Air Force Zero PRICE

mikem · Aug 11, 2018

PeterA said:
I miss FranzM. Wow, that is expensive. Like with David Wilson's new WAMM speakers, this may be the pinnacle achievement of the man's career, and as such represents everything that he has learned. Are there any photos or details about the design? .

At a dealer event in the U.S. two years ago, in response to a question from the audience, Mr Nishikawa estimated the future price of the AF0 at $300k+ so the latest news above isn’t that surprising.
He talked then mostly about the AF0 motor and I haven’t heard much about the rest of the design other than it was to have a platter much more massive than the AF1.

Ron Resnick · Aug 12, 2018

Tango said:
That makes me feel pretty good having the same motor.

Tang

My feeling exactly!

Ron Resnick · Aug 12, 2018

It makes $80,000 for Fred Thal’s ATAE completely remade A820 with custom SHRO headblock and outboard power supply — probably the best Studer-based playback deck ever imagined — pretty reasonable.

JackD201 · Aug 12, 2018

Expensive yes, but you guys have to remember that EU GST alone is enormous. You guys also don't know what is going into this table, which obviously is more than a motor. Too bad I will not tell you anything because I have sworn to keep my mouth shut after I had inadvertently given some information that caused some friction between distributors and clients. Suffice it to say that like the Master Chronosonic, the 111 XS, the Work of Art, this is Nishikawa-San's magnum opus. It is obviously not for everyone. Personally I feel I don't have the record collection to justify such a table and even the standard AF1 is enough to satisfy my needs. For those completists with collections that boggle the mind however, hey, why not? I'm not complaining about the McLaren Senna making my "fast" car look like a boat anchor. Even if I did have a Senna I couldn't care less that a Dodge Demon would spank it silly in the quarter mile. I'm actually thrilled they both exist first and foremost. Why? Just because they are so friggin cool!

More than anything, as I said before Dave Wilson's passing, I am just happy that unlike the majority of people out there, Dave had been able to work his way into the enviable position of actually building his dream. Same with AJ. This is also how I feel with regards to Hideaki Nishikawa, someone I also consider a true genius.

spiritofmusic · Aug 12, 2018

What is "EU GST"?

JackD201 · Aug 12, 2018

Value Added Tax. The range is I believe between a minimum of 15% up to or over 25%. Italy's, I just checked, is 22%

ALF · Aug 12, 2018

JackD201 said:
Expensive yes, but you guys have to remember that EU GST alone is enormous. You guys also don't know what is going into this table, which obviously is more than a motor. Too bad I will not tell you anything because I have sworn to keep my mouth shut after I had inadvertently given some information that caused some friction between distributors and clients. Suffice it to say that like the Master Chronosonic, the 111 XS, the Work of Art, this is Nishikawa-San's magnum opus. It is obviously not for everyone. Personally I feel I don't have the record collection to justify such a table and even the standard AF1 is enough to satisfy my needs. For those completists with collections that boggle the mind however, hey, why not? I'm not complaining about the McLaren Senna making my "fast" car look like a boat anchor. Even if I did have a Senna I couldn't care less that a Dodge Demon would spank it silly in the quarter mile. I'm actually thrilled they both exist first and foremost. Why? Just because they are so friggin cool!

More than anything, as I said before Dave Wilson's passing, I am just happy that unlike the majority of people out there, Dave had been able to work his way into the enviable position of actually building his dream. Same with AJ. This is also how I feel with regards to Hideaki Nishikawa, someone I also consider a true genius.

Well said Jack...

Best,
ALF

ALF · Aug 12, 2018

Plus one...well put Ron!

Cheers!
ALF

DaveyF · Aug 12, 2018

JackD201 said:
Expensive yes, but you guys have to remember that EU GST alone is enormous. You guys also don't know what is going into this table, which obviously is more than a motor. Too bad I will not tell you anything because I have sworn to keep my mouth shut after I had inadvertently given some information that caused some friction between distributors and clients. Suffice it to say that like the Master Chronosonic, the 111 XS, the Work of Art, this is Nishikawa-San's magnum opus. It is obviously not for everyone. Personally I feel I don't have the record collection to justify such a table and even the standard AF1 is enough to satisfy my needs. For those completists with collections that boggle the mind however, hey, why not? I'm not complaining about the McLaren Senna making my "fast" car look like a boat anchor. Even if I did have a Senna I couldn't care less that a Dodge Demon would spank it silly in the quarter mile. I'm actually thrilled they both exist first and foremost. Why? Just because they are so friggin cool!

More than anything, as I said before Dave Wilson's passing, I am just happy that unlike the majority of people out there, Dave had been able to work his way into the enviable position of actually building his dream. Same with AJ. This is also how I feel with regards to Hideaki Nishikawa, someone I also consider a true genius.

Ok fair enough, but please don’t compare a MCLaren with any turntable ever manufactured...or likely to be manufactured. The cost of the R&D and the complexity/manufacturing of the car to the turntable is in a totally different hemisphere.
The MCLaren costs what it does due to that fact and the large and complicated distribution chain...I don’t believe that the TechDas really has any comparison to any exotic automobile, except in the asking price.

JackD201 · Aug 12, 2018

That's your opinion. Anything that is done with extreme precision costs more. Low volumes, a lot more. That is not debatable. In the end, the market will decide. What I don't get is people protesting at all. Really, what do you want to see? More of the same all the time? Who the hell cares what it costs. We're not even in the market. I get seasick so I wouldn't even consider owning one but I still watch videos of yachts just because some of them are just awesome.

As for McLaren, why the hell not? Their street cars are gravy to them. That R&D was paid for in F1. The road cars are the trickle down technology. F1 cars cost about 10 Millions bucks a piece. The Senna a 10th of that if you were onn the initial list. The AF5 costs a 20th. I certainly see a parallel. Besides, with all this talk about vibrations and turntables, I have yet to see any other make where you can friggin tap on a record while its playing and not have all hell break loose out the speaker end. One might not care for the sound, but don't tell me that they aren't doing anything differently.

spiritofmusic · Aug 12, 2018

Hey, I'm still having to justify to my favourite Indian restaurant waiter in London that one of my 19 audiophile fuses costs more than his entire system LOL.

DaveyF · Aug 12, 2018

spiritofmusic said:
Hey, I'm still having to justify to my favourite Indian restaurant waiter in London that one of my 19 audiophile fuses costs more than his entire system LOL.

LMAO... that's a good one...and I think lost on many on this forum

spiritofmusic · Aug 12, 2018

Hey Davey, not a fair fight.
We're talking dodgy IPod from a man with a whole car boot's full of them, and a hacked ITunes account.
Well, at least he's an Apple fan.
Of course, put my total budget spend of two decades in this hobby into an Aston Martin, now we're talking.

Gardener · Aug 12, 2018

JackD201 said:
That's your opinion. Anything that is done with extreme precision costs more. Low volumes, a lot more. That is not debatable. In the end, the market will decide. What I don't get is people protesting at all. Really, what do you want to see? More of the same all the time? Who the hell cares what it costs. We're not even in the market. I get seasick so I wouldn't even consider owning one but I still watch videos of yachts just because some of them are just awesome.

As for McLaren, why the hell not? Their street cars are gravy to them. That R&D was paid for in F1. The road cars are the trickle down technology. F1 cars cost about 10 Millions bucks a piece. The Senna a 10th of that if you were onn the initial list. The AF5 costs a 20th. I certainly see a parallel. Besides, with all this talk about vibrations and turntables, I have yet to see any other make where you can friggin tap on a record while its playing and not have all hell break loose out the speaker end. One might not care for the sound, but don't tell me that they aren't doing anything differently.

Well said Jack
I think this turntable is a very personal project for Nishikawa-San
Its not about selling numbers
Would love to hear it

DaveyF · Aug 12, 2018

spiritofmusic said:
Hey Davey, not a fair fight.
We're talking dodgy IPod from a man with a whole car boot's full of them, and a hacked ITunes account.
Well, at least he's an Apple fan.
Of course, put my total budget spend of two decades in this hobby into an Aston Martin, now we're talking.

Exactly. I just totally fail to see how any table can be compared to any exotic vehicle when it comes to R&D or build cost. Since we are now seeing gear that is priced in the same vicinity as a lot of these vehicles ( you mentioned an Aston Martin...another good example) I just don’t get it.

More power to Nishikawa-San for bringing the table to market. I hope he sells a boat load of them. But to try and align the cost and the complexity with an exotic auto...or for that matter anything extremely technologically advanced, just doesn’t hold water, imho.

LL21 · Aug 12, 2018

I wonder if the way to look at this all-out assault TT is NOT to compare it to the Aston Martin (which is a street car for domestic driving)...but to compare it to the $10M F1 car where it may be 5x-7x better than the Aston...but also 30x-50x more expensive. In which case, the TT might well be proportionately priced. It is 'only' 4x-8x more expensive than move turntables and might be 2x as good?

Not sure any of the math adds up here...but i would say that if we are going to look at one of the world's most expensive TTs...we need to compare it to one of the world's most expensive cars...and the Aston is far from that...as Jack says, the F1 cars run about $10M each. And I would definitely suggest that the purpose of this TT is to break all barriers as much as is possible in the same way the F1 cars are.

JackD201 · Aug 12, 2018

DaveyF said:
Exactly. I just totally fail to see how any table can be compared to any exotic vehicle when it comes to R&D or build cost. Since we are now seeing gear that is priced in the same vicinity as a lot of these vehicles ( you mentioned an Aston Martin...another good example) I just don’t get it.

More power to Nishikawa-San for bringing the table to market. I hope he sells a boat load of them. But to try and align the cost and the complexity with an exotic auto...or for that matter anything extremely technologically advanced, just doesn’t hold water, imho.

Davey I don't knnow why you keep on harping on R&D costs. The costs are in tooling which gets spread out over the production runs. A Ford Focus WRC swing arm costs as much as a street Ford Focus. An F1 engine is built to such tight tolerances that that 2.6 liter engine costs 8M of the 10M. Mind you that doesn't include the transmission which is another 500k. A bespoke suit can run 10 grand but you can grab something off a rack for a hundred bucks. You can get a Chinese mass produced 100wpc KT88 tube amp in china for 1k. The hand wound OPTs on your Jadis cost multiples of that amp alone. It is a regurgitated mantra to cite R&D that is highly misleading.

This is how I see it. All this price crap should only be of concern if by the mere existence of these goods, products within our budgets disappear. Obviously this is not the case hence my, "Why should you care?" statement. For as long as there is a plethora of products to choose from that float our boats at prices we can afford, this whining is just that. Whining.

DaveyF · Aug 12, 2018

JackD201 said:
Davey I don't knnow why you keep on harping on R&D costs. The costs are in tooling which gets spread out over the production runs. A Ford Focus WRC swing arm costs as much as a street Ford Focus. An F1 engine is built to such tight tolerances that that 2.6 liter engine costs 8M of the 10M. Mind you that doesn't include the transmission which is another 500k. A bespoke suit can run 10 grand but you can grab something off a rack for a hundred bucks. You can get a Chinese mass produced 100wpc KT88 tube amp in china for 1k. The hand wound OPTs on your Jadis cost multiples of that amp alone. It is a regurgitated mantra to cite R&D that is highly misleading.

This is how I see it. All this price crap should only be of concern if by the mere existence of these goods, products within our budgets disappear. Obviously this is not the case hence my, "Why should you care?" statement. For as long as there is a plethora of products to choose from that float our boats at prices we can afford, this whining is just that. Whining.

Jack, maybe you are missing my point..
This particular turntable is going to be priced at a cost that equates to something that is far far more complex and costly to design and bring to market..while there is nothing wrong in that, i don’t think that it equates to the same value proposition. While that may be irrelevant to many, I still think that to try and equate the two items in this manner is not correct or accurate...maybe that’s just me?
Do I care, heck no, like I said before, if Nishikawa-San can make as many of these that he so chooses and sell them to his Far East clientele at any price he so deems, well then more power to him.

microstrip · Aug 12, 2018

JackD201 said:
Expensive yes, but you guys have to remember that EU GST alone is enormous. You guys also don't know what is going into this table, which obviously is more than a motor. Too bad I will not tell you anything because I have sworn to keep my mouth shut after I had inadvertently given some information that caused some friction between distributors and clients. Suffice it to say that like the Master Chronosonic, the 111 XS, the Work of Art, this is Nishikawa-San's magnum opus. It is obviously not for everyone. Personally I feel I don't have the record collection to justify such a table and even the standard AF1 is enough to satisfy my needs. For those completists with collections that boggle the mind however, hey, why not? I'm not complaining about the McLaren Senna making my "fast" car look like a boat anchor. Even if I did have a Senna I couldn't care less that a Dodge Demon would spank it silly in the quarter mile. I'm actually thrilled they both exist first and foremost. Why? Just because they are so friggin cool!

More than anything, as I said before Dave Wilson's passing, I am just happy that unlike the majority of people out there, Dave had been able to work his way into the enviable position of actually building his dream. Same with AJ. This is also how I feel with regards to Hideaki Nishikawa, someone I also consider a true genius.

Jack,

IMHO only after people who will listen tell us of their opinions we will be able to know if Hideaki Nishikawa master creation is appealing to audiophiles.

The Master Chronosonic created a track of admiration that I respect - even an acquaintance whom listened to it told me directly it was much superior to anything else he had listened . and he is an experienced listener. If it was not for the long flight, listening to it would be in my wish list - although its price puts it out of my reach.

An analog source seems intrinsically limited by the limitations of the master tape - it is hard to imagine how much better than current SOTA can be a top turntable. But probably listening to such master piece will free people imagination and develop their writing skills for our enjoyment!

IMHO we do not debate master-pieces price - but perhaps after we have more information we should question what makes them a master piece.

jeff1225 · Aug 12, 2018

DaveyF said:
Exactly. I just totally fail to see how any table can be compared to any exotic vehicle when it comes to R&D or build cost. Since we are now seeing gear that is priced in the same vicinity as a lot of these vehicles ( you mentioned an Aston Martin...another good example) I just don’t get it.

More power to Nishikawa-San for bringing the table to market. I hope he sells a boat load of them. But to try and align the cost and the complexity with an exotic auto...or for that matter anything extremely technologically advanced, just doesn’t hold water, imho.

One aspect of the audio market vs the car market is the dealer mark up. Car dealers are lucky to make 10%, most audio dealers are making 40%+.

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