World’s finest motor encoder for world’s finest audio equipment

Zettlex encoders chosen for Continuum Audio’s turntables.

Continuum Audio in Melbourn, Australia make the world’s finest record turntables and audio equipment.  To the audio purist, playing a vinyl record on Continuum’s products represents the ultimate listening experience. See www.continuumaudiolabs.com

In order to ensure that the turntable rotates at exactly 33.333 r.p.m., Continuum chose Zettlex encoders in their motor drive because of their accuracy, stability, light weight and zero noise transmission.  Since the audio quality of a record turntable is heavily influenced by the quality of the turntable’s bearings, a key feature of the Zettlex design was that the encoder has no bearings of its own and so cannot interfere with the ultra smooth running of the turntable.  Similarly, the encoder’s performance was unaffected by a large, adjacent motor and zero noise was emitted from the encoder in to the critical analogue signal lines.

Continuum’s products will be on show at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, January 2010.

Mark Doehmann, Continuum’s Technical Director comments “Anybody who knows anything about motor control will vouch that getting a direct drive motor to run at 33.333 r.p.m. with zero wow or flutter is technically very challenging.  Add to that a requirement for zero signal interference, zero influence on rotational smoothness and very tight space constraints, the choice of a suitable encoder is pretty limited.  We had to go to the other side of the world to find the solution but Zettlex delivered the new encoders on-time, to budget and at a competitive price.”

Darran Kreit, Zettlex’s Technical Director comments “Our customers from the defence, aerospace and medical sectors often have some pretty extreme requirements.  Initially, we were surprised by the level of technical demands for a record player, but the requirements were definitely real and I’m pleased to say our encoders met or exceeded them all.  Zettlex is proud to have been involved in the development of this fantastic product from Continuum.”