Stereophile: The Basis Turntable Belts are Flat

Stephen Mejias mention Garth Powell's passion for what he does in his report from the Furman room at CES. AJ Conti, the man behind turntable manufacturer Basis Audio, has a similar passion for what he does. His current attention is focused on getting the drive belts for his well-regarded turntables as flat as possible, to eliminate the last vestige of drive-system spuriae from the audio recovered from vinyl. Dissatisfied with the highest precision he could get from commercial ground-belt vendors, he invested in his own production machinery.

The result is the Basis Revolution Belt, a seamless belt claimed to be flat along its circumference to within two ten-thousandths of an inch. To prove it, AJ brought his test rig to CES. The belt is rolled over precision bearings, with a lever giving 1x, 2x, or 5x mechanical advantage used to drive the precision deflection meter shown in my photo. Now that is flat.

Basis also introduced its Vector Model 4 tonearm at CES, but we got so heavily into a discussion of turntable drive systems and belts that I forgot to take notes. :-(

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Reader Comments

Posted Sat Oct 4, 2008, 11:13 AM — By Basis Owner

AJ is arrogant, concerned only with his own desires to perfect technology without taking into account consumer costs...

Posted Tue Sep 1, 2009, 4:49 PM — By Bill Bartmann

Excellent site, keep up the good work

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