Turntables — European Audio Team (EAT) FORTE

The Forte is a belt-drive deck made by European Audio Team, known as E.A.T., a company that also designs the tonearms and phono stages used with its turntables. It combines mass loading with a decoupled sub-chassis and places its motor unit in a separate housing beside the main plinth. A factory-fitted E.A.T. tonearm is included.

Key specs that matter

Speeds are 33.33 and 45.11 rpm with electronic selection. Speed variance is 0.09%, wow and flutter is 0.008% and signal-to-noise is -73 dB. The platter is 400 mm in diameter rather than the usual 300 mm, weighs more than 20 kg and stores about 2460 J of kinetic energy at 33 rpm. Two AC motors in the outboard unit drive it, and power consumption is 2 W from an external 16 V/1000 mA AC supply. The complete deck measures 700 x 250 x 440 mm and weighs 65 kg.

Engineering and use context

E.A.T. describes the Forte as a system for absorbing energy from every source. The main chassis is MDF filled with metal sand to damp airborne vibration. Large magnetic feet with their own stabilisation act as the sub-chassis and decouple the deck from the surface below. The platter combines a soft alloy and a hard alloy to limit the flow of energy through it, and the soft part carries neodymium magnets that lift most of the platter's weight off the bearing. This allows a ceramic ball running on a Teflon plate, a pairing that would normally wear quickly under such a load, and bearing pressure is adjustable. A layer of vinyl melted onto the top forms the record surface, with TPE damping beneath it. A thin silicone string replaces the usual flat belt to avoid the wobble of long belts. The motor unit uses a circuit that regenerates clean AC, and its twin motors and mass-loaded housing absorb their own vibration. The tonearm base is heavy metal isolated with sorbothane.

Pairing

Because of its mass, the platter takes longer than a light design to come up to speed. The deck needs a shelf or platform that can carry its full weight and width. Low-output moving-coil cartridges and a phono stage with adjustable MC loading are common partners at this level, and E.A.T. makes its own E-Glo phono stages.

Alternatives

E.A.T.'s Forte S is the single-chassis version with a 55 cm footprint and the motor drive built into the plinth.