I once had a demo in Max Townshend's home in Richmond between my Roksan Xerxes and his Rock Reference. He hadn't heard the Roksan and I hadn't heard the Rock Reference. We spent an hour or so going through my favourite records on that sweltering summer afternoon back in 1988. What I can say is that the Rock Reference was the finest turntable I have heard. I bought a pair of Townshend Glastonbury 2 loudspeakers after that demo and they were outstanding. Sadly I sold them to raise a deposit for a mortgage and I would dearly love to own a pair again. There are many hi fi manufacturers who grab attention with this product or that but Townshend Audio puts its effort into getting the product right. Full respect to them
A friend of mine had one of these. A truely outstanding turntable. From memory it had amazing timing and bass definition that was on par with a Linn LP 12 .
A great turntable. While at University in mid 80’s shared a house with an Acoustic Engineer who had one, including Merlin PSU. He use to make his own speakers, using the University’s mainframe to do the Maths, the labs to take measurements and us to listen. He probably still has it. Later on, another mate had a PT Anniversary with SME V, with LFD Electronics and Epos speakers. At that time I had a Thorens TD160S (modified by the late Len Gregory), Mission 774 (not the LC) this was silver wired, Cambridge P35 (modified by Beard Electronics & me as a Electronics Engineer with access to a lab) and Castle Speakers. We would meet once a month for ‘Vinyl night’, this was in the ‘90s, when Vinyl was out of fashion! The TD160 was replaced by an full Orbe and the 774 by a SME V, which runs today with a Lyra Skala, Bakoon Reference phono stage, into Sim Audio Moon amps & Signature 805 speakers. Still with all the records from the 80’s & 90’s and a whole lot more.
Still got my Rock which I bought in 1987, love it. Originaly bought it with an Alphason Opal tonearm. Upgraded the motor with an Origin Live motor kit and have a Kuzma Stogi tonearm with a Lyra Lydian Beta cartridge now, sounds awesome, glad I neverbought a Linn. I seam to recall at shows they always had some cheap MM cartridge in the Elite Rocks, but they deserved something far better.
A copy paste from a comment I left on a Townshend video; The principle that allows the damper to reduce spurious low and subsonic frequency noise at the stylus is phase-cancellation. The damper couples the headshell to the plinth at freqencies above c. 5Hz - any motor, bearing or externally injected energy above that freq. arrives at the cartridge from both the platter surface (the record) _and_ the headshell (via the paddle), the two paths at opposite phases ('mirrored') which from the 'point of view' of the cartridge cancel each other. So, very little bearing or motor noise and the 'blackness' the Rock is known for. Just as important is the very effective (almost total) damping of arm/cartridge resonance (I prefer 'oscillation'), which is usually ("ideally") just below audible range at c. 8--15hz but which even at that frequency can and does affect tracking across the audio band as stylus tracking pressure rapidly varies with the 'shimmying', hence the Rock is also renowned for eaking superb tracking from even 'difficult' cartridges (assuming you can get it set up properly - best of luck!).
Great video Phil I bought a second hand Elite Rock 20 years ago. At the time it had superior clarity to the (admittedly out of fettle) Linn Sondek it replaced. Max was always incredibly helpful on the phone - helping me get it set up correctly, and later building a replacement platter for me when mine got dropped (!) Unfortunately the sound balance was never as good and I sold it on. Max's opinion was that the original plaster filled plinth and platter were never beaten by the subsequent skeletal designs, they were just a nightmare to fabricate! I remember seeing a review of the original Elite Cranfield Rock design you mentioned, in Hifi Answers magazine. If I remember rightly it had bellows-style air suspension incorporated, another design principle Max has run with latterly.
I have seen a couple of sellers on eBay doing a similar silicone damping trough for Rega arms, from memory one comes from Greece. One of them sells machined ones and the other is 3D printed. They fit around the arm pillar. Very interesting video Phil and a turntable that I had forgotten about, I love these retro reviews.
the original idea for the damping trough came from design by Cranfield University and the turntable was the Elite Cranfield which sounded absolutely fantastic unfortunately when Max got the rights to build it he was unable to get the original bearing design because of patient rights. But it was still a fantastic sounding deck I had the pleasure of being able to listen to them both. John Vaughan
I just love watching the unscripted bimble through a review and the unplanned detours you take when they pop into your head. I personally would love a review on Thorens turntables purely for the fact I might have an opportunity to buy one with an sme tone arm but as I'm pretty new to Hifi I don't know if it's worth it or save for a rega 6
I love the quirkiness of the Rock. I always lusted after a Rock Reference. Max Townshend is such an innovative designer. I have his podiums under my 25 year old speakers which have completely transformed the sound
Remember the old Penta HiFi show at Heathrow?,first time I heard the Townshend Rock was there,it absolutely trounced the Linn,if I remember correctly the Rockwas being played through a large full active Meridian system.
Remember it well! I hated Linn’s with a vengeance - still do. I think the Wilson Benesch tonearm was introduced there as well. Many an hour queueing outside the Absolute Sounds demo’s!
I still use my Elite Rock 2, which looks identical to yours (though with plinth and perspex cover,) with Merlin PS, Excaliber tonearm and Koetsu red cartridge, all from the mid 80's and still working great. All recent upgrades have been downstream, with my Gold Note ph10 phono stage, Axxess Forte 3 streaming amp, and Audiovector SR3 's and new mains and cabling being purchased since 2020. Being a workaholic, my turntable always had light usage. Retirement saw that change, but now family caring responsibilities require me to spend much time elsewhere and with this and the convenience of streaming, my Rock is getting off with light usage once more. All good news as the cost of a new setup of similar quality would I think, be eyewatering.
At weekends I worked at Auditions in Walton, but during the week I worked up the road at a computer company in the same building as Max. Around 6-7pm the entire building would shake as Max turned it up to 11. I went in one evening and the place looked like a bombsite with plaster of paris everywhere. At the time I had a Linn Basik and this blew holes in it with a cheaper arm and cartridge. Where speakers might be described as poor in the lower registers this would change them. It was a bit of a mess having to move the trough about but when people listened to the output you could watch their faces change.
Love the video! I bought an Eilte Rock 2 , Excalibur , with a Milltek aurora MC cartridge in the late 1980s (I also had to buy the plinth and lid as my partner hated the looks) ...upgrading from a Logic Tempo with Datum arm. I liked the sound of the Logic (A step up from a Rega, a step down from a Sondek) but had issues with its wobbly feet, motor suspension bushes and unreliable power supply (All British turntable manufacturers at that time failed to produce a reliable electronic supply). The acrylic platter also created loud static bangs through the cartridge on occasions, along with sticky arm bearings that bugged the Datum design (it should go into your Unreliable Hi-Fi basket, Phil). At the time it seemed like upgrading from humble Japanese made music centres you had to have a lot of faith, and be prepared part with lots of cash in pursuit of the audio holy grail.It also helped if you lived close to a Hi Fi shop so you could take the thing in for repair, and whilst there listen to a new turntable model that would eventually have the same manufacturing or design issues. The Elite Rock was the the turntable that gave me a taste for the audio high end, which wasn't really a thing at that time. It was completely reliable. It could play any record I threw at it (Apart from a second hand BBC recording of bird song, where the Milltek came a cropper). The Rock also sounded "better than CD" that was becoming a competitor to Vinyl in the late 1980s. The Rock 's strengths were demonstrated to me and by Tim De Paravicini at an audio show. I thought that this would be the last turntable I would buy, and I could spend any future cash on LPs. I sadly had to sell it when I moved to work abroad. I learned that the design was the result of an mechanical engineering project at Cranfield Institute of Technology (to look into issues of turntable design). I believe the plinth and platter in the original Cranfield Rock were made from inert "Granitan". It had a spiral oil feed bearing and some other elements like the anti static wire which were dropped when Max brought the Rock into commercial production.
I know where there is one of these lying in a garage in London needing restoration, great turntable. I would speak to Johnny at Audio Origami about repairing the arm.
I know a guy who repairs and upgrades Townsend Rocks. They call him the Rock Doc. What he doesn’t know about Rocks isn’t worth knowing plus he’s a really nice guy
I had a Rock just like that one in 1985 - great sound but what I didn't realise was that the damping trough must be covered up when not in use - otherwise a thin layer of dust settles on the fluid and that can't be dusted off! It looks terrible! I also had the EEI preamp imported from Australia by Max but that developed a common fault - the high gain phono circuitry was coated with a sealant to minimise vibration, but over time the sealant hardened and crushed the electronics.
I have the elite rock, podiums, seismic sink, dct 100 and dct300 cables, supertweeters x5, speaker cables, Allegri + pre amp I’m a fan of Townshend Audio. What else are you looking to review?
It was definitely 'One step too far' for me back in the day. Too much messing about. Biggest mistake I ever made, I ended up with a Linn Sondek, a highly regarded, highly reviewed, very expensive, easily available, turntable, tonearm and cartridge. My mate had a Townshend Rock, we had the same amplifiers, Naims, same speakers, Rogers I think. His Townshend fronted system made my Sondek sound very mediocre indeed.
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I once had a demo in Max Townshend's home in Richmond between my Roksan Xerxes and his Rock Reference. He hadn't heard the Roksan and I hadn't heard the Rock Reference. We spent an hour or so going through my favourite records on that sweltering summer afternoon back in 1988. What I can say is that the Rock Reference was the finest turntable I have heard. I bought a pair of Townshend Glastonbury 2 loudspeakers after that demo and they were outstanding. Sadly I sold them to raise a deposit for a mortgage and I would dearly love to own a pair again. There are many hi fi manufacturers who grab attention with this product or that but Townshend Audio puts its effort into getting the product right. Full respect to them
A friend of mine had one of these. A truely outstanding turntable. From memory it had amazing timing and bass definition that was on par with a Linn LP 12 .
A great turntable. While at University in mid 80’s shared a house with an Acoustic Engineer who had one, including Merlin PSU. He use to make his own speakers, using the University’s mainframe to do the Maths, the labs to take measurements and us to listen. He probably still has it.
Later on, another mate had a PT Anniversary with SME V, with LFD Electronics and Epos speakers. At that time I had a Thorens TD160S (modified by the late Len Gregory), Mission 774 (not the LC) this was silver wired, Cambridge P35 (modified by Beard Electronics & me as a Electronics Engineer with access to a lab) and Castle Speakers.
We would meet once a month for ‘Vinyl night’, this was in the ‘90s, when Vinyl was out of fashion!
The TD160 was replaced by an full Orbe and the 774 by a SME V, which runs today with a Lyra Skala, Bakoon Reference phono stage, into Sim Audio Moon amps & Signature 805 speakers. Still with all the records from the 80’s & 90’s and a whole lot more.
Still got my Rock which I bought in 1987, love it. Originaly bought it with an Alphason Opal tonearm. Upgraded the motor with an Origin Live motor kit and have a Kuzma Stogi tonearm with a Lyra Lydian Beta cartridge now, sounds awesome, glad I neverbought a Linn. I seam to recall at shows they always had some cheap MM cartridge in the Elite Rocks, but they deserved something far better.
A copy paste from a comment I left on a Townshend video;
The principle that allows the damper to reduce spurious low and subsonic frequency noise at the stylus is phase-cancellation. The damper couples the headshell to the plinth at freqencies above c. 5Hz - any motor, bearing or externally injected energy above that freq. arrives at the cartridge from both the platter surface (the record) _and_ the headshell (via the paddle), the two paths at opposite phases ('mirrored') which from the 'point of view' of the cartridge cancel each other. So, very little bearing or motor noise and the 'blackness' the Rock is known for. Just as important is the very effective (almost total) damping of arm/cartridge resonance (I prefer 'oscillation'), which is usually ("ideally") just below audible range at c. 8--15hz but which even at that frequency can and does affect tracking across the audio band as stylus tracking pressure rapidly varies with the 'shimmying', hence the Rock is also renowned for eaking superb tracking from even 'difficult' cartridges (assuming you can get it set up properly - best of luck!).
Great idea. I bought the Townshend Avalon (a sister deck to the Rock) in 1989 and kept it for 26 years. It never missed a beat in all that time.
Great video Phil
I bought a second hand Elite Rock 20 years ago. At the time it had superior clarity to the (admittedly out of fettle) Linn Sondek it replaced. Max was always incredibly helpful on the phone - helping me get it set up correctly, and later building a replacement platter for me when mine got dropped (!)
Unfortunately the sound balance was never as good and I sold it on.
Max's opinion was that the original plaster filled plinth and platter were never beaten by the subsequent skeletal designs, they were just a nightmare to fabricate!
I remember seeing a review of the original Elite Cranfield Rock design you mentioned, in Hifi Answers magazine. If I remember rightly it had bellows-style air suspension incorporated, another design principle Max has run with latterly.
I have seen a couple of sellers on eBay doing a similar silicone damping trough for Rega arms, from memory one comes from Greece. One of them sells machined ones and the other is 3D printed. They fit around the arm pillar. Very interesting video Phil and a turntable that I had forgotten about, I love these retro reviews.
Retro reviews (and your opinions) ... Excellent idea !
the original idea for the damping trough came from design by Cranfield University and the turntable was the Elite Cranfield which sounded absolutely fantastic unfortunately when Max got the rights to build it he was unable to get the original bearing design because of patient rights. But it was still a fantastic sounding deck I had the pleasure of being able to listen to them both.
John Vaughan
Yes, more turntable videos please!
I agree , anything old and new
Had a Rock Reference with Excalibur arm in the ealy 90s. Incredible.
I just love watching the unscripted bimble through a review and the unplanned detours you take when they pop into your head. I personally would love a review on Thorens turntables purely for the fact I might have an opportunity to buy one with an sme tone arm but as I'm pretty new to Hifi I don't know if it's worth it or save for a rega 6
Great idea! Can’t wait to see more Retro Reviews. Thanks 😊
I love the quirkiness of the Rock. I always lusted after a Rock Reference. Max Townshend is such an innovative designer. I have his podiums under my 25 year old speakers which have completely transformed the sound
I use Townsend ‘bars’ here, amazing things
Remember the old Penta HiFi show at Heathrow?,first time I heard the Townshend Rock was there,it absolutely trounced the Linn,if I remember correctly the Rockwas being played through a large full active Meridian system.
Penta! Seems like a lifetime ago
Remember it well! I hated Linn’s with a vengeance - still do.
I think the Wilson Benesch tonearm was introduced there as well. Many an hour queueing outside the Absolute Sounds demo’s!
Yes, please do more... Your doing great... The videos are great! It's doesn't matter about actual gear, if need be get some pictures.
Thanks
I still use my Elite Rock 2, which looks identical to yours (though with plinth and perspex cover,) with Merlin PS, Excaliber tonearm and Koetsu red cartridge, all from the mid 80's and still working great. All recent upgrades have been downstream, with my Gold Note ph10 phono stage, Axxess Forte 3 streaming amp, and Audiovector SR3 's and new mains and cabling being purchased since 2020. Being a workaholic, my turntable always had light usage. Retirement saw that change, but now family caring responsibilities require me to spend much time elsewhere and with this and the convenience of streaming, my Rock is getting off with light usage once more. All good news as the cost of a new setup of similar quality would I think, be eyewatering.
At weekends I worked at Auditions in Walton, but during the week I worked up the road at a computer company in the same building as Max. Around 6-7pm the entire building would shake as Max turned it up to 11. I went in one evening and the place looked like a bombsite with plaster of paris everywhere. At the time I had a Linn Basik and this blew holes in it with a cheaper arm and cartridge. Where speakers might be described as poor in the lower registers this would change them. It was a bit of a mess having to move the trough about but when people listened to the output you could watch their faces change.
Great job explaining this item
Nice just got back into hifi like watching your videos 🙏
Love the video!
I bought an Eilte Rock 2 , Excalibur , with a Milltek aurora MC cartridge in the late 1980s (I also had to buy the plinth and lid as my partner hated the looks) ...upgrading from a Logic Tempo with Datum arm.
I liked the sound of the Logic (A step up from a Rega, a step down from a Sondek) but had issues with its wobbly feet, motor suspension bushes and unreliable power supply (All British turntable manufacturers at that time failed to produce a reliable electronic supply). The acrylic platter also created loud static bangs through the cartridge on occasions, along with sticky arm bearings that bugged the Datum design (it should go into your Unreliable Hi-Fi basket, Phil).
At the time it seemed like upgrading from humble Japanese made music centres you had to have a lot of faith, and be prepared part with lots of cash in pursuit of the audio holy grail.It also helped if you lived close to a Hi Fi shop so you could take the thing in for repair, and whilst there listen to a new turntable model that would eventually have the same manufacturing or design issues.
The Elite Rock was the the turntable that gave me a taste for the audio high end, which wasn't really a thing at that time. It was completely reliable. It could play any record I threw at it (Apart from a second hand BBC recording of bird song, where the Milltek came a cropper). The Rock also sounded "better than CD" that was becoming a competitor to Vinyl in the late 1980s. The Rock 's strengths were demonstrated to me and by Tim De Paravicini at an audio show. I thought that this would be the last turntable I would buy, and I could spend any future cash on LPs.
I sadly had to sell it when I moved to work abroad.
I learned that the design was the result of an mechanical engineering project at Cranfield Institute of Technology (to look into issues of turntable design). I believe the plinth and platter in the original Cranfield Rock were made from inert "Granitan". It had a spiral oil feed bearing and some other elements like the anti static wire which were dropped when Max brought the Rock into commercial production.
I know where there is one of these lying in a garage in London needing restoration, great turntable. I would speak to Johnny at Audio Origami about repairing the arm.
I know a guy who repairs and upgrades Townsend Rocks. They call him the Rock Doc. What he doesn’t know about Rocks isn’t worth knowing plus he’s a really nice guy
I had a Rock just like that one in 1985 - great sound but what I didn't realise was that the damping trough must be covered up when not in use - otherwise a thin layer of dust settles on the fluid and that can't be dusted off! It looks terrible!
I also had the EEI preamp imported from Australia by Max but that developed a common fault - the high gain phono circuitry was coated with a sealant to minimise vibration, but over time the sealant hardened and crushed the electronics.
The original Rock had "THE ROCK" cast into the trough, the Rock II had "ELITE ROCK" as on yours. Which looks like a very nice example BTW.
Enjoying the flashbacks 😁
7:19 Keep fingers crossed!
It's a shame you're not using it (unless of course you have another one!).
If you can I would like to see you looking at a Manticore Mantra with the Rega 250 Tonearm please
A rare deck nowadays... used to sell them and the Input Kit Deck which was basically the same
Photos are fine
I have the elite rock, podiums, seismic sink, dct 100 and dct300 cables, supertweeters x5, speaker cables, Allegri + pre amp
I’m a fan of Townshend Audio.
What else are you looking to review?
I had a Townsend pre amp model 600 series I think for a fair while was pretty good
I’ve never even seen one of these before, so I’m trying very hard to understand how the trough thing works!
Nice bloke love your content 👍☺️
Thank you :-)
It was definitely 'One step too far' for me back in the day. Too much messing about. Biggest mistake I ever made, I ended up with a Linn Sondek, a highly regarded, highly reviewed, very expensive, easily available, turntable, tonearm and cartridge. My mate had a Townshend Rock, we had the same amplifiers, Naims, same speakers, Rogers I think. His Townshend fronted system made my Sondek sound very mediocre indeed.
AA friend of mine had one of these. I was deeply imp[ressed