Funk Firm's new Strata platter and "spin" bearing

[Ammonite Audio]

For me it was interesting to see that there is no mention of the FX-1200 any more.
That means that I have quite a rare tonearm now.

The picture on the website looks like the bearing, so I will be interested to see the response.

The picture seems to show the alloy sub-platter, to which the magnetic ring thing is attached. I presume that the bearing is fixed to the chassis in the same way as the original. It will be interesting to see if Funk have come up with something innovative/different, compared with all the other Technics bearing options out there.

[Oldpinkman]

I think the Dalek is your man for information. I believe he has bearing, platter and FX3.

Cagey - Yours is unique mate - the only FX1200 the way it was meant to be - rigid aluminium instead of beachcaster carbon-fibre. Although Arthur changes his mind more often than I change my underwear, I can't see an FX1200 returning. The only valid reason for it, as opposed to plonking any of the funk arms on, was the "on the fly vta" - which I still think is for people more interested in fiddling with their equipment than listening to music. It is of course also covered by the AK47 design (if it retains that name - although he was distracted by wanting to put out a teaser for "F1" at Munich - his ultimate tonearm)

I'll leave Neil to talk about the bearing, but the main differences are covered on the Funk Web site. I believe it doesn't suffer the (very tiny) flutter problems reported in the magazine reviews of the Mike New Bearing. I think the 2 items are best as a pair - and I know AK was thinking (about 4 changes of underwear ago) of selling them as one item instead of 2, until I pointed out that people like to build their modified SL-1200/1210s one "inexpensive" component upgrade at a time.

And Hugo - you are sort of right (well completely right that AK can forget a new career as a copywriter). Strata benefits from the main bit of glass being bonded glass, and both the fact of the bonding, and the bonding agent used lead to a different material (like aerolam is not aluminium) which has properties of rigidity and non-resonance.

[prestonchipfryer]

Funk seem to alter their products like a whim of the weather. Very confusing.

[Spectral Morn]

I think the Dalek is your man for information. I believe he has bearing, platter and FX3.

Cagey - Yours is unique mate - the only FX1200 the way it was meant to be - rigid aluminium instead of beachcaster carbon-fibre. Although Arthur changes his mind more often than I change my underwear, I can't see an FX1200 returning. The only valid reason for it, as opposed to plonking any of the funk arms on, was the "on the fly vta" - which I still think is for people more interested in fiddling with their equipment than listening to music. It is of course also covered by the AK47 design (if it retains that name - although he was distracted by wanting to put out a teaser for "F1" at Munich - his ultimate tonearm)

I'll leave Neil to talk about the bearing, but the main differences are covered on the Funk Web site. I believe it doesn't suffer the (very tiny) flutter problems reported in the magazine reviews of the Mike New Bearing. I think the 2 items are best as a pair - and I know AK was thinking (about 4 changes of underwear ago) of selling them as one item instead of 2, until I pointed out that people like to build their modified SL-1200/1210s one "inexpensive" component upgrade at a time.

And Hugo - you are sort of right (well completely right that AK can forget a new career as a copywriter). Strata benefits from the main bit of glass being bonded glass, and both the fact of the bonding, and the bonding agent used lead to a different material (like aerolam is not aluminium) which has properties of rigidity and non-resonance.

Sigh.

At this stage I can't comment or offer any opinions or thoughts, it would neither be ethical or professional to do so before the review process is completed and published. I won't be drawn on this, so folks are going to have to wait.


Regards Neil

[Oldpinkman]

Neil - nobody asked you for an opinion or thought. Nobody asked you for a review or mentioned you planned doing one. I just pointed out you had the objects people were asking about in your posession and therefore were well placed to answer factual questions like "what special design features does it have", "how does it fit on the turntable" and wished to afford you that opportunity since you took such umbrage when I released a tiny bit of information about the products about a year ago when you were also doing an as yet unpublished review of Funk Technics mods. So I'll tell them it uses a saphire thrust plate and ceramiic ball, with a ptfe collar, and is in effect the funk bearing used in the other funk turntables, machined to fit the external dimensions of the original technics bearing, and a photo should appear on the web site any day now. This is in effect the same bearing that measured off the scale for the German magazine review of the SGD - where they described the measurements as "perfect". That one!

[sq225917]

I'm interested to see how long it is before that ceramic ball eats through the sapphire and grinds the bearing shell into dust with a fine abrasive sapphire paste. The bushes sound good though.

[Marco]

The bushes sound good though.

Neatly trimmed into a nice 'V' shape, one would hope.....

Marco.

[Oldpinkman]

I'm interested to see how long it is before that ceramic ball eats through the sapphire and grinds the bearing shell into dust with a fine abrasive sapphire paste. The bushes sound good though.

Sapphire is the 2nd hardest known substance, after diamond. Quite some time I think.. It's only the technics version of a well established funk design.

[struth]

Not if its a silicon carbide ceramic bearing

[Oldpinkman]

Funk seem to alter their products like a whim of the weather. Very confusing.

I find myself confused by this. Whilst I am usually first in line to moan about Funks reactive approach to product development, I can't quite see how it relates here. If the reference is to FX1200, that is an arm which has been "in production" for several years, and sold a grand total of ZERO production items. 3 dealer demonstrators of an early (FX prototype) version using carbon fibre tubes which were found incapable of achieving the performance needed to match competitor arms (SME 5, Graham) were "out there" and one of them, Cageys, was converted to a "production" aluminium tubed version. The decision to withdraw such a product from "production" is perhaps not so confusing - but comes under the heading of "Manning up and facing reality"

As an aside, to my personal amusement, Funk are currently "distracted" from the product launches Arthur would like to be working on because of the success of FX3. The irony here is that it is not really that different from FX-R. It just loses the stigma of being a "rega mod" - which had nothing to do with the arms performance, and everything to do with all those irrational buyer decisions. Still it was an obvious issue, and I'm glad Arthur was persuaded to address it - however bonkers and irrational the markets "need".

The Strata platter is essentially the one that was launched last year and featured in the AOS platter wars. AK has removed the lettering which was unpopular (although what's the betting will now be requested again) and tidied up the edge finish. But in essence, its the same product (spot the defensive comment about effective mass in his blurb - due to bad science in the platter wars). And the bearing is the one I have been promising Cagey I would smuggle out to him since "announced" last year - but has been languishing in a drawer.

What's changed, is that after more than a year of nagging to do something about the inconsistencies, typo's, and other issues on his web site, and having promised (still promising) an all singing all dancing professional site, he has finally got round to dealing with the copy aspects of the site, and doing a bit of hoovering and dusting.

Funk is an innovative business, providing truly original ideas, and an outlet for Arthurs relentless creativity - which is its raison d'etre for AK. But it also needs to turn enough cash to pay the rent - and that means focussing on the day job, and not tiny niche markets like technics mods. However, the technics products are designed, and available, so I guess it does no harm to list them on the web site - which is what the boy has done.