It goes without saying that very few people will ever own the TechDAS Air Force Zero—which, by the time it’s outfitted with tone arms, cartridges, and a stand to put it on, will cost somewhere north of half a million dollars.
Nevertheless, The Audio Salon is proud to be the North American distributor for the Zero and the entire range of TechDAS turntables and accessories.
TechDAS as a company is only about 12 years old, but the career of its designer, Hideaki Nishikawa ,encompasses nearly all of high-end audio, starting in 1964 when he was designing electrostatic headphones for Stax.
In 1980 he built the Micro Seiki S-8000, the first turntable to use an air bearing and vacuum pull down platter.
The original TechDAS turntable was the Air Force One, introduced in 2012 as a statement product, taking those technologies to a new level.
What followed were a series of turntables, notably the Air Force III and Air Force V, leveraging Nishikawa-san’s design principals to create more affordable platforms.
Nevertheless, his restless imagination soon inspired a new and completely radical question: what would forty plus years of experience and zero constraints allow him to create?
The prototype answer was unveiled in Munich in 2019, and shortly after at The Audio Salon.
The first true production units were available later that year, with the first U.S. installation at the home of The Absolute Sound reviewer, Jacob Heilbrunn.
North American Premiere of the TechDAS Air Force Zero