Brinkman

Some say that perfect music playback is an illusion. Helmut Brinkmann however, leaves nothing to chance as he works on perfecting this illusion, thus making music playback as real as possible.

We have come to the conclusion that everything has an influence on sound. And we have to accept that these influences are real – even if (for the moment at least) we have no scientific explanation.

Each device, no matter whether a turntable or an amplifier, has a well defined function. Good design is the reduction of the ingredients to their most essential; ideally there is nothing to be found inside or elsewhere on a device that is not directly related to the device’s function. Hence we conclude that each single part of the device, no matter how trivial, has an influence on sound. Yes, even the smallest screw.

One day, as Helmut Brinkmann was looking through his microscope, he noticed that the three tiny screws which serve to adjust the cantilever on an EMT cartridge are made of steel. He then asked himself whether a magnetizable material so closely surrounded by powerful magnets was really that clever of a design idea. One by one, he replaced these tiny steel screws with ones made of aluminum, brass, nylon, titanium, and many other exotic materials. Next, he spent countless weeks performing critical listening tests. As the listening sessions progressed, he became more and more astounded by just how much the sound quality changed as he replaced such a seemingly trivial element. After all, these very tiny screws measure just a mere 1mm in diameter! At the end of his exhaustive research, he concluded that the sound resembled the original most closely when only one of three screws were replaced by a model manufactured of titanium. (By nomeans is this example a one-off experience: in the end, perfect music playback is a careful optimization process that involves 0.1% inspiration and 99.9% perspiration. As they say, for High Fidelity to truly shine, you need patience, diligence, more patience, a dash of tenacity and of course even more patience – not to mention many tiny screws made of exotic materials).

Behind Brinkmann (the brand), stands Brinkmann (the man).

“You can design a technical apparatus differently, but not better”. We were unsettled by this praise of a renowned audio publication: have we reached the end? Is it really impossible to further improve upon our level of performance?

Brinkmann does not build according to cost-optimized manufacturing processes; instead, Brinkmann rturntables are hand made. Prior to delivery, Helmut Brinkmann personally scrutinizes each and every component, making sure that every piece works and functions exactly as intended. Only this level of rigorous quality control assures that components bearing our name will meet our – admittedly very high – standards. Don’t let the term “hand made” fool you, however; of course we don’t really manufacture by hand. Instead, our facilities utilize only the finest high-performance machines and tools available today, which allow for precision manufacturing not possible only a few short years ago. This level of precision is of utmost importance, as it allows us to build our components to the exact tolerances we have identified during painstaking listening sessions and product evaluations. As we then begin to assemble each of the parts by hand (as opposed tomassmanufacturing on an assembly line) and turn them into amplifiers, tonearms and turntables, we can eliminate any compromises from the equation. Through this process, we can leave assembly line optimizations to others and instead focus on optimal sound quality and perfect execution. The longevity of our products is a direct result of our careful and complete attention to every (tiny) detail – after all, it is our (and our customers’) belief that once a Brinkmann component is made, it should ideally never return to our factory. Naturally, such level of uncompromised performance can’t come cheap – even though in absolute terms, the price we charge for our products can actually be considered somewhat of a bargain, especially considering their sonic qualities and manufacturing quality. Ultimately, we vouch for this with our name; as we said earlier: behind Brinkmann the brand stands (firmly!) Brinkmann the man.

Mechanical engineering by Brinkmann, or the art of extracting colorful soundscapes from black vinyl.

Despite continued advances in digital playback, the vinyl record (in spite of it’s limitations) remains the foremost important music format in the world. This is also especially true for Brinkmann.

Vinyl record playback is an exceedingly delicate and massively complex undertaking. The undulations in the record’s groove are so miniscule that even loud music passages produce less than a millivolt of signal. Most importantly, in addition to producing only tiny amounts of voltage, tracing these grooves produces all sorts of unwanted vibrations. These vibrations add a layer of noise over the already miniscule and fragile signal. As good as the cartridge is at tracing groove undulations (more or less accurately), it unfortunately also tends to convert all sorts of other external influencers such asmotor and bearing noise into electrical voltage as well. As records are cut at precisely 33 1/3 revolutions per minute, they therefore must also be played back at exactly the same speed; otherwise pitch will be off. This explains the most important requirements for proper playback:

• Accurate and consistent speed.
• Gentle groove tracing.
• High level of immunity from external and internal vibrations.
• Ultimate quietness and low friction of platter and tonearm bearings.

All is easier said than done, however, precisely because the groove’s undulations are so miniscule in size. Brinkmann offers a complete lineup of analog playback equipment consisting of three turntables, two tonearms and one phono cartridge. Alternatively, you can of course use components from other manufacturers. Consider, however, that at Brinkmann, each and every component is optimized to work in synergy, hence your mileage with other components may vary. Put differently, at Brinkmann, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.