XL Air turntable is using air bearing compared coventional bearing which allows improvement in two important paramethers in turntable design.
Air bearing have almost zero friction and thus no vibrations in bearing itself thus eliminating noise reaching cartridge. Second advantage with properly designed air bearing ( not just simple floating on air chusion) is higher load. Total mass of rotating platter is 44 kg making it more imune to cartridge drag which slows down any platter regardlessof mass and drive. The top platter- same as in XL DC turntable ( 22 kg) is a sandwich construction of aluminium and acrylic plates screwed together in a pre-stressed form to damp all unwanted vibration. Lower bronze platter ( 22kg) is cast and gives good damping properites.
Air bearing requires for function compressed air which is supplied from air supply. Air supply consist of compressor and air filters. See for details in this manual elsewhere.
Turntable’s air bering actually consists from two bearings surfaces. Top surface carries vertical load while cilyndrical hole carries horiontal load. Air bearing has a shaft of 31mm and trust plate of 60 mm.
Air bearing surfaces are made from porous carbon thus having milions of small holes to let air pressure out. This creates more uniform pressure inside bearing’s gap of 5 microns with 4bar pressure thus making air bearing stiffer with zero movements. The base holding air bearing is made from two pieces of solid brass which are clamped together having good damping properties.
NOTE: From Jan 1st, 2020 we supply XL AIR with compressor model 50D which is big enough to supply air for XL AIR turntable and Air Line tangential tonearm.