The ONEDOF Turntable--The New King of the Mountain?

It takes a lot of nerve to introduce a $150,000 turntable to the audio world, even more so when you're a new company with no prior track record. Aleks Bakman, an engineer who "designs and builds airplanes" at his day job, had done exactly that. (Think SME, which got its start in aviation engineering as well.) I've been Facebook friends with Aleks--a kind, thoughtful and enthusiastic man--for a while now, and he made sure I listened to this precious and impressive gem while I was at CES 2012.

At first glance, the ONEDOF turntable (which stands for One Degree of Freedom) doesn't look like a $150,000 turntable. Most of the super 'tables from the likes of Continuum, Clearaudio, Rockport and Goldmund are massive pieces of machinery with integral stands and additional components such as huge power supplies and speed controls. The ONEDOF is a self-contained TT, one that fits neatly on the top of most equipment racks. This is not to dismiss the ONEDOF as small or simple or overpriced--Aleks has informed us that the cost of making the ONEDOF is quite high, and the figure he quoted implies that his margins are not inflated one bit. In addition, the ONEDOF is a beautiful, gleaming machine that contains quite a bit of new technology under those shiny surfaces.

The ONEDOF was placed in a system that was quite impressive, even by CES standards. You know you have a hell of a system when the Wilson speakers you're using (the $68,000 Maxx3) are one of the most affordable components in the chain. Imagine this: over $197,000 worth of LAMM amplification, over $92,000 worth of Kubala-Sosna cabling and over $55,000 worth of HRS equipment stands. Surprisingly, Aleks kept it relatively modest when he chose the arm (a $4900 Graham Phantom II) and cartridge (a $6500 ZYX Omega). I'd be tempted to use a Breuer arm and maybe a Koetsu, but I'm convinced Aleks has tested the ONEDOF with a large variety of arms and cartridges and knows best.

When I came into the room, Aleks was playing none other than "Stairway to Heaven"--at astonishingly low volumes. If I had a single reservation about the sound, it would be that the music was played at too low of a volume, something that Aleks said was under the control of the other people running the room. I kept wanting him to turn it up! But the paltry listening levels underlined the true strength of the system, since I was able to hear amazing levels of detail even at lower volumes.

It's hard for me to say, from my limited exposure to the system, that the ONEDOF was the reason why everything sounded so good. Every time I've heard a system with LAMM amplification, it was absolutely world-class in its ability to preserve musicality. The MAXX3s were so powerful and dynamic that I was surprised to learn they weren't the more massive Alexandrias or X-2s (they all sort of look the same). But when they switched to the digital front end--an impressive looking $25,000 DAC/transport combo from NeoDio, the entire system shrunk a bit and lost some of its presence, warmth and inner detail. The ONEDOF was definitely elevating this system into the stratosphere.

I had promised to visit Aleks before the end of the show and spend more time putting the ONEDOF through its paces, but alas, I was busy running my room and couldn't return. Aleks, who follows this blog, even prodded me to bring my favorite LP of the year (The Black Keys' El Camino) for a listen, but I'm sure that lo-fi masterpiece wouldn't even begin to let the ONEDOF truly shine. He did offer to let me review the ONEDOF, but Colleen and I were hesitant since it just didn't seem fair to evaluate a $150,000 turntable with the $30,000 or so worth of equipment we have on hand. Perhaps I can convince Bartolomeo Nasta to send me his Unison Research Absolute 845 amplifier and his gigantic Malibran speakers for the task.

Aleks hopes to get more coverage of the ONEDOF, so we'll wait and see how the reviewers with the supersystems react to this superb 'table. Do I want the ONEDOF in my listening room? Hell yes. Should I have one? We'll see. But even with my limited exposure to the ONEDOF, I can say it's one of the best-sounding analog rigs I've heard. The ease in which it lets the music flow is utterly rare, and I hope Aleks is able to take more time off from building airplanes to truly explore his talent for designing incredible and beautiful music-making machines.

For more information on the ONEDOF, please check out Alek's website at www.onedof.com. And if you're wondering what "One Degree of Freedom" means, Aleks says:

"The only one degree of freedom that my One Degree Of Freedom bearing leaves to the platter is the rotation about the straight line passing through the center of the Earth (which is my own definition of a vertical axis)."

The Vinyl Anachronist's Official 2012 CES Report

Since this was my first year at CES as an exhibitor, my coverage of the show is somewhat limited by the fact that I spent four days inside room 29-117 showing off gear from Unison Research and Opera Loudspeakers. I did venture out occasionally, but for the most part I was working--and having the time of my life--all through the show. You can read the Positive Feedback Online article for more on that.

My CES adventure actually lasted ten days since Colleen and I were responsible for driving--not shipping--all of our equipment to the show. As you can see above, we barely had enough room for our own luggage. Schlepping two pairs of floorstanding loudspeakers in your SUV definitely sucks up cargo space.

It's about 1300 miles from my front door to Vegas. So Day 1 got us to Tucson, Arizona, where we able to procure our second In-N-Out Double Double in as many weeks--not bad for two displaced native Southern Californians who ordinarily have to drive 200 miles to reach In-N-Out Land (i.e. Dallas). On Day 2 we hit Vegas just after noon since we had a very early start, and we picked up our Italian manufacturer, Bartolomeo Nasta, at McCarran at 3. We all checked into our vacation condo at the Wyndham, which was much bigger and cheaper than a room at the Venetian, and relaxed. Day 3 was set-up day, days 4 through 7 were show days, day 8 was breaking-down-the-room-and-then-going-shopping-day, and days 9 and 10 were spent driving back. We took a more northernly route on the way back home because we probably would have stopped overnight in El Paso, and if you've ever driven through El Paso on I-10 you'll know why we didn't want to leave $30,000 worth of audio gear in our SUV in a hotel parking lot overnight.

On set-up day I was amazed at the amount of product boxed up in the hallways of the Venetian. I saw a couple of pallets stacked with crates of Magico speakers, and I wondered how much the retail was on those two skids--a quarter million? More? It's one thing to see a ton of expensive gear at a trade show, it's quite another to see it all boxed up and ready to go.

As I mentioned, we brought two pairs of floorstanding speakers and they consumed most of our set-up time. I've gotten to the point where I can unpack an amp of a CD player and have it running in three or four minutes; 110 lb. speakers, on the other hand, require a bit more planning and a little more tenacity to retrieve the tiny yet important bits stuck to the bottom of the carton.

Seriously...I'm going to have to buy one of those poles with a "claw" on the end of it--you know, the ones short people buy to reach things on the top shelf. Those boxes are deep. (That's Bartolomeo, by the way, and not me. Everyone seems to love this pic.)

Surprisingly, it only took us about two hours to set-up the room and get everything dialed in. There were three of us, of course, and the other two have been doing this kind of work for decades. We were a finely-tuned audio machine. In other words, we were done by noon and had the rest of the day to ourselves. We did have one concern: the two speakers we demonstrated, the Opera Quinta and the Opera Seconda, were brand spanking new right out of the box. In fact, they are the first two pairs in the US ever. We had to get those puppies broken in as quickly as possible. Fortunately our room partners at Audience, who supplied the cables and power conditioner, had an XLO Sweep CD that worked wonders overnight.

We brought two systems' worth of gear, but only one would be actually playing in our room. What you see here is our $4495 Unison Research Unico 50 integrated amplifier (also brand new for the US), the $3895 Unison Research Unico CDE CD player (that one's my personal player, so it had plenty of hours on it) and the $5495 per pair Opera Quinta loudspeakers. Speaker cables, interconnects and power cords were all Audience Au24, and the power conditioner was the $5000 Audience aR6-TS. For about $20K, less than the equipment racks in some rooms, this system sounded fantastic.

The other equipment in the room, which could have formed another whole system and a half, included (from left to right) the $2150 Unico Primo integrated, the $2295 Unico CD Primo and the $2450 Simply Italy integrated--the latter which was also all-new for CES and the US. The other speakers, the $3995 per pair Secondas, were finished in a beautiful white veneer...and everyone forgot to photograph them because they were tucked in a corner. I'll see if someone else has a pic so I can post it. They're sitting in my dining room right now all packed up and ready to head out to a dealer, so I can't set them up real fast and fake it. You'd know.

The Audience guys--President John McDonald, National Sales Mananger Richard Colburn and design engineer Roger Sheker--also had their gear displays set-up in the room. It was funny how visitors to our room were split up between the Unison faithful and the Audience faithful. Nevertheless, the Audience cabling and power conditioning worked extremely well with our gear, and we've decided to share once again at the Jacksonville AXPONA show in March. They were absolutely great room partners and were enormously helpful. And Richard has great taste in music.

I know what you're thinking...no vinyl in the room? Aren't you the Vinyl Anachronist? WTF, Marc? Hold on there...we did bring our Giro turntable to the show. You just had to head down the hall to the Joseph Audio room to hear it. Most of you know I'm a huge fan of Jeff Joseph's loudspeakers, and I looked forward to hearing how the Giro would do in a non-Unison/Opera system. As usual, Jeff used Bel Canto electronics and digital sources, mated to his flagship Pearl2 speakers with Cardas Audio Clear Beyond cables.

But what's that cartridge on the Giro? Could it be...why yes, it is...the Hyperion cartridge from Soundsmith! That's the cartridge I've raved about, the one with the cactus needle cantilever. I've been thinking about buying another cartridge for my Giro (the Transfiguration Axia is probably leading the field right now), but I'm glad I got to hear this exquisite cartridge, one of my absolute faves right now, taking the Giro to the limit.

Most people wouldn't put a $7000 cartridge on a $3995 turntable/arm combo, but the Giro received a lot of love and respect in the Joseph room. I spoke with Soundsmith's Peter Ledermann again, and he's a warm, friendly yet brilliant man who makes a killer product. While I set up the turntable for Jeff, Peter came in afterward and mounted the Hyperion. I'm glad I didn't have to do it--I get a little nervous when I'm dealing with super-expensive cartridges. I'd hate to screw it all up with all those people watching me.

Once the show was underway, I did my best (along with Bart and Colleen) to show off our system. Feedback was uniformly positive, with many visitors remarking how great are system sounded for a relatively reasonable price. CES is different from most trade shows since the general public can't attend, so fewer people were coming in, sitting down and listening to music. Most of the time we were talking to prospective dealers, supplying product information to journalists and just hanging out with our industry friends. But nearly every visitor stopped at some point, looked at the system, and said something like "Wow, that's really nice!"

When the show was over, Colleen and I had several new dealers, some very productive meetings and quite a deal of coverage from the audio press. Bart was very happy at the end of Day 4, and told his father back in Italy that it was one of the best CES shows ever. For Colleen and I, it's on to New Jersey at the beginning of March for a dealer event at Audio Doctor, then straight to Jacksonville for AXPONA. This time, however, we're flying.

I'll have a few more blog entries concerning some of the things I saw at the 2012, so check back.

My First Piece for Positive Feedback Is Online!

My first piece for Positive Feedback Online, which chronicles CCI's adventures at CES 2012, is now online.

I'll have more posts documenting my adventures at CES 2012 as an exhibitor, and they will appear over the next few days. I have lots of news and a few interesting stories to tell, so check back.

All ready for CES 2012!

Our room at CES is set up and ready to go! In this pic we have the Unison Research Unico 50 integrated, Unico CDE CD player, Opera Loudspeakers Quinta, Audience adeptResponse power conditioner, Quadraspire rack and cabling by Audience.

Here's another pic of our room with the Unison Research Unico Primo integrated, Unison Research Unico Primo CD player and the Unison Research Simply Italy integrated.

If you're attending CES, please stop by and visit us at room 29-117 at the Venetian. You can also meet Colleen Cardas, my partner at CCI, and Bartolomeo Nasta or Unison and Opera.

Vinyl Nirvana's Top 10 Vintage Turntable Projects of 2011

David Archimbault of Vinyl Nirvana has just posted his ten favorite vintage turntable projects of 2011 here.

If you follow David's work at Vinyl Nirvana, you'll know he's one of the premier turntable restorers in the world. His list is full of the usual suspects from AR, Thorens and more. Unfortunately all of these beauties have been sold, but you can certainly reserve a 'table for 2012 by checking out his list of current projects which is listed on his website.

Enjoy!

Another visit with Dean Peer...

For the holidays, Colleen and I visited bass virtuoso Dean Peer at his home north of Austin. This was the first time I've seen Dean's home, which houses the studio in which he recorded last year's stunning album, Airborne. While the studio is tucked away in a corner of his house, it's still quite a sophisticated facility with sand-filled walls, a floating floor (also filled with sand) and plenty of room treatment. Dean uses a combination of a classic mixing board and digital software to achieve his innovative sounds on the bass guitar; he laments that the former will soon be obsolete, but he is determined to mix at least one more project on it.

A few weeks ago, I heard through the grapevine that Dean was working on some new material, and that a new album is probably in the works. Considering that Dean has recorded two albums in about twenty years, this is good news. Dean sat down with me and played a couple of the new songs, and they were quite different from what we've heard on Airborne and Ucross. What I heard was dark, moody and slightly sinister, but with a strong emotional undercurrent. For everyone who was surprised by the difference between his first two albums, you'll be even more surprised by the third.

At one point, Dean handed me a LP copy of the Dixie Dregs' Night of the Living Dregs from 1979 and asked me if I was familiar with it. He told me to take it home and listen to it and tell him what I thought. It turns out that Dean is planning to work with Dixie Dreg's bassist, Andy West, on the new project. It's been a few years since Andy played with the Dregs (he's a big-time software expert now), but it will be interesting to pair Dean's elaborate bass harmonics with Andy's more solid and fundamental sound.

Here are a few more pics from the visit. This is one of Dean's basses, the one featured on the cover of Airborne. You'll notice the "dp" on the fret; that's for Dean Peer, since this was made especially for him.

Notice the knob? Yep, that's a Cardas nautilus shell knob. Dean's association with Cardas Audio goes way back--they currently sponsor his shows, and he uses their cables throughout his gear.

These Meyer Sound studio monitors were interesting to listen to. As Dean said, "They're not much fun to listen to because they're so FLAT, but they're incredibly accurate." As I listened to him playing his bass through the mixing board and the Meyers, I was struck by the pinpoint imaging. It was strange to see Dean play a few feet to my right, and then have the sound from the strings placed so firmly between the speakers to my left. I certainly didn't think they were unpleasant to listen to, but they were very far from warm and romantic.

Here's the more modern side to Dean's recording studio...

...coupled with the more traditional side. As you can tell, Dean has kids.

And a healthy sense of humor.

And now my dog Lucy is famous, too. She was extremely curious yet well-behaved around so much expensive gear. Then again, she's used to it at home.

I'll keep you informed about the new album. I'm really looking forward to it!

Getting Ready for CES

Now that the holidays are pretty much over, it's time to get ready for the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Professionals in the audio industry are usually quite stressed out this time of year--even more than reg'lar folk--because we have to follow up Christmas with the biggest trade show of the year. I know people in the industry who don't even celebrate the holidays anymore because it just gets in the way of CES preparations. Bah humbug.

Colleen Cardas and I will be there, of course, along with Bartolomeo Nasta of Unison Research. We'll be running the Unison Research Room--it's room 29-117 at The Venetian--so stop on by and say hello. We'll be featuring two systems in the room (one active, one static) that will debut no fewer than four new products from Unison and Opera Loudspeakers: the Unico 50 integrated amplifier, the Simply Italy integrated amplifier, the Opera Quinta loudspeaker and the Opera Seconda loudspeaker. We'll also be featuring such established products as the S6 integrated amplifier, the Unico CDE CD player and the affordable CD Primo CD player.

We'll be sharing the room with Audience, who have supplied us with their premium Au24 line of loudspeaker cables, interconnects and power cords. Everything will be plugged into one of their adeptResponse line conditioners. In fact, I have all the Audience gear here at the house and I've been playing with it over the last couple of weeks. It's truly fine gear, and we're proud to feature it in our room.

You might be asking yourself, "What, no turntable?" While we decided not to feature the Giro turntable in our room, it will be making an appearance in the Joseph Audio room. Jeff Joseph, a good friend of ours, requested to use the Giro in his room (at Room 29-140 at the Venetian), and we didn't hesitate to say yes. Rumor is that he's going to mount one of the fine cartridges from Soundsmith (remember the company that makes cantilevers out of cactus needles?) on the Giro.

The 2012 CES will take place in Las Vegas on January 10-13. Feel free to stop by and say hello to Colleen, Bart and me!