Turntables, Arms & Cartridges

With the small black grommet in place under the acrylic platter’s spindle hole – ensuring precise alignment with the alloy sub-platter underneath – the TT level 2.1DC achieves a swift 2-3 second start-up and a fine absolute speed accuracy of –0.06%. The servo system keeps low-rate drift to a minimum, or at least lower than with most DC motor solutions we’ve tested, holding peak-wtd wow to 0.03% and higher-rate flutter to 0.08%, the latter with discrete sidebands at ±28Hz [see Graph 1, below]. The stainless steel bearing, running on a hardened steel ball, realises a –69.5dB rumble (20Hz-20kHz, DIN-B wtd, re. 1kHz/5cm/sec) with a very slight improvement to –69.9dB through-the-groove with the Delrin puck in place. These are not state-of-the-art figures but are very fine indeed for a complete deck/arm solution priced below £2000.

Talking of which, the partnering titanium-tubed tonearm is a statically balanced design with lightweight gimbal bearings offering minimal play and with very low stiction/friction of ~10mg. The alloy headshell is not detachable but may still be loosened for azimuth adjustment and then locked tight – it adds to the medium 11g overall effective mass but the arm still remains ideal for use with most MM cartridges and higher compliance MCs. The thin-walled but very rigid main tube pushes the primary bending mode up to 130Hz with a harmonic, or twisting mode, at 215Hz and higher-Q resonances at 420Hz, 580Hz and 850Hz [CSD waterfall, Graph 2]. The latter look to be related to the square bearing yoke and other metal appendages – Takumi might look to add some additional lightweight damping within the straight tube – but this is otherwise a very ‘clean’ design offering the prospect of good alignment. PM