Weihong Audio held the China premiere of Einstein's new Aerolith Reference flagship vinyl turntable at the 2024 SIAV
On April 12, 2024, at the 31st Shanghai International Advanced HiFi Presentation (3rd Floor-Hall 2 of Shanghai New Jin Jiang Hotel) at the Shanghai SIAV 2024 Shanghai International Advanced HiFi Presentation (Hall 2, 3rd Floor, Shanghai New Jin Jiang Hotel), Nanjing Weihong Audio and Einstein (Einstein) released the blockbuster new Aerolith Reference flagship vinyl turntable (China premiere), and his wife came to the event, which is very important. The event was co-hosted by Liu Yuhong, editor of "Best Audio", and Duncan, who learned about and explored the technical components of the new products with industry media and enthusiasts.
Einstein(爱因斯坦)创办人Volker Bohlmeier先生
At the beginning of the event, Brother Liu introduced the origin of the name of the product Aerolith, which translates to "meteorite" in Chinese, has the characteristics of ultra-high quality and suspension in space, realizing the characteristics of eternity and ideal against gravity, and Einstein has also given this feature to the new flagship Aerolith Reference vinyl turntable.
"The Best of Audio-Visual" Brother Liu
Volker introduced that the Aerolith Reference vinyl turntable is the ultimate ideal turntable masterpiece that it has honed for 30 years, until it is finally launched, and the total weight of the turntable includes the base specially designed for the turntable to weigh 80kg, which has many of Volker's ideal designs. In order to make the Aerolith Reference turntable have the characteristics of eternal suspension like a meteorite, the turntable and the base are designed with a self-inflatable air pressure pad, similar to the air pressure tires of a car (front 2 and 1 rear), so that the vinyl turntable can achieve "air floating" on the whole platform, this unique patented technology has excellent damping and decoupling characteristics, which can effectively eliminate the interference of various vibrations on the vinyl turntable. At the same time, the turntable structure is not a monolithic plate, but a T-bracket, so it is very good for eliminating vibrations.
Between the turntable and the base, there is a user-inflatable air cushion footholder
Underneath the air pressure pad is a base, which is an integrated design, the base adopts a sandwich structure, an aluminum alloy frame, with a cork layer material, with excellent damping effect, and at the same time, the base and the turntable can achieve a high degree of completion of the setting, so it is very easy and friendly to the settings required for different user environments.
The pneumatic cushion base uses a "high-density" sealing element to provide an extremely strong seal that retains the same air pressure even if it is not inflated for one year. In order to ensure that the air pressure applied by the user is appropriate, there are two indicator scales on the pillar above the air pressure pad, and when the pillar rises between the scales when inflated, and then the absolute level of the platform is adjusted through the pillar thread. Underneath the air pressure pad is a base, which is an integrated design, the base adopts a sandwich structure, an aluminum alloy frame, with a cork layer material, with excellent damping effect, and at the same time, the base and the turntable can achieve a high degree of completion of the setting, so it is very easy and friendly to the settings required for different user environments. The turntable part is designed in the form of "hard disk", so that the overall structure of the vinyl turntable realizes the advantages of "both soft and hard".
As we all know, air flotation has a significant effect on shock absorption, and some well-known vinyl turntable brands in the world specialize in "air flotation" treatment for turntables, and carry out uninterrupted air pressure supply by external air pumps. Volker is well aware of the many problems and shortcomings of this scheme, such as the external air pump not only increases the complexity of the vinyl turntable and the cumbersome degree of peripheral accessories, the operation of the air pump can not be free of noise and various pulse negative feedback, and more importantly, the air pump is easy to break, so he adheres to the traditional bearing scheme, and specially designs the bearing structure, adding double-layer ball locking bearings at the top and bottom of the bearing to ensure that the bearing is not loose, so as to solve the occurrence of turntable shaking. The top ball, on the other hand, is larger and at the same time plays a heavy role in supporting the heavy metal turntable vertically. Volker confidently states that the bearing has an extremely long life, no maintenance, no oil, lifetime maintenance and can withstand heavy operating turntables (50kg), which is very expensive to manufacture for core components that are mainly in motion for long periods of time and have a significant impact on sound quality.
A detailed explanation of the specially designed bearing structure
The turntable is combined with an outer and inner turntable, which combines to achieve a flywheel effect and further reduce resonances. The two turntables are ground with high precision and locked together by friction. The outer turntable is fixed to the inner turntable with suction, so that the entire turntable is absolutely centered and the weight distribution is completely even.
The Aerolith Reference vinyl turntable is a single motor combined with a belt drive. Volker says that multi-motor causes unwanted noise, vibration, and interference. It is advisable to use a single, "very low" torque (5mN) low-speed motor, and at the same time add springs to the motor as the first stage of decoupling, and the transmission of a soft belt as the second stage of decoupling, to ensure that the negative vibration interference is reduced to the extreme. The motor has a built-in Class A power supply mode, when the speed reaches the standard and constant speed, the power supply will be cut off, and the inertia of the large mass turntable will operate for a long time, and the speed will be continuously monitored by the optical pulse sensor, and the power tracking supply will be realized. This design effectively eliminates the need for control loops that can adversely affect the WOW and flutter spectrum.
Mr. Zhou Lucheng, the person in charge of Weihong Audio, added more technical details about the base of the new Aerolith Reference turntable on the spot
The whole turntable is made of an outer layer and an inner metal structure, the outer layer is aluminum alloy and the inner layer is steel
The Aerolith Reference vinyl turntable can only use a maximum of two tonearms, and in terms of tonearm vertical adjustment, VTA is an important element of tonearm adjustment, Volker introduced that VTA adjustment is only up and down vertical adjustment, through the unique design of the ball locking, so that the tonearm only realizes up and down vertical adjustment without the occurrence of cartridge shift, and can be adjusted while playing without the need for needle lifting. The tonearm base is an eccentric circular wooden block, equipped with different woods, and the tuning can be changed.
In terms of VTA adjustment, a unique ball locking design is adopted, so that the tonearm can only be adjusted vertically up and down, and there is a clear anatomical diagram on the spot
The top of the turntable is designed with a concave position, and when the vinyl record is used in combination with the record town, the record is attached and flattened, and the effect is no less than the effect of "air suction", and the record will not be "sucked to death". All of these conceptual requirements may seem simple and basic, but most of them are based on the exact precision of metalworking. Volker then walks us through a number of vinyl recordings, showing us clean sound, great analysis, excellent low-frequency dynamics and realistic sound.
In the final demo, Volker showed a number of interesting recordings, which made the whole event more relaxed, and everyone also directly felt the clean and analytical characteristics of the new Aerolith Reference turntable