BURMESTER CELEBRATES ITS 40TH BIRTHDAY WITH A TURNTABLE

There’s just something about Burmester.
Handmade. In Germany. Luxury. Class. Prestige. Their displays at Munich’s High End Show each year are hands down, simply breathtaking, and usually span multiple rooms upstairs and stands in the halls downstairs. The 2017 display was no exception.
Standing room only in the main Burmester room across all four days.
You can rely on Burmester to bring the luxury supercars to Munich each year.
The brand renowned for its range of precision electronics celebrates its 40th anniversary this year with its first-ever turntable.
The Burmester 175 is clearly not your average vinyl spinner. This inaugural model is a total package comprising a phono stage, tonearm, matching cartridge and power supply.
What’s more, Burmester makes every piece of this exquisitely built turntable in casa.
As befitting its high-end heritage, the Burmester 175 has a Rolex watch like finish and the comprehensive design includes a hefty metal plinth and a heavy platter.
But it’s no ordinary platter. Machined from solid blocks of aluminium and brass it features an anti-resonance construction that comprises two outer aluminium layers and in-between, one made of brass.
Burmester lines the platter with a layer of bitumen to dampen the whole assembly even more.
Burmester’s products have an enviable reputation for reliability. The 175 will only add to this heritage with a close tolerance bearing built to not require a stich of maintenance throughout what will clearly be a very long working life.
As a measure of the bearing’s quality, one small spin of the platter sets it revolving silently for hours.
To keep the platter’s torque at robust levels, Burmester employs four drive motors. That’s right, four motors.
This quartet of motors surrounds the sub-platter at strategic points and uses multiple belts to distribute the forces acting on the main bearing more evenly. A multi-motor design also delivers spot on speed and a very fast start up.
As you’d expect from Burmester, the 175’s power supply is overkill but also sophisticated and designed to ensure spot-on rotational speed even if the mains power is fluctuating.
The 9-inch tonearm chosen for the 175 has a tube made from a blend of carbon and aluminium to break up resonances. The bearing is a hybrid machined from steel and ceramics.
The 175’s phono stage is hardly an afterthought. Its circuit is derived from Burmester’s acclaimed 100 - standalone phono stage and is silent and hum free.
The Burmester 175 turntable is hardly a lightweight. It weighs 60kgs and is supported by three solid, magnetically isolated feet.
A high-end model with a high-end price tag, the Burmester 175 is expected to cost about 30,000 Euro, however local pricing has not yet been announced. It will be released at the end of this year.
For more information visit the Burmester brand page.

Marc Rushton
StereoNET’s Founder and Publisher was born in England and raised on British Hi-Fi before moving to Australia. He developed an early love of music and playing bass guitar before discovering the studio and the other side of the mixing desk. After writing for print magazines, Marc saw the future in digital publishing and founded the first version of StereoNET in 1999.
Posted in: Hi-Fi
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