The Funk Firm: Blue Danbue

From Funk’s new “From Nature” Series, comes a range of vinyl spinners for the home and lab.

Designed for the home…

Each turntable is is uniquely individual. Carefully and loving hand-crafted in a selection of woods.

For this reason, the lead time is a minimum of 10 weeks but you will have something that exemplifies YOU.

Furthermore, the color of the “river” can be specified down to RAL number if so desired. From the comes the name, with Blue being Blue Danube, black is Black Lagoon, White is White Lotus and so on.

But can something so attractive also be good, no I mean REALLY good?

Designed for the lab…Consider the following attention to detail.

Underneath its glowing exterior it is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

The drive

K-Drive II - the latest generation of K-Drive. The motor is fed from a class A, single-ended output stage, as in the finest of amplifier technology. You assured of the highest levels of performance achievable. In addition, a novel control circuit which is completely inaudible in action whilst it maintains control of the motor with the lightest of touch.

The motor is so vibration free, if you hold it in your hand, it is all but impossible to tell when it is on or off. The importance of this that when the body move, of course the ROTOR is moving! So, not vibration means, no vibration. The belt is now fed and keeps the platter turning and not jerking round. This does not happen with most motors.

The bearing.

Vacuum or magnetic or hard bearing. Vacuums and magnets risk movements of the platter (record). Hard bearings avoid this. German “Audio” measured Funk’s legendary Little Super Deck already and found it achieved “The Lowest Wow Flutter and Rumble of any deck they had experienced”.

Blue Danube takes that to a further level in having that design now laboriously, skilfully and painstakingly lapped by hand to as close a tolerance as one might achieve. The lubrication now has to be much thinner as standard oils will simply cause a hydraulic lock.

The running surface is a Ceramic-Carbide interface with an optically ground surface.

Rumble is not just the running surface; it is also a function of the load on it. And the higher the load, the pressure on a point increases exponentially = Noise. A low load conflicts with this as an unsupported disc will ring. This is where Funk’s Strata scores. It allows for a plate that is keeps loading to a minimum without ringing. Just tap it and you’ll see – Well, you won’t hear it against a standard disc!

The disc support is of course Achromat, but now in it latest guise.

In keeping with demanding technical achievements, Vector drive is of course de rigeur but the pulleys now have miniature twin ball races for zero flutter.

The Arm – FX3 II.

Funk’s famous F.X arm beam technology has been enhanced. The incredibly low 6dB resonance peak (most other arms are in the region of 20-40dB), has been reduced further to below 3dB, making it already but in audible. Listing to it is a revelation in its own right.

For Blue Danube, this is not enough.

Houdini. The easiest way to describe it is comparing standard tv to 4k.

Finally, let’s keep the outside work out, and so of course, it is fully decoupled.

The result?

Well, pretty obviously it is technically in the top tier. That now goes without saying. Does that  mean it’s also like an operating theatre? Far from it.

Here, balance is the key and Funk’s goal in all this is to approach the master tape. If you’ve ever heard one, you’ll know just how transparent, involving and enjoyable they are.

Those descriptions have also already been given to Blue Danube by reviewers, recording engineers and members of the public.