The Article
Tri-Art: From Canada with Bamboo
11th April 2017
Based in Kingston, Ontario I present to you bamboo hi-fi! There’s several products available too but I wanted to look at their turntables and tonearms.
The lowest cost is the two-speed, belt-driven, Sprout TA-0.5 turntable with levelling legs, featuring a 24-Pole synchronous AC motor with bronze collar bearing with steel ball bearing and an aluminium sub platter with steel shaft.
The attached 9”, three-ply bamboo laminate arm is soaked in Hemp Oil and sealed in Beeswax.
It arrives with VTA and azimuth adjustments plus a bronze with brass collar spike and synthetic, high viscosity grease bearing with Cardas Wire 33 AWG and a micro bubble level.
A built-in MM phono amp, with by-pass switch, amplifies the included Audio Technica 95E. Prices are $995 or $650 without the phono amp (all prices as US dollars).
The Pebbles two-speed, belt-driven TA-1 turntable also has a bamboo platter with levelling legs plus a 24 pole synchronous AC motor. Offered with a 9” arm for $1,295 or without for $995, it weighs in at 5kg.
The Pebbles tonearm is a 9” ($350) or 12” ($450) model, three ply bamboo laminate.
It’s 12mm thick, soaked in Hemp Oil and sealed in Beeswax with VTA and azimuth adjustments plus bronze with brass collar spike and synthetic, high viscosity grease bearing, anti-skating mechanism, Cardas Wire 33 AWG, silver plated cartridge clips and a bamboo mount for brass RCA. The 9” model is 222mm long with an effective tone arm mass of 10g. The 12” version is 296mm length with an effective tone arm mass of 14g.
Finally, the dual speed, dual plinth, belt-driven, 10kg Bam Bam turntable is a dual motor model featuring a Bamboo platter with copper inlay and bronze ingot insets and levelling legs.
It can handle both the 9” and 12” arms variety and is priced at $2,500 with a 9” arm or $1,925 without. You can mount two arms, if you wish.
The Bam Bam TA-2 tonearm is available at 9” ($625) and 12” ($750) and arrives as a three-ply bamboo laminate, 19mm thick, soaked in hemp oil, sealed in beeswax with bronze spike and grease bearing and brass pivot and mounts plus a brass headshell, VTA and azimuth adjustments plus an anti-skating mechanism with manual cueing, Cardas Wire 33AWG uninterrupted from headshell clips to brass female RCA.
To learn more, click www.triartaudio.com
If I didn’t know better (or do I?), I’d say this is satire of the hipster / artisanal trend. How can this be taken seriously. About time we had an artisanal Turntable to listen to whilst burning our artisanal firewood, and periodically going to the john wherein we have a roll of artisanal TP (and yes there are YouTube videos of the latter two items.