A Pilgrimage to Ground ZERO

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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Manila, Philippines
<reserved>

;)
 

es347

VIP/Donor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
1,577
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Midwest fly over state..
..never knew you to be reserved
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
1,425
1,820
Manila, Philippines
Hang in there, I've got three weddings and fortunately no funerals to go to. :D
 
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JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
1,425
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Manila, Philippines
Gavin, I'm very reserved. Everytime I see an album I like posted by sellers on wired state's facebook group, I type RESERVED, RESERVED, RESERVED! Hahahaha!
 

es347

VIP/Donor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
1,577
35
970
Midwest fly over state..
Gavin, I'm very reserved. Everytime I see an album I like posted by sellers on wired state's facebook group, I type RESERVED, RESERVED, RESERVED! Hahahaha!

..no doubt...HA HA
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
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Manila, Philippines
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.

DSC01455.jpg DSC01458.jpg

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.

DSC01463.jpg

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. DSC01459.jpg

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>
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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Manila, Philippines
I figured it did after a few days. To Americans, New Yorkers in particular.
 

jadis

Well-Known Member
Apr 28, 2010
12,361
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Manila, Philippines
Jack, you're really one lucky guy. I have a few 'pilgrimages' in my bucket list and I've only done one last Fall. Next I hope will be in Sugano's secret hideout somewhere in Japan; problem is, in the past 10 years or so, i couldn't find a trace of his address, he's not on the WWW. :(

Great report on the tour, btw.
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
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Manila, Philippines
Yes the cat is out of the bag :D I actually held the motor in my hand with a temporary industrial power supply. Like the SZ the motor spindle will have its own air bearing. It has 3 times the number of poles of the AF1 motor too. I was sworn to secrecy regarding this particular piece.

I also carried the tungsten platter. It was HEAVY. To put this in perspective, just the upper platter, outweighs the full platters of the AF 2 and AF 3. My estimate when lifting it is about 40 lbs. The knuckle test had me thinking the only thing as inert I've ever tried to rap was a Magico Q5, forgive me if I can't say which was harder for one rap was enough to hurt my mitts in both cases.

Tungsten alloys have always been known as extremely hard and dense. The thing with tungsten is that it is not easily shaped. Even when super heated, tungsten won't bend. It shatters like really hard glass. As such they are usually built up layer by layer, sintered. This reminds me of the Ortofon A90 which was likewise sintered. The sintering process allows for pretty any damping one could think of. Dead as a door nail is what they shot for with this one, the net effect supposedly increase in inner detail as well as even more explosive dynamics than the Titanium, Duralumin and SS platters which all have individual characters to them. As alluded to earlier the descending model number coincidentally corresponds to descending noise. Zero would represent the most silent table they know how to build. The Zero's platter isn't only to have the most non-resonant platter that can build, damping will also be pushed hard. It will have at least 3 vacuum damping chambers as opposed to the single chambers in the other models.

When I asked the team just how much more dynamic, they spontaneously spazz'd into ooooohs and aaaaahs. I started to crack up and the next thing I knew we all were. That said it all right there. I just wish I had my camera rolling. The dynamics of the Titanium as witnessed by 4 WBF members in Hong Kong was already pretty <insert expletive here> impressive. Funnily I've heard from some folks that they find AF1s TOO dynamic. To each his own. Some people prefer pretty to realistic and there's nothing wrong with that.

In any case, from a conceptual standpoint this will be one heck of an information retrieval instrument. The whole groove and nothing but the groove. If they use that line please remind me to bill them. I will accept an AF0 as royalty payment.
 

MatthewC

Well-Known Member
Aug 27, 2014
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If the effect of the tungsten upper platter is like a magnified version of the tungsten record stabilizer, it will be awesome indeed. Am using the tungsten record stabilizer now and it's the one I like the most by far.

I am under the impression the motor and platter will be demo'd using an AF One. Does that mean the motor and platter can be fitted on normal AF1? The platter maybe, but can't imagine that to be the case for the motor given the extra air bearing that needs it's own air supply....

Can't wait!
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
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Manila, Philippines
I think you are 100% correct Matthew. The motor will indeed need its own box. The new motor and upper platter will indeed be shown with a AF0P according to the Stell news bulletin. One thing for sure, as the motor dwarfs that of the AF1, expect them to have a very big shelf. LOL.
 

gian60

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Apr 17, 2016
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Dear Jack,sorry the OT,i would like to ask you,because my dream is to buy Air force one end of this year,do you think will be always the same or they will do like a lot of company do
an Air Force One MK II,for example,because i see they are developing fast AFO Premium,AFZero,many other material,so can you ask or check if AFO will be always the same or new upgrade?

Many thanks
Gianluigi
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
1,425
1,820
Manila, Philippines
Hi Gian

They do periodic minor updates pretty much all of them can be done by the owner. Yours will come with the new spindle, pumps, firmware and pulley. I've been told that that handles the AF1 platform to its fullest. So the AF1 should remain the same for quite a long time. Options may be added, like say the tungsten upper platter and tungsten weight, but the platform will remain pretty much unchanged. I have mine which was an original already fully upgraded including the control cable, there was an improvement in sound but it was very very slight. It's not something an early run owner should worry about. As a distributor however our floor demo needs to be totally up to date.
 

bonzo75

Member Sponsor
Feb 26, 2014
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London
Dear Jack,sorry the OT,i would like to ask you,because my dream is to buy Air force one end of this year,do you think will be always the same or they will do like a lot of company do
an Air Force One MK II,for example,because i see they are developing fast AFO Premium,AFZero,many other material,so can you ask or check if AFO will be always the same or new upgrade?

Many thanks
Gianluigi

Wow Gian congrats in advance
 

gian60

Well-Known Member
Apr 17, 2016
2,503
1,943
343
For now is a dream,end of the year we see,
also i am thinking to Air Force III with SAT,or with 4 arms
 

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