Acoustic Signature Ascona Mk.2 turntable, TA-9000 tonearm $17,995 Review

https://www.stereophile.com/content/analog-corner-256-acoustic-signature-ascona-mk2-turntable-ta-9000-tonearm

Acoustic Signature’s top tonearm model is available in lengths of 9″ or 12″; I chose the 9″ version of this very handsome design ($17,995). The arm pivots, horizontally and vertically, on preloaded precision ball bearings produced in the US by Timken and adjusted in-house by a bearing specialist.

Much of the arm’s cost is due to its innovative armtube. Gunther Frohnhöfer claims that you can go “stiff and light” with carbon fiber, with the disadvantage of undamped resonances within the audioband, or opt for die-cast aluminum or magnesium tubes, which are relatively stiff, but heavy and also not well damped. Frohnhöfer’s solution to the problem of producing a lightweight, extremely stiff, well-damped armtube was to use two concentric aluminum tubes, both with conical exteriors. The tubes are bound together with more than 700 branch-like connecting pads, arranged in a spiral around the inner tube—an incredibly complex construction.