The Savoie
coming early Winter, 2025
The Savoie is named after the Haute Savoie region in the French Alps - the province where the Col du Galibier (Galibier pass) is located.
The Savoie's chassis design marries the constrained layer damping technology of the first turntable we ever built with that of the Mk II Stelvio.
The design was driven by the larger footprint requrements of our new drive system.
Galibier Design - Savoie Turntable
The Vision
- Build on the success of the Mk II Stelvio's flexible architecture
- Accommodate our new drive system while retaining a modular design for ease of service
- Carry forward the dual arm mounting architecture of the Mk II Stelvio
We initially conceived the Savoie as being convertable from belt to idler drive.
During the prototyping process, we compared our belt design against some highly regarded production idler turntables. In terms of idler designs' purported superiority (immediacy, rhythmic pacing), we have not had one in-house that surpassed the Savoie's belt driven architecture.
We realize that's a bold claim. Idler fans - park your biases and prepare yourself for a surprise.
Key Features
- Modular drive system for both isolation and ease of servicing.
- Dual, 12″ tonearm capable.
- Mk II armboard architecture. 12.5mm of fine, Vernier adjustment range to set pivot to spindle distance. Experiment with multiple alignments as well as correct tonearm production errors. We've encountered more than one highly regarded tonearm with mis-specified mounting distances.
- Left and right arm mounts are mirror-imaged. Positions can be reversed.
- 3 phase, sine wave based drive system architecture
- Gavia TPI© platter standard (Stelvio TPI© is optional)
- Identical bearing as the Stelvio.
Here's what one of our customers had to say about an early prototype (while we were experimenting with rim drive). We surpassed this with the current belt driven architecture:
"
Thank you for hosting us in your lovely home last weekend. My thoughts:
The original conception of the platter, base and bearing have been re-validated. This part of the design ranks with the best available. The long term viability of the design is a wonderful testament to your initial engineering conception.
The rim drive is a revolutionary (as opposed to evolutionary) development. I have heard just about every contender for “best turntable in the world”.
What I heard on Saturday night is the best vinyl I have ever heard…and second place isn’t that close.
Based on what I heard Saturday evening, the new drive system fulfills the promise of Galibier and what compelled me (and many other customers) to purchase Galibier turntables. I feel you absolutely owe it to your loyal customers to complete the rim drive and make it available as an upgrade sooner rather than later.
As a loyal customer and public advocate of your products, I have waited for this level of upgrade and am looking forward to getting delivery of either a prototype or finished drive system soon. I expect you will want input and validation from current owners, please let me know when a test unit will be available.
MZ
/ Bellvue, WA
