Does any Audiogon member have a Holbo air-bearing turntable?


I am fascinated by the Holbo air-bearing turntable with its linear tracking air-bearing arm and air bearing platter system.  I have not read an unfavourable review, and many reviewers recommend it as a reference-level turntable at an audio bargain price.

If you have one, what has your experience been like?  What country are you in?  Is yours the Mk1 or the Mk2?  What was the set-up experience like?  What cartridge(s) have you used, and what would you recommend?  How do you keep it clean?  Has it been reliable?

Looking forward to hearing real-life experiences!

richardbrand

Whart, you mentioned null points and antiskate in connection with linear trackers. In LT tonearms, the stylus is constantly at a null points, there is no skating force and no need for antiskate. However nothing is ideal and for some LTs the stylus travels in tiny arcs across the LP, in which case there would be a tiny skate force constantly changing in direction (toward the spindle then toward the outer grooves, back and forth). It would be impossible to correct for that and not worth the trouble.

@lewm 

The problem you are writing about does not apply to the Holbo air bearing LT tonearm. The Holbo tonearm is an air bearing that floats on the air, has no friction and the needle is always exactly in the middle of the groove.

@lewm you stated: for some LTs the stylus travels in tiny arcs across the LP, in which case there would be a tiny skate force constantly changing in direction (toward the spindle then toward the outer grooves, back and forth).

Curious which LT arms do the above? 

@frazeur1 

getting the foundation right with the table upfront is best anyway

I asked Bostjan what his turntable is sittng on.  He told me he has a big block of Medium Density Fibreboard weighing 20-kgs which sits on four Sorbothane 50-mm hemispheres.

I got a chance to weigh one of my sandstone slabs, and my estimate of 20-kgs was wrong - try 27.5-kgs.  Two of these plus the turntable will exceed the rating of 60-kg per shelf for my SolidSteel S3-3 rack by about 7-kgs.

It was an interesting exercise with Sorbothane working out what size, shape and "durometer" to choose.  Their Engineer in Ohio suggested four 1" disks, each 1/2" thick with Durometer of 70, giving a resonance around 12-Hz.  This would be roughly where I would expect arm resonance to occur.

The local distributor had stocks of 50mm hemispheres in Durometer 50, so I have ordered eight - another A$100 down the gurgler!  My guess is the natural resonance will drop to around 3-Hz if I use them all.

My partner has had a cancer scare with one of her hemispheres, durometer unknown, which has delayed me going home and setting up the Holbo and hence delayed my report back to you.  I can say that the ordering and delivery process was seamless.  The box just arrived, no customs interaction, much quicker than I expected and exactly as Bostjan had promised.

On another thread about cartridge tracking weights, there was a reference to an Audio Technica webpage with a link to a cartridge review.  I was thrilled when I learned that it was reviewed in a Holbo Mk2

To respond to a few questions: I am aware that the Holbo air bearing arm is likely not traveling in tiny arcs across the LP, depending upon the stiffness of the air bearing to prevent that, and I assume it is stiff enough.  LT tonearms that are much more prone to do that jig across the LP surface are the servo controlled ones, like the original Rabco SL8 and copies thereof, including the Goldmund T3F and I think the Revox LT tonearm on the Revox TT.  There may be others. These rely upon a motor to pull the pivot, which is riding on a solid rail, across the LP. To activate the motor, a tiny switch is situated so as to sense when the stylus tip gets minutely ahead of the pivot. The switch makes contact and then activates the motor which pulls the pivot a minute bit ahead of the stylus and then switches off, etc. The Clearaudio LT which once had another name that escapes me, and which has virtually no arm wand, as I recall relies upon gravity to help the cartridge traverse the LP.  The platter is dished toward the center.