by asking if machining the Titanium parts was the biggest contributor to cost. The answer surprised me. Nishikawa-san said that in this day and age machining Titanium is very easy. While Titanium itself is pricey it also isn’t nearly as expensive as it was. The problem is that while Titanium is great in the sense that it does not lend itself to oxidation, it is easily scratched. Aha. Build quality is not taken lightly around here. It should be obvious given the care they put into parts you will never even see.
The titanium, they felt, needed to be protected and to do that the titanium pieces are subjected to a process even more robust than DLC coating. One can only imagine what it would entail to apply such a thing for something the size of a platter as opposed to luxury watch or machine parts. One thing for sure is that it IS purdy.
Forging ahead I asked about the design goals. I know that in Alan’s interview of Nishikawa-san he had asked the same question. The only time constraint we had was how long it would take Yuya-san to finish up the box and the time for dinner while the box was being tested so I figured I could try to dive just a little but deeper into this if I could. As in his answer to Alan Nishikawa-San answered, remove the noise. Incidentally this is the same mantra I hear from Albert, Damon and Leif, Florian and Thierry, Larry and Gavin, the pattern is clear.
The job of the turntable is to turn the record at the correct speed and do it quietly. Speed was reportedly an issue with air bearing tables even Micro-Seiki's own. I asked how they dealt with it. First off said the main man, the platter has to be perfect in terms of both static and dynamic balance especially since it is floating on only a few microns of air. To achieve this they turn to a rather common piece of equipment, common at least to the automotive industry.
Spun at high RPM just like when we have our wheels done to make sure there aren't any weird oscillations going on. Simple enough, no need for any weird fixes. This also means however that belt tension becomes very important since having a belt too tight will shrink the air gap in the vertical plane. The problem sort of fixes itself. Too tight and the microprocessor will not let the platter reach 45 rpm. To easily calibrate this a belt tensioning scheme is applied also like a car's fan belt instead of manually nudging the motor pod around. An optical system then reads speed variations and the microprocessor calculates the amount of speed to make any corrections after which power is reduced and inertia does a lot more of the work as the motor is now made to spin at low power. Hunt and seek is thus kept to a bare minimum. This has been further refined with the now smaller pulley and its accompanying control board with matching firmware.
On the table being quiet, Nishikawa-san explains that this is done in sections. The suspension deals with very low frequencies coming up from the floor, the air bearing deals with whatever is left after that getting onto the platter. The motor is detached like many others so the suspension can deal with vestigial vibrations from that and the flat belt also chosen for its vibration properties. What is not really mentioned often but is plain to see in the website is the role that the vacuum system takes on. It was my assumption that the vacuum system is simply there to make the records flat. I couldn’t have been more mistaken. All this time I had though that the reason I could tap on the record and hear nothing from the speakers, yes a VERY rare feat, has nothing to do with my turning my 150gram LP into a 26,150gram one. After all, mass can't be all of it, a Two or Three's platter is a lot lighter yet you can do the same with those. A vacuum chamber inside the TD platters acts as a damper. My understanding from my own bit of research to corroborate this (that’s why this is so delayed) is that negative pressure does something to the resonant behavior of metals. It doesn’t change the resonant frequency of the material per se but it turns the combination of upper and lower into some sort of sink. That explains why you can tap on this and not hear anything but the same can’t be said with say a periphery ring or on other VHD tables that go as far back as Luxmans et al.
Okay, now I had a better understanding of how it worked but I needed to ask the obvious question. Why go through all this trouble? People have been using electromagnetic turntables for over 60 years and one of the charms is how different everything sounds. It's been like being in one of those places where you can make your own pizza or pancake almost. People like how certain woods sound, or how certain drive systems impact the music. Why shoot for nothingness? Well its about the transduction says the man. We always hear that the lack of dynamics is where recorded sound falls short of the real thing. This is not about giving you more, it's about maximizing the dynamic potential of your cartridge. Whaaaaat? TD knows that with the platters on offer you get to tailor the sound you like to some extent with the One and live with what they chose for you if you own a Two or Three. The materials aren't self damping enough not to have a signature in the upper octaves in particular. Choice is cool but that isn't the focal point of the exercise. The point is that every cart has a potential, that between zero motion of the magnet, coil, iron or strain gauge and max voltage. Any noise robs from that potential and robs you of perceived dynamics. If we're talking about a few millivolts, that little bit of rumble or feedback could and often means a lot. It stands to reason then that when TDs are discussed they are always discussed along these lines. They are quiet and as a result very dynamic. Some people would prefer a more vintage sound, a more colored sound even. I know enjoy the sound of those too on occasion but remember I said I love transducers and I collect them with as much love and care as the LPs they are played on. Did I say I love these guys? Anyway, I apologize for the digression. Nishikawa-San wants to max out the dynamic potential and in so doing has the happy benefit of allowing the maximum extraction of everything else along with it. This is a philosophy I certainly can get behind.
So at this point the logic in the model nomenclature becomes apparent. In a world where the higher number is usually attached to the higher model, here the opposite is true. As a golf nut I can dig this. Nishikawa-san is an avid golfer too. The number represents the amount of noise. The lower the quieter. Changes to the Air Force One do not amount to a reduction of noise that would demand a whole number. A refinement? Yes. Better functionality? Yes. Better visual appeal? Yes too, if you’re a TechDAS geek like I am. It’s like who can spot the difference between a 4 series coupe and an M4 in less than a second. Only the geeks. No, there’s something else that demands that and it’s called the Zero. It's coming, I've seen.
<to be continued>