TechDAS Air Force V
Unless a truly budget-priced Air Force model is in the works, the TechDAS turntable lineup now seems complete: The recently introduced Air Force Zero ($450,000) is at the top, and the “affordable” Air Force V ($19,500) is at the bottom. The Air Force One, Two, and III turntables, all available in both standard and Premium versions, sit in the costly middle. There’s no Air Force IV because in East Asia that number is considered bad luck—which also explains why Japanese golfers shout “Six!” when someone hooks a shot into an adjacent fairway (joke alert).
Yes, the Air Force V still costs a great deal, but consider the price difference between it and the Air Force One Premium ($145,000)—which, until recently, was the company’s flagship: Despite costing about ⅛ the price, the V retains two of that model’s three key features: an air-bearing platter and vacuum record hold down. (The third key feature—air suspension for the turntable as a whole—couldn’t be included at this price.) These are expensive design elements that probably would make an even less expensive Air Force model unfeasible, unless designer Hideaki Nishikawa chooses to offer a non-air bearing, non-vacuum hold-down turntable—which I believe he’s not likely to do.
Other than its use of an inboard AC synchronous motor in place of the outboard ones found throughout the rest of the Air Force line, the V mostly resembles the next model up in the line, the Air Force III ($28,000—or $39,500 for the Premium version).
What else accounts for the almost $10,000 price difference? Whereas
