NEW VINYL BRANDS JOIN ABSOLUTE SOUNDS’ UK DISTRIBUTION PORTFOLIO
As vinyl’s resurgence continues, High End UK HiFi distributor adds turntable manufacturer Thiele and cartridge maker Analog Relax to its roster of brands.
High End UK distributor Absolute Sounds, already have carefully selected vinyl brands in its portfolio including Döhmann, Reed and TechDAS. Now they have added German turntable and tonearm producer Thiele and Japanese phono cartridge maker Analog Relax.
THIELE
Thiele’s founder, Helmut Thiele, has held the position of chief designer at turntable specialist Thorens for more than 10 years and has worked with an impressive array of brands including Acoustic Research, Marantz, Mordaunt-Short, Parasound,Pioneer and Tannoy.
Three years ago, Thiele launched the first products under his own name – the TT01 turntable and TA01 tonearm. He began developing the tonearm in 2009, creating multiple prototypes before finally perfecting its ‘zero tracking error’ design. When the matching turntable was ready, both were made available to analogue aficionados in Germany in 2021.
THIELE TT01 TURNTABLE
The TT01 turntable features ‘constrained layer damping’, its internal construction divided into three levels to ensure that interference from the drive motor is kept away from the tonearm and cartridge.
THIELE TA01 TONEARM
The partnering Thiele TA01 tonearm combines the precise guidance of a pivoted arm with the advantages of a linear tracking design, delivering a lateral tracking angle error of less than 0.036 degrees. The arm tube consists of two coaxially arranged carbon fibre tubes, one inside the other, with a special damping gel filling the space between them.
The TA01’s headshell and the coupling struts of the arm bearing incorporate ebony wood, favoured for its acoustic damping properties, the turntable’s spindle is also made of ebony.
MADE IN GERMANY
The Thiele TT01 turntable and TA01 tonearm are made in Germany and now available in the UK for the first time via Absolute Sounds. The UK RRP for the TT01 in its standard anthracite finish is £24,500, including the TA01 arm and RM01 resonance-damping platter mat. Custom finishes using any colour from the RAL colour matching system may also be requested.
The TA01 tonearm can also be purchased separately to use with other turntables, with prices ranging from £11,500 to £15,000 according to connection type and a choice of aluminium or gold-plated bronze metal parts.
ANALOG RELAX
Yasushi Yurugi, the founder of cartridge maker Analog Relax, is a Japanese craftsman and analogue crusader. He makes phono cartridges with bodies carved from exotic woods selected for their acoustic properties.
EXOTIC WOODS
There are four cartridges in the Analog Relax range, all moving coil designs. The entry-level model is the EX300 (£2,698), sporting a body made from beeswax-finished walnut – a tonewood used for guitars – and an elliptical diamond stylus. The EX500 (£4,998) steps up to Romanian maple, favoured by violin makers for its tonal qualities, with an enhanced version of the EX300’s elliptical stylus. Next in the range is the EX1000 (£10,998), its body fashioned from 2000-year-old Yakusugi cedar from Yakushima Island. These trees are protected by law and wood must be sourced from trees that have already been felled, adding to its rarity. This is combined with Analog Relax’s Super Line Contact Version 2 diamond stylus and ruby cantilever.
Top of the line is the new EX2000 (£15,000), featuring a body carved from the finest spruce from the South Tyrol region of Northern Italy – a tonewood highly prized by stringed instrument makers since the time of Stradivari. An ultra-fine powder coating is applied to the surface of the cartridge body. Its stylus is the Super Curve Line Contact Version 3, a further evolution of the Version 2 stylus used for the EX1000, combined with a precision-machined diamond cantilever.
“Vinyl has once again become a vital part of the high-end audio scene, with strong demand for ‘forever’turntables that will do full justice to a treasured record collection and become timeless heirloom pieces. But if we were to add to our vinyl replay portfolio, which already includes such peerless luminaries as Döhmann, TechDAS and Reed, it had to be something very special… We scoured the world and trialled many highly reputed brands, some of which are truly impressive. But none stirred our souls as much as Thiele and Analog Relax. Both these makers apply unique creativity and engineering for the sole purpose of achieving world-class analogue sound – without question, they have emphatically succeeded.”
Ricardo Franassovici, Absolute Sounds’ founder and Managing Director
HiFi PiG Says: fantastic news for UK vinyl fans and a great pair of additions to the Absolute Sounds’ portfolio.