Eiger Update

Last week, we made a major breakthrough. Vibration breakthrough noise is now at near Gavia levels.

Frankly, I questioned the possibility of accomplishing this. Direct and rim drive turntables have always had an impressive sense of pace and drive, but to our ears, they have an intolerable blurring in the mid and upper bass region which congests the presentation and destroys the nuance in the performance. In and of itself, it is not objectionable, but we've always found that eliminating this blurring to be a revelation.

The blurring comes from vibration breaking through to the bearing and platter in these single chassis designs. In addressing this problem, we did not want to take the approach of encapsulating a separate motor pod inside the main chassis. We've demonstrated that this works well with the Gavia and Stelvio, but the Eiger is supposed to be compact, and simple to unpack and set up.

Recent accomplishments:

Last week, we successfully tested a new isolation mount which reduced motor transmitted noise as noted above.
Last week, we met with our motor manufacturer. The current drive system produces stunning results (and in some ways, is better than the Gavia and Stelvio), but it behooves us to explore their suggestions.
Last week, we met with a fabricator of cast bases. We discussed prototyping and the production schedule. Material samples are arriving next week and vibration and structural analysis will begin.

Next up:

Complete prototyping of our rim drive tensioning system. I don't believe anyone has taken the approach we're taking. It is elegant in its simplicity.
Order bases for prototyping and evaluation.
Begin platter development and prototyping. This may well be our simplest task. We've used Serac and Gavia platters in our early experiments and we've confirmed that our accumulated knowledge has transferred well to the Eiger's architecture.
Prototype and qualify possible controller redesign revisions for inclusion in the Eiger.

Bargain Bin

There are some stunning deals currently in the 'Bin. You can pick up a remanufactured Serac for barely more than the price of a drive system upgrade. Those of you who have queried me about drive upgrades for your non-Galibier turntable should take note!

Click here for details on the following items:
http://www.galibierdesign.com/bargain.html

Two Gavia Mk-I Turntables upgraded to Mk 1.5 status - starting at $5,995 (includes $2,295 in upgrades)
A Serac Turntable for $2,395
Durand Talea
Adona Zero GX4 Rack
Loricraft PRC-4 record cleaner
Serious Stereo Passive, Switched Attenuator

... and more.

Armboard Alert

We are about to place the following announcement on the website:

"Mk 1.5 armboard upgrades for the Gavia-I and Stelvio-I are out of stock, but may be ordered during a semi-annual purchase cycle. Legacy/Mk-I armboards are available for your Gavia-I and Stelvio-I. Contact us to schedule production of your v1.5 upgrade."

We receive too few queries to justify maintaining inventory. If you're interested in a Mk 1.5 armboard upgrade, contact us.

Depending on the number of responses we receive, we may be able to schedule a production run soon, and offer a volume purchase discount to you. This discount is a one-time offer.

These sliding armboards represent an upgrade that borders on that of our recently released drive system. People have trouble believing that … until they install them, and then they tell us that we under sold their value.

Why you need one:

The noise floor is dramatically reduced - even beyond the Stelvio-I armboard with its damping cylinder.
The lower treble is cleaned up, and bandwidth at both frequency extremes is extended.
Precision of adjustment: there are two set screws which allow fine adjustment of your pivot to spindle distance. 1/8 of a turn moves the armboard .004".

Here's a recent testimonial:

"After all that, I had a couple of hours of serious music listening on Saturday afternoon and wanted to let you know how pleased I am with how everything sounds. The motor controller worked great, the arm board is in place and the magic happened. Precise imaging, clear presentation, everything that I was anticipating. Thanks for your dedication to the hobby and my personal enjoyment." Read more here: http://www.galibierdesign.com/reviews.html

Two things to consider:

If your armboard has a protruding arm stub or its tonearm cable exits from below (Artisan, Graham, etc.), your Gavia-I / Stelvio-I will need a machining operation. Look at the photo of the machined cavity in the Gavia on the Bargain Bin (http://galibierdesign.com/bargain.html#gavia). Tonearms like the Schroeder, Durand, and Tri-Planar do not require a base modification.
You sacrifice dual tonearm capability.

Tonearms - New Kid on the Block

We've been searching for a tonearm to mate with the Eiger. Unquestionably, you will appreciate the quality rendered by the finest arms by Durand, Schroeder, Kuzma, Moerch, Tri-Planar, etc. The Eiger is showing its pedigree to us, and no tonearm is too good for it.

Another entry for your consideration is James Grant's tonearms: Analog Instruments in New Zealand: http://www.analoginstruments.co.nz/

We learned of A-I from one of our customers whose opinion we value and we'll have more to say about them when we receive delivery of one. The Elementum 12" tonearm is currently priced at 2,250 NZD. Yes, the Eiger accommodates 12" tonearms.

Equipment Stands

Developing the Eiger mandated that we run a dual rig in the same system - so we may better compare it against the gold standard - a Stelvio-II. We've designed a stand which may become a Galibier product. This depends on customer response, and you get to vote with your dollars.

The photo at the left is the proof of concept (all shelves still under development), and the photos of the dual turntable rig (two turntable shelves / three stands) will be on the website later in May.

We're curious about your first impressions and requirements.

We've placed our old workhorse - an Adona Zero-G up for sale on the Bargain Bin at a very attractive price (http://galibierdesign.com/bargain.html#adona).

Drive Belt Update

Our long term listening is leading us back to "plastic" belts, of either Mylar or Kapton. The primary difference between the two lies in Kapton's durability and not its sonics. Kapton belts are specified for the drive belts in airplane flight recorders (the "black boxes"). A manufactured Kapton belt is seamless (no splice) and is similar in price to a manufactured Mylar belt.

You can order these belts directly from the manufacturers. There are now links to three suppliers in the "Drive Belts" section of our support page (http://galibierdesign.com/supt_belts.html). I am about to experiment with alternative thicknesses to the .002" thick belt we've been evaluating (similar thickness to the holographic Mylar). I seriously doubt that anything thicker than .003" will be optimum, although I wonder about narrower and thicker (i.e. .375" wide and .004" thick).

Standard width of the Mylar belts is .500" and most of you are running a 46" circumference, but you may want to change this according to your shelf size.

I would begin by trying Mylar and if you find that you like the change "back" to plastic, only then would I order belts made of Kapton. Their price is approximately $45 - direct to you. We would have to charge you more, and we don't receive volume discounts due to the labor intensity of the manufacturing process which entails precision grinding.

Note: the change to either Mylar or Kapton (which are approximately .033" thinner than the fabric belts) will require that you "re-calibrate" your controller - an operation that requires a small, jeweler's screwdriver. I won't explain the physics or the process here, but contact me if you're interested in experimenting.

The knowledge about the effect of belt thickness on drive ratios is somewhat obscure, but a search on "belt thickness and drive ratio" will turn up various calculators & you'll note that belt thickness is one of the parameters.

The Customer is NOT Your Beta Tester

The Eiger is finally revealing itself to us. The past two weeks' breakthroughs are the culmination of four months' development.

I've learned that your creations take on a life of their own, and the Eiger is no exception. Since early this Winter, its message to me has been: "Make me rim drive, and give me your best effort."

You are not the beta tester:

Exploring rim drive architecture has impacted our release schedule, but when have we ever let a schedule compromise quality? One key tenet at Galibier is that the customer is not our beta tester. If this lengthens the development process, then so be it. You've come to expect nothing less from Galibier than stable, mature product releases and this will never change.

Heirloom quality:

Eiger development honors another of our guiding principles - creation an heirloom quality product. At every step in the design process, we ask a critical question: how will this turntable behave 40 years from now?

Two examples of this philosophy are the rim drive "pulley" and its tensioning system. Frictional contact with the platter is achieved with o-rings (easy to replace), and its automatic tensioning system does not use springs (nothing to wear out). Forty years from now, you won't be hunting down an obscure part.

You already know about the Galibier bearing, and we will not compromise this on the Eiger.

Why rim drive?

In my Dagogo interview, I was quoted:

"I viewed optimizing a belt drive architecture to be a challenge that could be solved in the simplest, most elegant and balanced manner – a solution which would also result in ease of maintaining manufacturing quality and precision. Addressing the issues with direct and rim drive were far more complicated, with no expected up-side. "

I must be bored and looking for a bigger challenge, or alternatively listening to the Eiger because it is, after all screaming "rim drive" at me. I was correct when I stated that designing a rim drive is more complicated, but this does not imply a complex design. The Eiger is revealing itself to me as elegant and simple. I like this …

Everything I've learned about turntable design was required to take this challenge on, and yet at the same time, I needed to throw it all away. I'm reminded of advice given to a young musician - learn all of your scales, theory, and musical fundamentals … and then throw them out and play music.

Two key factors led me toward rim drive:

Noise transmission travels primarily from the motor, through the chassis, and into the bearing. This noise must be addressed at the source, especially in a single chassis design, and irrespective of drive architecture.
Design of a belt tensioner can be more complicated than a rim drive tensioning system. Because of the single chassis architecture (no moveable motor pod), a belt tensioner is mandated to adjust stiff belts. You didn’t think I was considering rubber belts, did you?