We won't quarrel over the subjects diehard audiophiles use to almost fight upon but we must definitely say that the tool we are about to introduce to you is one thing you (and many more) don't meet everyday: a turntable with no less than 4 independent arms, boasting some of the most expensive gear around and of course, retailing for a forkload of money.

This striking piece of audio gadgetry has been presented to the public by the notorious and most exclusive New York salon, Highwater Sound.

The first time we read about this weird contraption we were stunned, because we thought that all 4 arms were supposed to play at the same time and we were wondering how complex the delay systems for the 4 separate sound sources should be so that the resulting audio output could be properly listened to and enjoyed. Then we realized that the angular speeds vary with the arms getting closer to the center of the vinyl record and said "wow!" again because this meant some outer-space technology.

After reading more thorough info on this uncanny turntable, we learned that the audiophile world hadn't in fact changed a bit: all these tonearms galore had a very bizarre idea behind – some of the audiophiles claim that certain vinyl discs sound better with a specific combination of arm and cartridge. And since changing these pieces once or twice a day is an impossible task, someone thought that more arms with different cartridges should actually do.

The principle behind the idea might be as close to truth as possible and I've already taken my vow not to question whether some guy would ever tell the difference between two high-class tonearms and two top-drawer cartridges. But the price of all this theory is not at all to be joked about: $56,000 for such a turntable is no "keep the change" money.

Well, I guess that such an almost artistic piece of technology was never addressed to us, the "MP3 guys" but to the most discerning listeners who can afford such refinement in their music-listening habits. This amazing turntable comes equipped with tonearms from Breuer Dynamic, Graham Engineering, Triplanar and Ortofon, while the cartridges loaded in them have been brought from Dynavector, Ortofon, and Miyabi – and there you have the best explanation of the burning-hole-in-your-budget price.

Jeff Catalano from Highwater Sound has built this stunning turntable starting from a TW-Acustic Raven AC model with three motors... the idea is indeed neat, but again, for this amount of money I guess one could buy even more than four good turntables. And... the cables for this contraption are sold separately.


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