No problems with my suspension so far. None of the feet have lost any pressure and the horizon lines are still exactly lined up with the plinth. Air + gel here too.
TechDas Air Force One
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Gary, do you know how the new suspension differs from yours? I think you wrote it has only air and no gel. Perhaps I misunderstood your earlier post (#652) where you seemed to suggest there was a problem with the bladders.
From your picture I see you did not go for the custom TechDAS HRS isolation shelf. How come ? I went for it.
All items that have shipped out since May have all air suspension according to Motofumi Hirata. He says this was not announced since it was a vary minor difference in terms of performance. The all air suspension can hold three times more air and offers marginal benefits and this, only in isolation for very low frequencies.
Hi Christian,
I'm partial to Critical Mass Systems so I opted for a Black Platinum/PXK as this has lateral vibration control courtesy of the elbow interfaces. The asphalt like surface likewise negates the need for the cut outs as it is very grippy.
Hi Christian,
I'm partial to Critical Mass Systems so I opted for a Black Platinum/PXK as this has lateral vibration control courtesy of the elbow interfaces. The asphalt like surface likewise negates the need for the cut outs as it is very grippy.
Thanks Jack...I'm expectimg mine to ship w/in 2 weeks. Funny thing, I won't have the 12" Supreme for the rear slot for at least 3 weeks and probably 2 month's for the Elite in the main slot. Looks like I will have the table armless for a couple weeks since I don't have sme mount tonearms on hand.
Hi Christian,
I had mine done with a Graham Mounts. You will have to take apart the DIN assembly to mount the arm on the arm board. Fortunately, this takes only a few minutes to take apart and put back together.
I had mine done with a Graham Mounts. You will have to take apart the DIN assembly to mount the arm on the arm board. Fortunately, this takes only a few minutes to take apart and put back together.
Hi Jack,
Bob Graham should be chiming in on the new suspension change. In short, all tables shipped since May will have an all air, no gel donut suspension. The new foot design allows the new foot to hold 3 times more air than the original (pre gel donut) air only design. It will require periodic topping off with air.
No offense intended Christian but the more I hear (not sure if I'm the only one?), the more it seems that this 150K table's suspension was an afterthought, not a forethought. That seems especially evident in light of the ultra-sophisticated Herzan that you own. The Herzan is only what $14K? How much work would it have been to incorporate this same sort of supension in the TechDAS? IIRC, even the Rockport had some sort of less sophisticated suspension. (some may also remember that Allen Perkins made a vibraplane-like platform for his turntables too!)
I also hope that the TechDAS air bladders work better than the ones VPI incorporated into their TNT model a few years back that leaked air and needed to be topped up pretty frequently. In fact, one had to keep one of those tire air pressure gauges around to periodically check the air pressure in the bladders. Got to be a PITA chore.
Hi Myles,
You can speculate all you want. I am glad they are refining the suspension. After thought ? I don't think so. By the way, adding air every few weeks is hardly a chore. Putting on an outer ring to flatten records for every play for virtually every other turntable out there is. I do appreciate your attempts to slam the TechDAS however...lol
I'm not actually slamming the TechDAS but I didn't know that the turntable came with special immunity from criticism.
As far as the bladders go, that'll be great if it's every month or so.
I think it will be interesting to see your thoughts after you get the table and are able to compare the table's suspension w/w/o your Herzan.
I believe Rockport had the Technical Manufacturing Corporation (TMC) adapt one of their air isolation lab-grade tables custom for the Sirrus tables. At the time it was state-of-the-art isolation. I asked, much earlier in this thread, how long it would be for one of the turntable manufacturers to do a similar thing with an active isolation platform incorporated in the base of a SOTA mass-loaded, non-suspended, turntable. TW Acustics, Brinkman etc.
Walker tables, of course, have air isolation incorporated in them. My suspicion is that a good $20K-$30K table on a $12K active isolation platform will outperform most existing tables. But that is just a guess. This may well be the next frontier in super-turntable design.
The TechDas seems to be a very ambitious design that attempts to address the isolation issue. Clearly the designer sees this as an important area of concern and the introduction of the TechDas will likely lead to other SOTA designers looking for solutions.
I don't see Myles at slamming the TechDas. Look at Syntax and TW Acustics for that. The Table is expensive and is certainly a complex design. This thread should be for asking questions and trying to understand a particular design. That is much more helpful and interesting than a thread that is simply a fan group advertising a new product. No product should be immune from questions.
garylkoh
WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)
The nipples for loading the suspension are easily accessed right from the front of the AF1. Hence, it should not be a chore to keep the pressure up.
I did not mean to imply that there is a problem with the bladders used in the Air Force One. The problem is that it is a physical reality that the material these bladders are made of will change due to exposure to the oxygen in the air. Then, the visco-elastic properties will change. With a perfectly elastic material, the stress/strain relationship is a perfect straight line. However, with a viscoelastic material, the amount of strain changes depending on load/unload.
The other problem is that the materials that are more impervious to oxygen, like silicon, are more viscoelastic than the materials like natural rubber. Natural rubber is the better elastic material to use, but as PeterA has noted, they will eventually deteriorate (like the ones in the Vibraplane and also the original Micro-Seiki). (I have the same paradoxical problem when selecting the surround of a driver.)
Myles did make a good point that there have been many changes in the suspension of the AF1 in such a short space of time. Kaizen - the principle of continuous quality improvement - is central to the Japanese manufacturing and design culture. It is also a philosophy that I adhere to. Winston Churchill said: "The maxim 'Nothing but Perfection' may be spelled 'Paralysis'." If TechDAS had waited for perfection before releasing the AF1, we would still be waiting.
Hence, I am glad to see that TechDAS are improving and upgrading the turntable when they receive feedback from their users. At CES in Jan, the AF1 I was using had zero compliance in the vertical direction (it was a US-specific suspension prototype design requested by Bob Graham and given to me to demo at CES). As a result, even moderate volume on my big G2Jr's in the room fed-back through the HRS rack. You could hear the resonant frequency of the frame of the HRS rack as a pinkish coloration. It might have been pleasant, but it certainly was not correct.
As luck would have it, I had the AF1 for more than a month before CES, and I designed a custom rack and platform for it. We compared the AF1 on the HRS custom rack, and on my rack, and Nishikawa-san approved placing the AF1 on my rack for the show.
By the way, I have no economic involvement in the Air Force One. I don't even own one - the amount I could put into buying a new toy - as my sister puts it - would be much better served putting into the design of a new loudspeaker. I am just an enthusiast - just as I post albums I find that I think are particularly good, I think that the Air Force One is particularly good...... or for the objectivists, replace "good" with "like".
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garylkoh
WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)
May be with the 16Hz-capable Genesis 2 Junior this close to the turntable rack, Nishikawa-san discovered marginal benefits to isolating down to the very low frequencies
I always thought the Kaizen principle was reducing a challenge so as not to induce the "fight or flight response."
http://www.amazon.com/Small-Step-Ch...ie=UTF8&qid=1373418582&sr=8-2&keywords=kaizen
May be with the 16Hz-capable Genesis 2 Junior this close to the turntable rack, Nishikawa-san discovered marginal benefits to isolating down to the very low frequencies
View attachment 10629
Great photograph! Is that a cork tile floor?
garylkoh
WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)
The album that got me to notice the changes to the system was this one. It was a superb performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 10 by Pollini. When the solo piano comes in after the orchestral prelude, the timing and touch conveyed such a great depth of feeling and emotion that it took our breaths away.
garylkoh
WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)
I always thought the Kaizen principle was reducing a challenge so as not to induce the "fight or flight response."
http://www.amazon.com/Small-Step-Ch...ie=UTF8&qid=1373418582&sr=8-2&keywords=kaizen
Funny, Myles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen
garylkoh
WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)
Thanks. The floor isn't cork, but it does have more "give" than hardwood. I'm not sure what it is made of but I could make a dent with my thumbnail.
Bruce B
WBF Founding Member, Pro Audio Production Member
This may be stupid, but why don't these devices, like turntables and active suspension, use Nitrogen like we use for our equipment in the hospital? You don't have to worry about moisture and drying out seals. The large tables in the labs use it and I think they even use it in tires as well.
No I'm serious. It is something that is used in human behavior modification. If you look at the Wiki piece and then were to read the book, you would see they are really one and the same. People often resist large changes in behavior; the belief is that the challenge is so great as to invoke the brain's fight or flight response (primitive brain). The book talks about how to reduce the challenge and make it easier for people to change their behavior/habits.
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