Townshend Elite Rock Turntable / Mission 774 Tonearm / Denon DL304

Here we have an example of one of the most unique and classic turntables ever built. Conceived in the late seventies the Rock was the brainchild of Jack Dinsdale and a group of students at the Cranfield Institute. After the first prototype was shown to Max Townshend complete with its signature damping trough in 1979, he agreed to sponsor the project. The first Cranfield Rock Mk1 was brought to market in 1982 but wasn’t quite the success that its designers had hoped and the company was wound up. In 1985 however after Max Townshend spent what he could on redeveloping the project, the Townshend Elite Rock II arrived. This is the unit we have here complete with the optional wooden plinth surround and a modified Mission 774 Tonearm. The full turntable package comes in good fully working condition and will be professionally packaged along with our standard three month warranty. Please note the warranty does not cover the fitted Denon DL304MC cartridge as althought its working fine now, we dont have knowledge of its likely life.
Townshend Said….
The Elite Rock turntable is the result of years of research carried out at the Cranfield Institute of Technology, UK, into the precise reproduction of gramophone records. This investigation showed that the disc player should emulate the original cutting lathe in as many areas as possible, within the bounds of practicality. In short, the player must be very strong and extremely rigid with all vibrational modes eliminated and the platter should rotate as accurately as possible with the minimum of wow and flutter and with inaudible noise (rumble).
The pick-up cartridge must be rigidly mounted in such a way that it is free to track the disc (including warps) and yet be rigidly coupled to the disc, via the arm, plinth and platter, at audio frequencies. The whole unit must then be acoustically isolated from the environment, so that unwanted external vibrations do not influence the player.
These objectives have been achieved in the Elite Rock by the unique construction of the platter and plinth, which are both stabilised with high strength, low Energy-storage Gypsum and the novel, fluid-damped inverted bearing, with the point of suspension of the platter at its centre of gravity, ensures very stable, virtually rumble-free operation.
The unique front-end damping arrangement comprising, the fluid-filled trough and outrigger/paddle arrangement, completely damps out arm/cartridge resonances and locks the pick-up arm to the base/plinth assembly and hence to the disc, at audio frequencies.
The easy-to-adjust, two-speed belt-drive ensures precise speed control and high long-term reliability.
Acoustic isolation is achieved by suspending the whole mass of the turntable on three, air-filled, damped, synthetic-rubber supports, symmetrically arranged around the centre-of-gravity of the complete assembly.
Specifications:
Type: manual turntable
Drive method: belt drive
Speeds: 33.3 and 45rpm
Wow and flutter: <0.08% (CCIR)
Arm lengths: 180 to 240mm (centre to centre)
Dimensions: 442 (W) x 368 (D) x 143 (H) mm
Weight: 12.3 kg
Mission Said….
Considered as one of the world’s finest pick up arms, the Mission 774 is designed to Direct Couple the cartridge assembly to the turntable mass. This is essential in that if the tone arm suffers free play, it will inevitably set itself in motion independent of record modulations thereby adding to and subtracting from information retrieved by the stylus tip.
Such free play would destroy speed, immediacy and attack inherent in musical transients. The secret of the 774 is its unique rigid bearing design, elimination of conventional “flapping” headshells and other resonating parts. total structural integrity, low effective mass and minimal pivot friction.
The 774 employs silicone viscose damping to enhance the performance of different cartridges.
Specifications:
Effective Length: 229 mm
Effective Mass: < 5.5 g (depending on counterweight)
Friction: < 15 mg (horizontal and vertical)
Downforce Error: < 0.2%
Fundamental Resonance: 5 to 18 Hz (depending on cartridge)
Cartridge Mass: 2 to 10 g
Connections: 1200 mm cable
Armtube / Headshell Assembly: Interchangeable
Hydraulic Damping: Viscous fluid
Cable Capacitance: 125 pf (per channel)