Vinyl fantasy
TechDAS Air Force IV
Price: £19,998
The turntable poses a tricky engineering challenge. A vinyl record is placed on top of it and, upon that, a needle that runs in grooves to produce the tiniest of vibrations, which in turn generate a very sensitive, low-level signal. Even the slightest of external tremors will impact the sound in some way, and huge amounts of effort have been expended by high-end audio companies over the years to neutralise these effects.
One ingenious strategy employed by Japanese firm TechDAS is to harness the power of air. The Air Force range was the brainchild of the brand’s founder, the late engineer Hideaki Nishikawa, who designed some of the much-lauded (and still sought-after) Micro Seiki turntables in the 1980s. The platter of the Air Force IV is substantial – 9kg of solid aluminium – but when you press the 331/3 or 45 buttons on the unit and the platter begins to rotate, it’s actually floating on a thin layer of air produced by a silent electric pump. No friction, no vibration, no noise.
