Need advice on new TT

I have the old Nottingham Analogue Mentor, which is said to be inferior to their new Dais. The NA Dais is near the top of your price range.

It is surprisingly close to my DIY air bearing TT. As to the big Technics, I was at the local launch, and they had a motor on display. When I held it to my ear and rotated the spindle, I could hear (albeit faintly) noise from the sleeve bearings. On this basis, not the audition (sounded God-awful to me, with the setup they had), I suspect that the Technics is inferior to a good belt drive.

If I were buying off-the-shelf, I would definitely consider NA. YMMV.

NA Mentor (and almost certainly the Dais) also goes very well with the Trans-Fi air bearing tonearm, perhaps the best bargain in high end. Uses standard parts and clever engineering instead of custom machining - keeps the cost down, ~$1K.

Dave and Troy,

best wishes with the Onkk Cue.

when you actually have a production product, and that end product has been compared directly against some credible competition, then we should all take notice. i agree on paper it looks promising.

and until you have a production product and have pricing, it’s not relevant to this thread. remote chance of this ending up close to $20k USD.

i think your efforts and communications here are premature.

we all benefit when a great turntable comes to market. so again, i wish you the best. i'll be at Axpona in April and RMAF in October and i will watch for it for sure.

we signed up to be the Onkk importer on the spot after hearing the table at the New York audio show, the sound of the table was extraordinary it took a pair of speakers we never loved and produced a three dimensional sound field with deep propulsive bass with an almost non existent level of surface noise,

How is it possible to indicate in Onkk all these qualities in an unknown environment such as that of an exhibition?
This sonic quality could be attributed to the whole audio chain!

Viryat, we would be happy to compare a Cue to the Dohlman any day of the week.

Belt drive turntables will never sound as good as a properly designed direct drive, all belts have slippage, and will wear over time. 

Another issue with the Dolhman is that its plinth is a solid piece of metal in a air filled metal box, the plinth incorporates a Minus K vibration system which is great to keep  surface borne vibrations from exciting the table, except that any vibrations being produced by the motor or bearing would be hard to remove with this design. 

A solid plinth filled with proprietary composites, means that the table will absorb any noise from the bearing and motor which makes a very quiet table with maximum information retrieval.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ