Проигрыватели виниловых дисков — Genuin Audio drive

The drive is a belt-drive turntable from Genuin Audio, the German maker of analogue components and active loudspeakers, designed by Helmut Thiele, who has forty years of experience as a designer. The current version replaces a single-motor predecessor and uses three motors. Genuin offers it with its own point tonearm, sting cartridge and a built-in version of its pearl phono stage.

Key specs that matter

The drive runs at 33 1/3 and 45 rpm, selected on an illuminated keypad, with fine speed adjustment by potentiometer at the rear. Three identical encapsulated synchronous motors turn an aluminium sub-platter, each through its own round belt and POM pulley. The platter and sub-chassis are made of POM. The main bearing is a 10 mm plain bearing with a tungsten-carbide ball running on a Delrin thrust plate. The sub-chassis hangs on three torsion-bar springs tuned at the factory to 4.5 to 5 Hz. The armboard is 15 mm acrylic, and a LEMO socket in the armboard feeds XLR and RCA outputs. Power comes from an external stabilised supply.

Engineering and use context

Placing three motors at equal distances around the sub-platter balances their pull, so the main bearing carries no sideways load from the belts. A dedicated amplifier circuit drives the motors from a central high-precision frequency generator, which sets the speed independently of the mains. Each torsion-bar spring consists of two stacked plates whose friction damps movement, and a rubber element connects it to the sub-chassis. All three springs share the same resonance, and their height can be adjusted from underneath to compensate for heavy record clamps. The tonearm base is bolted firmly to the acrylic armboard while the rest of the board is decoupled. The plinth is a POM sandwich with side panels of CDF, the hardest grade of MDF, in real wood veneer, an aluminium front in silver or black, an acrylic top, an aluminium base plate and a multiplex motor mount, and it stands on three Thixar damping feet. The point tonearm with an 18 mm arm tube can be fitted, and the pearl phono stage can be installed inside, either at purchase or later, with switchable RIAA, Decca and Columbia curves and 20 dB of headroom.

Pairing

The drive is designed around Genuin's point tonearm and sting cartridge, and the integrated pearl phono stage turns it into a line-level source. Without the phono option, the LEMO output connects to any external phono stage through XLR or RCA.

Alternatives

The drive is currently the only turntable in the Genuin Audio range.