EQUIPMENT REPORT ELECTRONICALLY REPRINTED FROM APRIL 2010 Bauer Audio dps art dudley turntable Bauer audio dps turntable DESCRIPTION two-speed belt-drive turntable. Motor: three- lthough LPs remain, for me, the high-end medium of choice, I’m not terribly phase aC synchronous. Speeds: interested in today’s high-end record players. Most of them, from the 1980s 33.33, 45rpm. Motor frequency through the present, have been soulless, uninspired, me-too products that ut- accuracy: ±0.1%. terly fail to communicate the presence, momentum, and punch of recorded DIMENSIONS 17.7" (450mm) W by 7.2" (183mm) H by 13.8" (350mm) music. And in certain ways—expense, complexity, size, cosmetics—some have d. Weight: 50 lbs (22.7kg). been, quite simply, ridiculous. SERIAL NUMBER OF UNIT But a relative few have seemed the products of original thinking. And most REVIEWED uSa08004. of those have stood the test of time: The Well Tempered Turntable. The Rega Planar 9. The A 1 PRICE $9250. approximate number Roksan Xerxes and its descendents. The VPI Scout and its variants. of dealers: 50. If only for the originality and sheer quality of its design, I wonder if the dps turntable from MANUFACTURER Bauer audio, Bauer Audio of Munich, Germany—the model name is an initialism for its native-language Pollinger Strasse 4, 81377 Munich, descriptive, der plattenspieler—might also deserve a place in that select group, far from the over- Germany. tel: (49) (0)89-719-39-80. priced, overstyled, underengineered norm. Near the end of last year, after a mildly agonizing Web: www.bauer-audio.de. wait, I received a sample of the dps from US distributor Ayre Acoustics and set about learning uS distributor: ayre acoustics, Inc., 2300-B Central avenue, Boulder, the answer. CO 80301. tel: (303) 442-7300. Fax: (303) 442-7301. Web: www.ayre.com. 1 I would add the seemingly intelligently designed Simon Yorke, except that I’ve never heard one in my home, or in a music system that was at all familiar to me. www.Stereophile.com, april 2010 B auer A udio dps Description The dps turntable hides a number of sur- prises under an outwardly simple skin. The bottommost portion—let’s call it the plinth—is a precisely cut and polished sheet of aluminum, about 0.4" thick. Adding to the mass is a stainless-steel motor housing fastened rigidly in place at the left-front corner; together, it and the plinth weigh a little over 15 lbs. That aluminum plinth is also home to three shallow PVC cups, on threaded acrylic posts, that the user can raise or lower in or- der to level the next layer up. All three cups are filled with elastomer buttons, which act as supporting springs for the next layer. The middle portion of the dps is a lami- nate of six separate sheets: two layers of a lossy damping material—described as an an- ti-vibration foil—sandwiched by three rela- tively thin sheets of Baltic birch plywood, Inside ayre’s three-phase power supply. with an even thinner sheet of cork bonded to the underneath of the uppermost surface. as governed by the motor’s external power sold in the US for more or less the same The laminations are hidden from view by a supply, itself becomes both a constant and a price as in Europe, Willi Bauer agreed to serenely pretty hardwood frame, although fixed element, irrespective of platter iner- let Ayre create a three-phase supply for a the layer of cork stands very slightly proud tia. Contrast that to a system in which the North American edition of the dps.Hansen of it, by design. That thin sheet of cork power delivered to a synchronous motor and his team had to start with a clean slate. serves to support the dps turntable’s up- is reduced after startup, as the platter and That turned out to be a good thing. Ul- permost layer: a sheet of shiny black acrylic, bearing spin more or less freely: From that timately, Ayre developed a pure analog os- beautifully made, and pierced by precisely point forward, the power supply, no matter cillator—a digital supply would have been a milled mounting holes for the platter bear- how cleverly designed, can merely correct snap, but it would have dumped RFI into ing and tonearm, as well as an opening rather than maintain the speed. the system—with three outputs, spaced 120° through which the top of the motor pokes. Looked at another way: The combina- from one another and amplified by a zero- The acrylic top sheet is fitted with a sub- tion of resistive bearing and high-torque feedback amp (an Ayre hallmark, after all). stantial alloy bearing well, with an inside di- motor confers the benefits of a high-mass And because no motor is perfect, the indi- ameter of 30mm. At the center of the well platter, but without the mass—and thus vidual levels for all three sets of windings is a stationary spindle 10mm in diameter, without the consequent penalty of stored can be adjusted to match the motor. Neat. machined from a tungsten alloy, recessed energy. That design innovation allowed de- on its top end to receive a 3mm ruby thrust signer Willibald Bauer to select light, rigid, Installation and setup ball. A multi-tiered polymer hub, 25mm in and altogether vinyl-like acrylic as his plat- My review sample of the dps turntable diameter at its largest point, slips over the ter material, with all the attendant benefits. was installed by Willi Bauer, during a time spindle and contacts the thrust ball, becom- So we accept that the platter bearing when he and Ayre Acoustics’ Steve Silber- ing the sole moving part of this inverted, and motor of the dps turntable comprise a man were traveling through my area on zero-clearance bearing—but there’s a twist: single element of the design—yet even that their way to New York City. But, with re- The hub also contacts the bottom of the falls short of the full truth. The third, equal- spect for the designer’s expertise, nothing well through a pliant O-ring. That, along ly crucial part is a high-quality power sup- about the setup of the dps seemed beyond with the presence of a viscous silicone oil ply for the motor, without which the above the capabilities of the average hobbyist. In in the bearing well, creates considerable re- would be of little consequence. And this is fact, during the review period, I had cause sistance. where Bauer’s US distributor, the manufac- both to change tonearms and to temporar- That seems wrong, of course—until you turer Ayre Acoustics, arrives on the scene. ily move the turntable out of the way—and consider the other half of the dps drive sys- Charles Hansen of Ayre first saw the dps none of that was very hard at all. tem: a three-phase AC synchronous mo- at a show in Frankfurt a number of years That said, the current dps owner’s manu- tor with exceptionally high torque. That ago and was thoroughly impressed, espe- al covers only the Ayre-built power supply, motor, custom-made for dps and topped cially with the upmarket version, in which with no information at all about the turn- with a well-machined polymer pulley, re- the three-phase AC motor is driven with a table itself. Unless and until a more com- mains in full-power mode as it works to custom three-phase power supply. Yet the prehensive manual is published, the buyer overcome the constant friction in the plat- upmarket power supply adds significant- should expect his or her dealer to perform ter bearing. In the process, speed stability, ly to the price—so, to allow the dps to be all setup chores. www.Stereophile.com, april 2010 B auer A udio dps As with so many very good turntables— static electricity. the German ’table wrung a lot more spa- and a few bad ones—the design of the dps The Ayre power supply was a breeze to tial performance from the musically solid is such that the thing must virtually be as- use: It didn’t hum, it didn’t overheat, and Naim Aro than I’d imagined was there.) sembled in situ. That in itself didn’t take it was easy to select between 33.33 and On Leonard Cohen’s “The Gypsy’s Wife,” long, and the process began with one el- 45rpm; the latter speed simply required me from Recent Songs (Columbia JC 36264), the ement I haven’t mentioned until now: a to press and hold the supply’s combination voice, guitar, bass, and oud were all disem- thin, pliant, foam-rubber–like mat of the pilot light and power switch for longer than bodied from the speakers, yet solid in their same dimensions as the dps itself, which two seconds. own rights. My reference Thorens TD-124, is spread over the user’s equipment sup- with EMT 997 or Schick tonearm, was just port, under the aluminum plinth. The as solid and substantial, but flatter and less Shindo-green mat—too bad you can’t see spatially detailed. And Howard Hanson and it in use!—didn’t react in any way with the Nothing about ThE the Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orches- finished surface of my wooden Box Fur- setup of ThE dps tra’s recording of Samuel Barber’s Capricorn niture Company rack, and was easy to re- Concerto for Flute, Oboe, Trumpet and Strings move when the time came.