When a music lover is looking for a first class turntable, the claim should go first towards inherent musical qualities, the second thought should make him aware of how this claim has been accomplished. The solidity of a turntable is an obvious must. As only mechanical stability combined with extreme precision allow that musical transparency that goes beyond the usual. It is now 15 years that we are handbuilding and improving our turntable BALANCE. Our aim is to combine timeless beauty, extreme sound quality and perfect workmanship.

This effort has been rewarded as the Image Hifi assigned the gold medal for turntables to our BALANCE at the Millenium Awards.

The turntable is available in black/brass and black/high grade steel finish. The supply includes chassis, tonearm base specifically drilled out for the tonearm to be used, platter, record clamp, motor with switch unit and a transistorized power supply for the bearing temperature control and the motor as well as tools for adjustment, cables etc. Additionally available are as options: separate tonearm bases, a tube-driven power supply and a sandwich support made from aluminium / granite or a complete stand.

The chassis is milled from a 40mm strong dural-sheet and features the intakes for the bearing and tonearm base. A special clamping technique enables the user to change to other tonearms, each one installed on it's own base, within a few moments including the most precise adjustments. The intake for the tonearm base fits like a draw-in collet and can be fixed or loosened via a single screw. This allows the user to adjust the effective length of the tonearm with the base being allowed to be rotate freely.

Surely the most precise element of a turntable is the bearing and especially with the BALANCE it was most important to drive its 20kg platter without any reeling. The necessary precision can only be obtained by working on the temperature dependance of the material. We have managed to reduced the temperature dependance of our material close to zero via the use of a specific electronic temperature control. A power-mos-fet, installed beneath the bearing, produces with the help of this control circuit around 15 W power dissipation that are needed to generate a stable temperature, which in turn guarantees an absolutely smooth rotation of bearing and platter.

The tonearm base can be supplied with various different intakes, according to the needs of the customer, possible tonearm lengths are 9...10.5 inches. It is possible to lead the connecting cable of a tonearm directly out of the base or to have two phono sockets mounted. The record platter is machined from a massive block of special aluminium that exhibits low resonances due to the defined contents of lead and copper. The 90mm height of the platter and a firmly inserted crystal glas disk allow for a total absence of resonances.

The crystal glas disk provides an extremely smooth and even surface and a record clamp for the safe fixing of the records is included in the supply. Through a plastic ring in the center of the platter the record is raised slightly and pressed back onto the disk through the record clamp at the outer rim of the label. Thus permitting a very good contact between record and platter and allowing a fast transfer of the tracking resonances from the recod to the disk.

The motor with its switch unit is placed on its own beside the chassis-platter combination. A motor control especially developed for this turntable drives a Pabst motor electronically at the exact speeds 33 and 45 r.p.m., both speeds can be fine adjusted independently via two rotary switches. A precisely machined round belt transfers the motor drive to the platter.

The turntable comes with its own transistorized power supply, but is best driven by our optional tube power supply, allowing for the clearest mains source available. Normally the motor is driven from the same supply that feeds the heating of the bearing, when the tube power supply is switched in, the motor is automatically driven from this power supply, the transistorized one remains for the heating.