Esoteric’s $50,000 T-01 turntable uses magnets to spin records

Turntables are supposed to hiss and hum a little. It’s part of the deal. Esoteric’s new T-01 breaks that deal by swapping out its belt for a magnetic field, letting the platter spin in near-total mechanical silence.

The Japanese audio maker calls the system MagneDrive and the T-01 is its second act. The idea first appeared four years ago in the Grandioso T1, a flagship model priced around $86,000, which was less a turntable than a high-priced proof of concept. The T-01 simplifies that original design and installation and comes with an included arm for $50,000 in the US or €48,000 in Europe, still comfortably in exotic hi-fi territory. Buyers who already own a gun they love can opt for the naked T-01AL, for $46,000.

Esoteric’s proposition at that price is ambitious: a vinyl playing experience so clean it’s indistinguishable from the studio master tape or a high-resolution digital file. The goal is to “create a musical experience where listeners feel like they are experiencing the real performance, whether they are listening to an analog record or a high-resolution digital source, without being aware of the difference in sound quality caused by the medium,” Esoteric brand manager Hiroyuki Machida tells me over email.

Inside the T-01, the motor is topped with a dome-shaped rotor, surrounded by alternating magnetic poles. The plate, machined from non-magnetic aluminum, has a soft iron ring on its bottom, a metal that is instantly magnetized but forgotten the moment the field advances. The rotor turns and its changing field rises and drags the iron ring along with it, and the entire platter along with it, without the motor and platter ever touching.

“A cartridge acts as an extremely sensitive sensor,” says Machida. “The signal it picks up is amplified at very high gain before reaching the listener’s ears. Therefore, even at weak levels, if the noise generated by the drive motor is mixed with the music signal, the resolution of the record’s playback is reduced. If that noise is removed, the result is an incredibly open and emotional sound.”

Esoteric couldn’t resist adding a second magnetic trick. A system called MagneFloat uses neodymium magnets (the same powerful everyday magnets found in headphones and hard drives) to take some of the bearing weight off the platter’s center shaft. Full magnetic levitation, maglev train style, was technically on the table.

“Since the MagneFloat magnets we used are powerful neodymium magnets, 100% magnetic levitation was technically possible,” explains Machida. “However, on a turntable, it is crucial to maintain the geometry of the three points, the arm pivot, the axis and the stylus, in order to accurately reproduce the musical source. With 100% magnetic levitation, the geometry of the axis relative to these three points could become unstable.”

The platter weighs 13 kg (approximately 29 lb) and the MagneFloat reduces its effective axle load to 5.5 kg (approximately 12 lb), slightly more than the 4 kg (approximately 9 lb) configuration used in the original Grandioso T1. “Increasing the floating magnetic force of the platter and reducing the load on the shaft creates a more open sound, but the sound also tends to become a little lighter,” notes Machida.

The motor itself runs on a smooth three-phase sine wave current rather than a forceful pulsed signal. With the old approach, Machida says, “the rotor inside the motor spins in a ticking pattern, like a quartz watch,” while the sine wave motor allows it to “spin smoothly, like a mechanical watch,” reducing what engineers call gears.

Getting that waveform accurate enough required a BNC input for an external 10 MHz master clock, taken directly from recording studio equipment. With this, Machida explains, “the sound became more precisely focused and the soundstage expanded.”

The entire set, including the independent power supply, weighs about 42 kg (approximately 93 lb), and the turntable is housed in an aluminum and wood chassis. “The combination of aluminum, which produces a natural tone, with wood, rich in mid and low frequencies, results in a neutral sound quality with solid mid and low frequencies, reminiscent of a master tape,” says Machida.

As for where the money actually goes, Esoteric’s brand manager insists it’s not research and development. “Thanks to the great success of our first model, the Grandioso T1, we have recovered the development costs necessary to obtain the patent.” Instead, he points to work. “Most of the cost comes from finishing processes, such as machining the platter and chassis and applying the piano finish to the middle of the chassis,” work he considers significant manual labor.

Whether all that engineering translates into audibly better sound remains, for now, Esoteric’s claim. The T-01 is expected to leave the factory and reach buyers between late September and early October, allowing the world’s audiophiles to discover it for themselves, provided they’ve made their peace with the price first.

Source: Esoteric