ELP laser turntable - any comments?

Userchallenged,

The Walker isolators contribute the least amount of weight in this set up, just a few pounds for sausage sized PVC tank, some hoses and three pods. Holding them in my hands last year, I would guess the whole thing at 20 pounds.

The Walker base is probably 200 pounds and the platter is 75 pounds. Then there's the air bearing, tonearm, motor, motor controller and the platform.

I tried to get Lloyd on the phone for an accurate answer, but since he just returned from vacation (7K miles on a motorcycle !)he's been swamped.

Userchallenged and Albert, initially the Walker used Valid Points. I imagine that you could go back to them.

Eldartford, how good is the Halcyonic? Ideally, it would be nice to try both.

Tbg...I never used it for audio, but the task of eliminating ripples in a dish of Mercury is a real vibration isolation challenge, and the Halcyonics table came through with flying colors. At the time I thought that it would make a great base for a turntable. Now I understand that someone is marketing it to audiophiles.

Are you suggesting an A/B test against the Minus K ? ! ! :-)

Eldartford, Yep!

The Minus K vs Halcyonics would be a great test! Interestingly, they are based in Menlo Park, only a stone's throw from me (in San Jose). I'm wondering if Halcyonics would be open to providing a loaner for the test.

What's the Halcyonics cost? I need to dredge up what I paid for my Minus K BM-1 as part of the comparison.

Does anyone in A'gonville have one?

I noticed that the Halcyonics has a max payload of 220 lbs. On the other hand, the Halcyonics has a torsional stiffener, and the Minus K does not. Not sure how critical the torsional stiffener is, but when I talked to Minus K about this before I purchased the BM-1, they said it would be possible to add torsional stiffness/isolation to the BM-1 if I found it to be necessary. So far I've been fine without it.