New GT-5000 Turntable Yamaha

GT-5000 - Specs - Yamaha - Music - Australia

 

GT-5000
Referencing the esteemed turntables of the golden age of Hi-Fi, the GT-5000 expands on this heritage in the pursuit of pure musicality. Including a pure straight and short arm for absolute transparency and openness in sound, balanced signal path delivering absolute purity in signal transmission and design reflective of the GT heritage and absolute quality in craftsmanship and construction, the GT-5000 presents a new era on Hi-Fi from Yamaha. A sound both for the ears and the soul.

• Balanced output achieves full balanced signal process from cartridge to speaker
• GT Series design
• Straight, short arm for transparency and openness in sound
• Custom belt-drive mechanism (AC synchronous motor)
• 5 kg aluminium platter

 

Interesting, and it does look a little like the vintage Yamaha GT series, those were mostly Micro Seiki designs, and of course direct drive with fairly complex (for the times) digital control systems (I wonder who designed this one), but not much confidence it will herald a new era of Japanese super tables. As mentioned above, this new one is belt-drive with AC synchronous motor, and has a built-in crystal-based digital motor control circuit with fine adjustment range. Tonearm is a bit odd though, it is straight with no offset built into the removable headshell, and no offset angle on the adjustment slots either, just like a linear tracker, apparently they are going with an short underhung straight tonearm design, but seems like that would have a pretty high tracking error. I don't get it, at least not yet.

Below is the rare Yamaha GT-2000x from 1985 ...



Yamaha GT-2000x on thevintageknob.org

 

That knob in the middle would annoy me in all of 3 secs.

 

Those '80s originals are massive, solid tables. I see them now and again in Japan. They have held up their value over the decades. They're never cheap in the used market.

On the new ones, well, the tonearm design is something of a puzzler with what was said above about tracking error. Maybe they've judged that the new customer market wants an upscale table but not the all the fiddling that goes with cartridge alignment, just bolt it on and go.

 

I found the specs for the GT-5000 turntable on Yamaha's site here: GT-5000 - Specs - Yamaha - Canada - English

From what I read online, the MSRP is going to be 5,000 EUR.

Here's a video (in Japanese) I found of the turntable:



The plinth looks to be made of real wood, not the MDF/veneer type.

 

First Technics and now Yamaha!
We live in a great time folks now that these companies come back revisiting the old classic Japanese designs.

 

There's no offset at all on the arm. The original model had the offset built onto the headshell, not so with the new model. That's an easy pass.

 

This is belt driven while the original GT2000 was DD.

 

Yes, I noticed it too. I wonder why they made the decision to go with belt drive instead of direct. Maybe Direct Drive was too expensive to manufacture?

 

A good one? For sure.

 

Nice,very nice indeed.

 

I'm looking for info on the net right now... is it made in Japan?
A few years ago Denon released the DP A100 (that was a direct drive), it sells 2,500$ right now... but people say it's just a poor chinese made pretender.

 

I believe the DP A100 was based on the Super OEM (at least with the direct drive motor and tonearm), albeit with better plinth and design overall.

From my observations, the new GT-5000 looks to be made in Japan (the tonearm looks to be made of carbon fibre), which is probably reflected by the MSRP that I mentioned earlier.

 

About 12 years ago I bought a Yamaha PF-800. The last TT's they made. Bought it for $399 sold it for $699. Wish I sill had it was a beautiful sounding TT.

 

Seriously. What the heck? That tonearm is good for DJs only.

 

If that was a D.Drive table, it would be interesting.

 

I don’t understand how one could properly align a cartridge with this straight arm/headshell.

 

You guys honestly believe that no one on Yamaha's engineering team had the ability to recognize whether their system allows for proper cartridge alignment?

 

Not for a second.

 

I think most of us just wonder what the rationale was for the short underhung tonearm design, beyond the stated "superior rigidity". Personally, I think it's just a style mockup, and when the table goes to market it will have a more conventional tonearm with overhang and offset.

In the meantime, people can still buy a nice vintage GT-2000 from Japan for $2000 and upwards, they are still pretty widely available at all the mintyness levels if you have the money.

 

That's look like fake, replacing DD with belt drive. Why do that?
For 5K euro there are many better belt-driven tables, thank you very much.

 

That arm choice is interesting. I would hope they are putting some heavy marketing around that decision, because it just doesn't make sense to me.

 

As far as I can see, the only cartridges that would align correctly would be those with conical styli.

And don't think it's just a style mock up. Stanton markets a turntable with a totally straight arm and a straight headshell as well.

I wouldn't play my albums on it, that's for sure.

 

Not sure what the stylus shape would have to do with the alignment, tracking error is the same regardless of shape, though I do agree that a conical stylus would be more forgiving of poor alignment. And Stanton has two versions of that ~$500 table, one with straight arm for DJs (STR8-150) and one with conventional s-shaped arm for general use (ST-150). But this Yamaha doesn't appear to be marketed for DJ use, in either overall design or the high price, it's clearly an audiophile product, so I'd be very surprised if it went to market in this guise, though they have been demoing at shows, so I guess anything is possible