The Hub: RMAF preview: cutting edge Analog, part 2/2


We spoke yesterday of the enduring misfit that is the LP record, and how, like Freddy Krueger, it just won't stay dead. Hardware designed to extract every last bit of info from those tiny grooves keeps getting better, more elaborate and more expensive.

The TTWeights "Christine" described yesterday was decidedly industrial in appearance. Today's table, the Swiss-designed Lumen White "Mystere", distributed in the US by USA Tube Audio, looks more like a cross between an Eames lounge chair and an Audi. Sorry, that's all I can come up with. It is obviously a precision device, but does pay attention to its aesthetic impact.

Retailing at $98,000, the Mystere should cover all the technological bases, and does. It features a "proprietary, direct coupled drive train", which presumably means it's direct drive. Main bearing is an air-bearing, and the compressor looks serious enough to provide astronaut life-support for EVAs.

Speed-control is handled by a logic drive controller with "16 million times per rotation resolution". Really? Fifteen million wasn't good enough? The platter spindle is centered accurately (radial run-out) within 1 micron. Yikes. All the specs indicate a serious attempt to not just provide good specs, but to improve existing standards by an order of magnitude. Or two.

Lumen White's speakers have relatively lightweight cabinets, designed to quickly release impulse-energy; the Mystere follows that same philosophical path. At nearly 100 pounds, though, one wonders what the Mystere would've weighed had they chosen to make it massive! Incidentally, the controller/compressor weighs in at an additional 100 pounds.

As was true of the TTWeights Christine, the Mystere comes without a tonearm. It's interesting to speculate the kinds of arms that these two companies could come up with, but,hey: that's the kind of thinking that keeps a product from EVER getting to market.

USA Tube Audio will be showing the Mystere (mystery solved: pronounced mys-TEER) in room 1117 at the Marriott, Friday through Sunday at RMAF. Drop in, and tell Charlie we sent you.

Showing 1 response by buconero117

Perhaps a look at the Rockport shown in the New York Times article on Thursday related to the work Sony is doing to capture sound from old 78's is worth a look. Seems there is a lot of stuff out there without tape masters, so Sony goes to the records themselves. Serious Sony is. Great picture of 'real' gear being used to get the last bit of sound from a record. Hopefully Sony will give us a list of all the gear, including the cartridges/phono amps being used.