TechnologyDTD® (Dura Turn Diamond® Bearing)

The bearing is the heart of every turn­table. Although the bea­ring design is of such great impor­tance, its deve­lop­ment – from the view of physics – is often charac­teri­zed by impre­cise to wrong approa­ches. Any conven­tional bearing that is con­fronted with a heavier platter is extremely sensitive in terms of hand­ling. It also faces a mecha­nical chal­lenge that is mainly to be found in the contact area of the thrust plate and bearing ball. In other words: the combi­nation of the high platter weight and the very small ball sur­face causes an enor­mous pres­sure in the very small contact area, which simply pushes the lubri­cating oil away.

The result: too much friction, too much noise, too much vibra­tion and rapid wear. Analo­gists seeking sal­vation in an ‘inver­ted bea­ring’ are mis­gui­ded by a mar­keting trick: the main source of noise within a con­ven­tional bearing design is located at the pivot point of the platter axis and the thrust plate, about 4 inches away from the record. By inver­ting the bearing, this noise source is taken closer to the platter direct below the vinyl surface and thus into the activity area of the cartridge – defi­nitely not a good idea. More­over, this ‘reversal’ causes a veri­table lubri­cation problem thanks to gravity: the oil is floating away at the contact surface.

When we intro­duced our Tidor­folon® Bea­ring in 1997, we imme­diately recei­ved enthu­sias­tic feed­back: made of a very inno­vative material com­bi­na­tion, the Tidor­folon® Bearing was hard enough not to be affec­ted by the high mass of the platter and soft enough to with­stand even a ‘dropped’ plate without any damage. Another high­light: the mate­rial mix is able to absorb the oil like a sponge and release it when needed. In other words: the oil cannot be pushed away; the lubri­cation is always there when needed. Refill oil? Not neces­sary! Reple­nish­ment? Not neces­sary! Main­te­nance? Not neces­sary! Audio­philes and the specia­list media world­wide have cele­bra­ted this extre­mely robust and low-noise bearing as a bench­mark-setting innovation.

What’s the improve­ment of the DTD® Bearing: we suc­cee­ded in redu­cing the already imper­cep­tible noise level cau­sed by mecha­nical move­ment even further, thus making the famous back­ground when liste­ning to music even blacker. We achie­ved this by using newly deve­loped sinter-bushes that can store three times the amount of lubri­cating oil. The design of the spindle was also put to the test. Our aim was to mini­mize its surface contact and the resul­ting noise. So, a vacuum-hardened stain­less-steel spindle is grin­ded precisely and then subjec­ted to an elabo­rate plasma coating. The result is a spindle with a dia­mond-like sur­face coa­ting that com­petes with the hardest material on earth and redu­ces the friction coeffi­cient by 60 percent!

The Dura Turn Diamond® Bearing is a super-rigid and virtually ‘indes­truc­tible’ bea­ring that crea­tes the best possible condi­tions for abso­lute high-end sound and sets news bench­mark in terms of main­te­nance, low noise and service life – backed by a 15-years warranty. The DTD® Bearing is manu­fac­tured for each turn­table in the Acoustic Signa­ture NEO series in an indivi­dual version adap­ted to the respec­tive turn­table.