One Amigo Visits Utah To Hear 5 Reference Turntables-My Step Beyond
- Thread starter Steve williams
- Start date
Hi CK
First off if you do a search of the table little if anything comes up. Suffice it to say there are two known ones join existence and David owns them both with one out on permanent loan to the person who suggested he look into finding one in his pursuit of "the step beyond"
The table is as solid as the rock of Gibraltar and IIRC weighs 550 lbs. It is a solid slab of milled stainless steel. IIRC it had a leather mat. It obviously accepts 4 arms all of which for David are the SME 3012. i was not picking a fight with Christian as I really love the TechDas AF1 but when we played the same record on the TechDas and then the American Sound it honestly was no contest. The sound of the American Sound was much tighter and better defined, more meat on the bone from top to bottom but as Christian said, "good luck in finding one"
First off if you do a search of the table little if anything comes up. Suffice it to say there are two known ones join existence and David owns them both with one out on permanent loan to the person who suggested he look into finding one in his pursuit of "the step beyond"
The table is as solid as the rock of Gibraltar and IIRC weighs 550 lbs. It is a solid slab of milled stainless steel. IIRC it had a leather mat. It obviously accepts 4 arms all of which for David are the SME 3012. i was not picking a fight with Christian as I really love the TechDas AF1 but when we played the same record on the TechDas and then the American Sound it honestly was no contest. The sound of the American Sound was much tighter and better defined, more meat on the bone from top to bottom but as Christian said, "good luck in finding one"
Hi CK,
It looks like very few people actually know anything about it including the Japanese audiophiles. Not much is known about their origin just that the company made only one product and its from the late 70's. Its air floating like the Micro Seiki tables but way simpler yet more sophisticated and superior sounding. I'm finishing up an article on this table and will post it this weekend with many pictures, stay tuned.
david
Hi David and Steve,
Thanks for the info and photo!
Eager to read David's article on it!
+1
Anyway very interesting story after all , a wooden horn system built in 1954 in Germany - Bionor KL-L433 - by Klangfilm GmbH which outperforms todays models ( in some areas?) made out of modern composite materials , the only thing i could find was this link
http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/klangfilm_bionor_kl_l433.html
An open baffle woofer system with good bass never heard that yet
Do you have some more info on the units used freq range for example membrane material of the Hochtonhorn KL-L 302 and the two bass speakers , if i understand correctly there is 1 horn in use for the mids and highs ??
and i found this review : http://www.inner-magazines.com/news/90/72/Klangfilm-Bionor/in which the strongpoint was mentioned as :
my impression is that this speaker manages to recreate the true timbre and dynamic impact of real instruments like very few others.
http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/klangfilm_bionor_kl_l433.html
An open baffle woofer system with good bass
never heard that yet Do you have some more info on the units used freq range for example membrane material of the Hochtonhorn KL-L 302 and the two bass speakers , if i understand correctly there is 1 horn in use for the mids and highs ??
and i found this review : http://www.inner-magazines.com/news/90/72/Klangfilm-Bionor/in which the strongpoint was mentioned as :
my impression is that this speaker manages to recreate the true timbre and dynamic impact of real instruments like very few others.
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The upper horn is cast metal, not wood.
An open baffle woofer system with good bass
Do you have some more info on the units used freq range for example membrane material of the Hochtonhorn KL-L 302 and the two bass speakers , if i understand correctly there is 1 horn in use for the mids and highs ??
Its primarily a bass horn with an open baffle, you have to remember that the SOTA back then was 50hz which is really more than enough and very simple to extend a bit more if you know what you're doing with the right subs. the woofer membrane is paper, but extremely thin and light.
Here's a translated excerpt from a Klangfilm brochure;
"The Loudspeaker Assembly comprises a permanent dynamic type high-frequency with air pression system. The high-frequency speaker is equipped with a special-type exponential horn known as the KLANGFILM Spherical Wave Horn which distributes the audio output uniformly and free of resonance over a wide angle….Advantage of the KLANGFILM Spherical Wave Horn is its high efficiency, its radiated acoustic power being obtained with relatively low amplifier output which contributes to increase the tonal quality…"
"…As the audio range of the Bionor Loudspeaker Assembly extends far beyond he higher frequencies attainable with optical sound, it is particularly suitable for expanding existing theater systems to handle magnetic sound and stereophony.""
david
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Thanks , danke schon , i speak fluent german as wel .
Klang film (Sound - film ) , originally made for (movie)theaters
I can translate the Original german brochure, (a siemens company) , not today but in time
.Klang film (Sound - film ) , originally made for (movie)theaters
I can translate the Original german brochure, (a siemens company) , not today but in time
Thanks , danke schon , i speak fluent german as wel
Klang film (Sound - film ) , originally made for (movie)theaters
I can translate the Original german brochure, a siemens company
I thought you'd like it and German wouldn't be a problem for you!
david
Yes, the Euronor and the Euronor Junior. They have the same drivers just more of them. I don't know of any that survived because of their size so never heard one to know how their bass horns sound, they go a bit lower without the baffle. Anyway the specs are very close to the Bionor.
This one is from another Klangfilm book, better picts.
david
One of the keypoints in their design seems to be the kugelwellentrichter versus the exponentialtrichter used in other designs , their "kugelwellenhorndesign is a horn that expands much wider then other designs , design b versus horn a as seen in the drawing , this gives a resonanzfree radiation and natural sound .
The horn design is unique dimensionally shorter than anything I've seen from JBL, Altec, Vitavox, etc. also horn & driver build quality is typical German tank.
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Does it have an air bearing platter? If so, what is the operation air pressure?
Fascinating write-up Steve and congratulations ddk. Never heard of the American Sound turntable. One of the "mods" in my turntable is that the platter also floats in an air bubble that I have been able to capture through various techniques, but the platter is one way to get noise into the cartridge, the other is the arm base - and how do you float the arm... this is where an isolation platform, as rockitman says, should make an improvement.
I had a long talk with David about air suspension as well as the air in the feet of the AF1. What I found fascinating is that David said that even air can add a "sound" to the system.
Peter, I can tell you that for my ears The American Sound with that Neumann DST cartridge bested any other table or cartridge combination David threw at me over those 4 days. The sheer weight of it is fascinating
Peter, I can tell you that for my ears The American Sound with that Neumann DST cartridge bested any other table or cartridge combination David threw at me over those 4 days. The sheer weight of it is fascinating
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