Here’s the news for this month. First off, I recently received a sample of the newest iteration of the Vinyl Cleaner Premium (US$3599) from Audiodesksysteme Gläss. It just landed two weeks ago, so I haven’t had time to give it a big slice of my attention. Since returning from Denmark and Sweden, I’ve been running lean. It’s back-to-school time for Marcia and young Toni. Marcia is starting a new administrative position with her school board that promises to be hella stressful, and I’ve been taking on lots of support duties on top of producing content like this.
Record cleaning without getting your hands dirty
So, I delegated. Call it a cop-out; call it brilliance. I trotted the Vinyl Cleaner Premium over to neighbor Ron’s place, and asked him to figure the thing out for me and run it hard for a couple of weeks. We unboxed it and gave it the once-over, getting it ready for use. It’s smaller than I expected, tidy in construction, businesslike, conservative in appearance and appointments. Ron is retired and somewhat obsessive, with well over 1000 records, so this task gave him a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Thus far he’s cycled about 40 records through the thing. To maintain a sense of chain of command, I soon decided to pop over for a spot inspection.
I’ve been listening to a fair bit of the Tragically Hip these days. August 20 marked the tenth anniversary of the Hip’s final concert in Kingston, Ontario. As I’ve mentioned on repeated occasions, that concert was the culmination of a Canadian coast-to-coast tour that we all knew would be the last—Gord Downie, the lead singer, was dying of brain cancer, and there was genuine concern from the whole country about whether he could complete all of the shows.
The last concert was televised live, and one-third of Canada tuned in. The CBC (Canada’s publicly owned national broadcast network) aired it again for the tenth anniversary on August 22. Marcia and I watched it straight through, much of the time studiously trying to ignore each other’s tears.
So the Hip has been in regular rotation. Back to my point: my Road Apples reissue, pressed on red vinyl, is really noisy. Lots of pops and snaps, and a fair bit of rumbly surface noise on top. So I headed over to Ron’s place to run it through the Audiodesksysteme Gläss. I’ve cleaned it before on my VPI Cyclone, but I hoped a good ultrasonic blasting would dislodge some deep-down particulate.
Ron was exceptionally pleased with the machine, and it was easy to see why. It’s fully automatic, far quieter than my VPI, and it’s got a great combination of cleaning actions—spinning microfiber brushes along with an ultrasonic emitter.
The results on that Hip record were promising. The surface rumble was definitely diminished, and I’d say the pops were reduced by about half. It was an improvement, but sometimes you just get a noisy record, and that’s what this one is.
Next week I’m bringing the Audiodesksysteme Gläss back to my place, and I’ll give it a solid workout and start work on a full review.
Closer to the heart
I’ll caution here that if you’re not a Rush fan, you’ll find this section a bit boring, so feel free to skip ahead; there’s more news down below.
I am chuffed beyond imagining to report that the start of Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab’s Rush reissue cycle has begun. This is a timely announcement, given that Rush is currently back on the road with a new drummer filling in for Neil Peart, who died back in 2020 of the same brain cancer that killed Gord Downie. As you may have heard, MoFi has obtained the rights to reissue Rush’s first 11 studio albums, and most of them will be released in the format of the company’s premier One-Step boxed sets. As you may know, I am a huge Rush fan. A mold of Geddy Lee’s nose holds pride of place on my equipment rack, and a photo of my great-grandmother reveals a startling resemblance to Geddy himself—when my mother first saw the photo of Geddy on the A Farewell to Kings album, she was astonished. “That’s my grandmother!” she exclaimed. We might actually be related.
I’ve looked through the list of titles, formats, and release dates, and it’s interesting to reverse-engineer MoFi’s thought process. The first three albums, the self-titled Rush, the follow-up Fly by Night, and Caress of Steel, are slated for production as 45-rpm double-LP records, but from 2112 right through Signals, the records will all be UltraDisc One-Step releases. Let’s unpack that.
Rush came to popular attention when a Cleveland radio station received positive listener feedback after playing the track “Working Man” from the band’s first record. So the album already had a narrow fan base, but it was far from a mainstream hit. Fly by Night had some commercial success via the title track, but it’s not where the band really took off. Caress of Steel nearly ended Rush. It was a commercial flop that almost led to the cancellation of their contract. They had one more shot at it, and they hit the ball out of the park with 2112. MoFi’s choice of formats reflects this trajectory.
The six albums after Caress of Steel are the meat of Rush’s discography. From 2112 through Signals, Rush produced their best work, and I suspect MoFi’s decision-makers feel the same way. The following two albums, Grace Under Pressure and Power Windows, also won’t be One-Steps, cycling downward to 45-rpm two-LP releases. They’re solid albums, but not what made Rush great.
MoFi’s record-cutting lathe (photo provided by MoFi)
I’ve written about several MoFi UltraDisc One-Step records—most recently the fabulous Van Halen boxed sets. These are full-on deluxe packages with high-quality jackets, delicious rice-paper sleeves, and excellent pressings—flat and silent. Most importantly, the sound quality of MoFi’s remasters is superb. Van Halen is a demonstration-quality record, one that I still play on the regular when I’ve got large, powerful, hard-rocking speakers in the house.
The most recent Rush remasters, which came out around eight years ago, were really, really good—better than the original Anthem pressings, for the most part. But referring back to those Van Halen UltraDiscs, which sounded so much better than the original releases, gives me high hopes for what MoFi might accomplish with these Rush albums.
The first two records—Rush and Fly by Night—are now shipping, and A Farewell to Kings is imminent. I’m hoping to receive all three albums, and damn straight I’ll be writing about them in this column.
A new type of drive?
The SoundStage! mailing list was abuzz a month or so ago when we received a provocative press release: Esoteric Launches the T‑01 “Esoteric MagneDrive” Turntable. Before noon, I’d gotten four separate emails asking if I was going to review this thing. At first glance, I had to admit it looked tasty—a squat, substantial chunk of machined metal with an equally substantial birthday-cake platter. From the appearance alone, I could tell it was expensive. That’s not new in the world of high-end turntables; there are a ton of big, juicy turntables with killer curb appeal out there. But something seemed to be getting the SoundStage! worker bees all wound up, and likely it wasn’t just the looks or the price.
I took a closer look at the press release and discovered what was getting everyone lathered up. It seems the T‑01 uses a unique type of drive for the platter. This isn’t a totally new concept. Esoteric first incorporated its MagneDrive motor into the Grandioso T1 turntable, introduced back in 2022, but I missed that one, and it’s likely most of us at SoundStage! did also. The Grandioso T1 is dramatically more expensive than the new T‑01, which retails for US$50,000, £41,999, or €48,000, and we do have a bunch of value hounds on staff, which means that the really crazy stuff only gets a few eyeballs on it.
But this T‑01. Like I said, when the gossip reaches a critical mass, it pulls everyone in. So I went deeper into the T‑01’s specifications, but with more urgency than I usually devote to a fresh-baked press release. There’s a fair bit going on inside this turntable. Besides the sexy-looking chassis and platter, it’s the tech that stands out. That MagneDrive thing is fascinating.
It seems Esoteric uses a rotating DC motor located outboard of the platter, but the motor doesn’t touch the platter. Instead, Instead, there is a cylindrical-shaped magnet on the top of the motor, and the magnet’s north and south poles create an alternating magnetic field that acts on the platter’s soft iron perimeter; the motor’s internal magnet is only for motor rotation. So the motor does not touch the platter, and there’s no belt, which means—I’ll say this again for the people in the back—the motor is totally isolated from the platter.
I think it’s fair to say that, until the introduction of the MagneDrive-driven Grandioso T1, there were really only three types of turntable drive systems. You gotcher belt drive, you gotcher direct drive, and you gotcher idler-wheel drive. For now, we’ll ignore idler-wheel drive systems, as they’ve largely fallen by the wayside.
Both belt- and direct-drive ’tables employ conventional electric motors, which—for the most part—use electric current flowing through coils to create a magnetic field that interacts with another magnetic field, producing torque and causing the rotor to spin. AC induction motors do use electromagnetic induction, obviously, so there’s some parallel to the T‑01, but it’s a far different implementation. The takeaway is that with both belt- and direct-drive turntables, the motor is mechanically coupled to the platter. The T‑01’s motor is isolated from the platter, which bodes well for transmitted noise.
I don’t want to go into too much detail on the T‑01, as there’s a sample incoming, and I think I should keep my powder dry for the review. This promises to be a very interesting assignment.
. . . Jason Thorpe
jasont@soundstagenetwork.com
