It’s not often I find a vinyl-related product that intimidates me. Turntables, no matter how large or complicated, generally distill down to simple components with known operating principles. Perhaps the most complicated products out there are air-bearing turntables and tonearms, but even these are fairly easy to understand and operate. The air-bearing platter floats like a hovercraft, and the air-bearing tonearm is a tube that rides in a sleeve. Not that hard to understand, right?
Over at the Golden Tulip Hotel, I came face-to-face with an air-bearing tonearm that I’m still not sure I fully understand. The Air Force 10 from TechDAS looks a lot like a traditional gimballed tonearm, but one that’s built to go into space—all billet titanium, tungsten, and stainless steel. It retails for €45,000 (all prices in euros).
There are mechanical bearings in the Air Force 10, but the supplied air pump provides pressure that floats the horizontal bearings. The vertical bearings are mechanical in nature but are limited in their range of motion. The air pump also operates the cueing arm. Air pressure overrides a spring that provides lift to the cueing device. When the lever cuts that pressure, the spring lifts the arm.
Tracking force is complicated. It’s based on spring pressure, but the tracking force can be varied based on arm position as it crosses the record. I’m still a little hazy on how this works.
The complete analog front end consisted of the Air Force 10, the TechDAS Air Force III Premium turntable (€40,000), and the new flagship cartridge from My Sonic Lab, the Signature Diamond (€13,000).
Fronted by the TechDAS ’table and arm, this system sounded fantastic—insert every audiophile cliché you can dredge up. However, the complexity of the Air Force 10, and the cognitive dissonance that its unfamiliar design inflicted on me, flummoxed me, so I neglected to note the supporting cast.
While this is an incredibly ambitious, great-sounding tonearm, I will not be asking for a review sample. The Air Force 10 is just too complicated to fit into my system—or my worldview.
Jason Thorpe
Senior Editor, SoundStage!
