Da Vinci's museum-quality turntable
Zero noise, but lots of zeroes in price.
Just when we were about to begin a self-imposed moratorium on highest-end turntables, along comes another one that we simply can't resist.
The luxury edition of the "AAS-Gabriel" from Switzerland's Da Vinci Audio Labs looks more like fine porcelain than a piece of entertainment equipment, accented with 24-karat gold plate. As for its technical performance, Technabob offers this explanation: "The turntable is designed to produce absolutely zero noise or vibration, and goes so far as to completely isolate the pick-up arm from the rest of the player."
Makes sense to us, though that's not really saying much. What we do understand with crystal clarity is its list price of $41,250--which, compared with others we've seen lately, is a drop in the bucket.