Brinkmann Bardo

AFAIK, the first direct-drive turntable to be launched as a product was not from Dual, but Technics - the SP-10 (Mk.I), which was introduced in 1969.

It could be that there were other direct-drives predating this, but at least I've not heard of any.

I agree that the Bardo is quite interesting, and as long as the platter has low or zero cogging, I won't quibble over Brinkmann's choice of terminology.

Incidentally, Brinkmann's tonearms are also exceptionally good-sounding, and are worth consideration.

hth, jonathan carr

Some history of direct drive turntables here.

I agree with Jonathan.

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Dual came out with the first and only EDS (electro-dynamic suspension) DD TT motor, for which they've never gotten any credit. Being an aerospace engineer, I can tell you this type is the only true magnetic direct drive motor. The Technics platter is nothing more than a magnet that sits in a rotor, is configured horizontally, which essentially becomes a standard motor stabilized by tach signals and OCD type electronics. The Technics motor suffers from pole jerking, magnetic drag, hysteresis, and requires a very large amount of power. The Dual EDS motor works like a modern magnetic railway. When the magnet is between 2 poles, the powers of the 2 poles are proportionate. In other words, if the magnet is dead center between the 2 poles, both poles will have 50% power, but if 80% of the magnet is over one pole and 20% of the other, the power is split 80/20 and so on in a linear fashion. It only requires 50 milliwatts of power to operate, since opposing magnets are the major force behind its propulsion. There is no need for quartz control. The hall sensors monitor the strength of the magnetic field within the system and hold stable regardless of fluctuating line voltage. A heavy platter is not required, and the technology of EDS actually allows the platter to (microscopically) levitate when it is operating, significantly reducing typical negative spindle and bearing contributions. This motor is dead silent. Unfortunately this EDS motor never received recognition and was very expensive for Dual to manufacture. At one time, Dual had 3000+ employees and completely made 100% of their own parts and motors in-house. To compete and save money, they "cheapened" newer motors and went along with the crowd of quartz control. BTW, the motor in the Dual CS5000 is an EDS type motor, although it provided belt drive. It seems that the Brinkmann DD motor is nothing more than a new type of Technics DD motor. The fact that the coils are not totally equidistant means it's "pushing" and "braking" in an un-uniform manner favoring one side. I beleive they bandaid and hide issues by the use of a heavy platter. I'm in no way discrediting other manufacturer’s contributions to DD TT technology. Technics may have been the first to the commercial market with DD, but Thorens developed and patented the first DD motor way back in 1929. With respect to the discussion of "magnetic direct drive", Dual was the pioneer and implementer of this type of DD motor. Technics and other manufacturers have nothing to do with this type of motor as their DD motors act more like stepper motors. So the correct timeline is Thorens invented the first DD motor, Technics was the first to market the DD TT, and Dual was the first, last, and only to invent and market the EDS magnetic DD motor for use in turntables.

Dear Wjsamx, The Kenwood L07D slotless, coreless motor also uses assymetrical placement of the coils of wire that form the stator. In addition, the rotor (magnet) in the L07D motor is parallel to the horizontal plane of the platter, as in the Bardo. I believe there is a sound reason for the assymetric coiling, although I have been puzzling on it since I took apart the motor of my L07D. (Photos of the coils in an L07D can be seen on the L07D Lovers site.) But it is a bit presumptuous to state that the similar arrangement in the Brinkmann is going to result in undesireable "non-uniform pushing and braking", unless you are an engineer and can back it up. To me the assymetry is so obvious that it must be deliberately done for a good, i.e., beneficial reason. Also, the Brinkmann motor is much more like that of the L07D than it is like those of the Technics SP10 Mk2 or Mk3. In the Mk3, the stator/rotor interaction occurs in the vertical plane, and of course the multi-pole stator has a core.

Thank you for your explanation on the Dual EDS motor, Wjsamx. It's fascinating. I have a Dual motor like that as parts but unfortunately it has scraping noise and I don't have the complete power supply. I would love to be able to make it work and have a listen. After reading your post, even more so.

On Brinkmann's technical white paper, which provides interesting reading, in discussing the drive mechanism, it does mention the arrangement of the stator:

The motor’s stator consists of four specially designed field coils, which are mounted concentrically with high precision around the platter bearing. Based on listening and tuning sessions, we decided to forgo the typical 90-degree mounting angle in favour of a non-standard 22.5-degree raster, which, due to the magnetic fields overlapping, further reduced cogging. The motor’s rotor also acts as the sub-platter and carries a magnetic ring with 8 poles on its underside.

The drive mechanism, based around Hall sensors and an encoder disk, is designed in such a way that there is just enough power to bring the 10 kg heavy platter up to 33 ! e rpm in about 12 seconds. Conversely, only a minimal amount of energy is actually necessary to keep the rotational speed at a constant. While the drive mechanism is indeed direct, power is actually transferred without any contact.This soft coupling via a low power magnetic field translates into a silent drive, which reduces cogging further. One of the main attributes behind the sound quality of the “Oasis” has to do with our proprietary motor control. It works proportionally, i.e. it transfers just enough energy to the motor for it to remain at constant speed. Conversely, due to our ultra low-friction bearing, only a small amount of energy is actually necessary to keep the motor at constant speed. Previously available regulators typically work disproportional and rather abruptly: they speed up and slow down the motor very rapidly when necessary.

During the development phase of the “Oasis” turntable, we spent many long hours auditioning several different regulator designs; it became quite evident that utilizing our concept of proportional regulation always resulted in better sound: typical “harder” motor control concepts produced a sound significantly lower in quality, with less color and drive.

I do believe the Brinkmann motor is quite different from Technics. Many Japanese manufacturers switched to coreless motors in the late 70's to early 80's such as Sony BSL motor, Pioneer in the later SHR motors, Kenwood in their KD-770D and KD-990, almost all JVC QL series tables. Technics, however, stayed with core motor through that era. Reportedly coreless motors sacrifice torque for smooth rotation and less cogging. I am not an engineer so these are all based on visual observations of the physical motors that I have open apart.

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