Bauer Audio writes: “Scenes from the workshop: it’s a high-end audio cliché, “we select our parts by hand, only every billionth sample passes our stringent quality tests” and so on … However, for many of us in the industry, this isn’t a meaningless phrase, it’s simple reality (granted, “every billionth sample” is a bit of an exaggeration 😃). Turntable drive belts, for instance, are made by companies who also supply gaskets, grommets and the like – it’s not that easy to fulfil our very specific requirements.”
What you see here is a few months’ worth of rejects. What really hurts is not so much the material cost, but the effort spent checking every single belt with a dial gauge or by means of a functional test using a test tone. Fortunately, many suppliers enjoy working for us (even if the quantities are nothing compared to their other customers) and are prepared to look for ways of improving things.