J.A. Michell History

    In the mid-1960s, John Michell founded Michell Engineering. For ten years, the company's main concentration was on producing parts for other record player manufacturers, but John was always working on creating the single greatest invention in turntable history. John created a suspended turntable in the 1980s that significantly improved vinyl playback by isolating the delicate components from sources of vibration and mechanical noise. It featured a floating pendulum sub-chassis and an inventive oil-pumping inverted main bearing.

    Sadly, John passed away in late 2003, but not before making sure that Michell would be well-managed by his family going forward.

    Presently, Michell creates and produces a line of turntables, tonearms, and cartridges that provide music enthusiasts with the chance to enjoy premium analog audio at a remarkably low cost.

    For 50 years, Michell has been at the forefront of turntable technology and design. Michell turntables are precision instruments designed to reproduce your music as close to the master recording as possible.

MICHELL DESIGN PHILOSOPHY

    Michell believe that the task of a turntable is simple. The design of a turntable is not!

    The arm shall remain fixed above the groove and not move inadvertently in relation to the cartridge when operating at audio frequencies. Additionally, the groove beneath the stylus needs to be moved at a steady angular speed. This implies that the entire loop consisting of the record, platter, bearing, (sub)chassis, arm plate, tonearm, and cartridge body should exhibit completely stiff and non-resonant behavior over the entire frequency range of 10 Hz to 20 kHz and beyond. The integrity of the sound is diminished by any flexing that has the same proportions as the tiny ripples in the groove. In order to avoid damaging the LP or cartridge, the arm should be able to freely follow the warps and excentricities of the groove at lower frequencies than audio, without causing any spurious signals to enter the cartridge's generator. The stylus can only trace the real data stored in the grooves of the record after these requirements are met.