{"id":39805,"date":"2023-06-15T16:27:33","date_gmt":"2023-06-15T20:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tedpublications.com\/fr\/?p=39805"},"modified":"2023-07-11T11:26:14","modified_gmt":"2023-07-11T15:26:14","slug":"thorens-new-reference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tedpublications.com\/fr\/en\/thorens-new-reference\/","title":{"rendered":"Thorens New Reference"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fully integrated active vibration isolation by Seismion<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Fully integrated active vibration isolation by Seismion<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Erikson Consumer, Home Division is happy to share the news from one
\nof our distributed brands: Thorens is introducing The Thorens New Reference turntable.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

We are very proud to present this worldwide innovation for the 140th<\/sup>\u00a0anniversary of Thorens<\/strong> during the High-End Show<\/strong> in Munich, says Thorens<\/strong> Owner and Managing Director Gunter K\u00fcrten<\/strong>. The Thorens<\/strong> New Reference<\/em> Turntable will be available in limited numbers beginning early in the last quarter of the year with a price of $355,000\u00a0CAD, including the stand and two tonearms. With this being said, those interested are highly encouraged to join the waitlist.<\/p>\n

The Thorens<\/strong> New Reference<\/em> is the result of the company\u2019s strive for the perfect rendition of music recordings. The electrical signals in the turntable are created by mechanical vibrations of the stylus of the cartridge while it moves along the grooves of a vinyl record. These vibrations are converted into sound.<\/p>\n

In exactly the same way, all other mechanical vibrations of the turntable are processed and lead to distortion and other unwanted effects. For example, sources of these vibrations consist of building vibrations, people walking around, the sound waves of the music and self-generated vibrations from the turntable itself. Since it is not possible to distinguish between the actual music vibrations and parasitic disturbances, these must be avoided as much as possible.<\/p>\n

The Thorens<\/strong> design team led by Helmut Thiele<\/strong>, who are responsible for the construction and design of the new Reference<\/em>, have taken on this challenge.<\/p>\n

Collaborating with the German company Seismion<\/strong>, internationally renowned for its class-leading active vibration isolators, Thorens<\/strong> has been able to create a turntable that is designed and optimized from scratch with a fully active vibration isolation system. Seismion<\/strong> fully exploited its expertise in active isolation systems used for semiconductor industry, nanotechnology and scientific laboratories, to create a vibration isolation never seen and experienced in turntables before.<\/p>\n

The active vibration isolation is based on piezoelectric acceleration sensors with an extremely high sensitivity, and an all-linear electronic control circuit to generate unrivalled low noise- and distortion-free control forces. This sophisticated mechatronic system is based on so called Sky-Hook-Damping <\/strong>and isolates disturbances already below 1\u00a0Hz and reduces them to less than 1\u00a0% (-40\u00a0dB) at frequencies of 10\u00a0Hz and above. Such a performance is far superior to any other isolation (figure\u00a01). This figure shows the comparison of the active isolation system\u00a0– Sky-Hook-Damper<\/em>\u00a0– and a high-performance Air Spring<\/strong>. Especially at the critical frequencies around the resonance, the active isolation has a performance which is up to 100\u00a0times better. At 10\u00a0Hz it is still about 17\u00a0times stronger isolated than with an Air Spring<\/strong>. Other dampers like rubber mounts are on a much lower performance level and not shown in this comparison.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The overall system is designed in a way that the centre of gravity\u00a0\u2013 COG<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>– is close to the plane of isolation. In this way, the coupling of horizontal vibrations and tilting motions are greatly reduced (figure\u00a02). Furthermore, the chassis itself is made non-resonant by its layered structure of highly damped materials.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

The result of the vibration isolation is simply pure music like one has hardly experienced. The effect goes far beyond the simple elimination of foot-fall vibrations. In fact, even tiny vibrations in the range of a nano meter down to a pico meter are still efficiently isolated, due to the contact-less actuators. The system also follows music with high dynamics between quiet and loud sequences extremely quickly, since the active control forces stabilize the system and lead to an instantaneous settling time of the isolation system. An adaptive levelling system, which keeps the turntable precisely levelled within 20\u00a0micro meter completes the active isolation system.<\/p>\n

Drive unit with innovative plater absolute-velocity-damping by Seismion
\n<\/strong>The other fundamental part of every turntable is the drive unit. The ultimate goal is to realize the perfect and constant rotation speed of the platter. This concerns both the absolute speed and modulations of the speed around the mean value also called wow and flutter.<\/p>\n

The Thorens<\/strong> New Reference<\/em> features a high-quality German-made 3-phase synchronous motor, which is driven by three all linear power amplifiers with 120\u00b0 shifted sine signals. The motor torque is transmitted to the platter by a belt (figure\u00a03). The hydrodynamic bearing is optimized by use of lubrication theory equations. In this context the Sommerfeld<\/em>-number is used, which describes the thickness of lubrication film and the diameter of the bearing. This number is named after german physicist Arnold Sommerfeld<\/strong>, who conducted several fundamental research in the field of hydrodynamics. A small Sommerfeld<\/em>-number means the bearing is centered already at very low rotation speeds, which minimizes the wear and ensures minimum out of center errors like eccentricity and whirl. The hydrodynamic bearing is made and hand-finished in Germany.
\n\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Together with the innovative active damping technique,<\/strong><\/em><\/span>
\nthe belt-driven approach has several significant advantages:<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Unlike Direct Drive<\/em> systems, the turntable platter is isolated from the drive motor because of the elastic belt. The high inertia of the platter is therefore efficiently utilized and helps to passively remain a constant velocity of the platter. Moreover, any fluctuations from the motor are strongly supressed by the platter\u00a0\/\u00a0belt second order low-pass characteristics.<\/li>\n
  2. A common disadvantage of belt-driven systems is the potential resonance of the platter, which is observed as wow and flutter. The rotational inertia of the platter forms together with the elasticity of the belt an oscillatory system. The resonance frequency is typically about 4\u00a0Hz, but depends on the actual parameter values of the system. The orange graph in figure\u00a04 shows a peak around 4\u00a0Hz, where all disturbances are strongly amplified. This means that the rotation speed of the platter is no longer constant, but modulated with 4\u00a0Hz around the mean velocity. This effect is known as wow, and highly undesired, especially since the human ear is most sensitive to this frequency range. Figure\u00a05 displays the weighting curve as described in DIN\u00a045507 or IEC\u00a0386. The maximum of this weighing unfavorably coincides with the typical resonance of the platter\u00a0\/\u00a0bearing system. Vibrations of the platter are excited mainly by the friction in the platter bearing, by a not perfectly circular platter, by irregularities of the belt and by slip between the belt and platter, which is necessary to transmit the torque from the motor. The orange graph sharply drops of for higher frequencies. This is the desired effect of the platter inertia.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"\"<\/a>The Thorens<\/strong> New Reference<\/em> features an innovative and highly effective active damping system by Seismion<\/strong>. The deep knowledge and experience with sky-hook-damping systems featured in the active vibration isolator Reactio<\/em> are used for the all new active damping approach of the platter.<\/p>\n

    The rotation speed calculation of the platter is based on two ultra-high-precision quartz-oscillators with a long-term stability of max. 3\u00a0ppm over 20\u00a0years, allowing for a safety cross check and reliable speed control over the life time of the New Reference<\/em>. In fact, it means that the absolute speed remains within a range of 33.3332 to 33.3334\u00a0rotations per minute over 20\u00a0years.<\/p>\n

    The signal of the high-precision rotation encoder, which is mounted on the platter-shaft, is fed into the control electronics, which realize an absolute-velocity-damping of the platter. The effect might be compared to a highly viscous platter bearings, that are commonly used in belt-driven turntables. However, the active damping system designed for the Thorens<\/strong> New Reference<\/em> has several advantages compared to passive damping techniques realized by viscous platter bearings:<\/p>\n