NewsTurntableVinyl

Teac TN-5BB Turntable – The new flagship

Teac Corporation’s latest record player, Teac TN-5BB Turntable, is the new flagship product that will lead the range in the future. The new TN-5BB Turntable is based on features already known from Teac Corporation’s previous models, but does without an integrated phono preamplifier and equips the new Teac TN-5BB Turntable with balanced outputs.


Teac Corporation has been involved in the field of record players for some time now and has built up a quite extensive product range over the last few years. The drives are all similar in construction, but depending on the price range, you will find different differences that are decisive for the sound. This is also the case with the latest drive presented by Teac Corporation, the new Teac TN-5BB turntable.

According to Teac Corporation, the new Teac TN-5BB turntable is set to become the flagship of the product line. Even though the same design principle and strategy is used as for the models available to date, the new model is intended to stand out clearly. In all relevant aspects, refinements have been made, be it in the chassis, the drive and turntable, the tonearm and cartridge, which is pre-assembled. The most striking feature of the new Teac TN-5BB turntable is that it does not have an integrated phono preamplifier, but instead has balanced outputs.

  • Teac TN 5BB Turntable 01
  • Teac TN 5BB Turntable 02
  • Teac TN 5BB Turntable 03
  • Teac TN 5BB Turntable 04
  • Teac TN 5BB Turntable 05
  • Teac TN 5BB Turntable 06
  • Teac TN 5BB Turntable 07

At first glance, the new Teac TN-5BB Turntable appears to be the same as the drives from Teac Corporation, but it is a turntable that relies on a specially designed chassis.

The manufacturer refers to the chassis of the new Teac TN-5BB Turntable as a so-called hybrid chassis, in which various materials are used for optimum resonance and vibration damping. The basic material here is artificial marble with 12 mm, combined with MDF, but also so-called Washi paper, a traditional Japanese paper. In total, this results in a 36 mm thick structure that weighs 8.8 kg.

The drive motor of the drive was mounted on the MDF board, the tonearm of course on the upper side and thus on the synthetic marble board, so that also in this respect vibrations should be optimally prevented.

The turntable is made of acrylic with a thickness of 20 mm and thus a weight of 1.7 kg and is driven by a flat belt that runs on the outside of the turntable. The motor is controlled by a servo, with an optical sensor monitoring the speed of the platter and adjusting it accordingly. The manufacturer calls this a Platter Rotation Sensing Servo System, or PRS3 for short. The motor provides the choice between 33, 45 and even 78 revolutions per minute at the touch of a button.

The tone arm of the new Teac TN-5BB turntable is said to have been developed in cooperation with SAEC, a Japanese specialist with over 40 years of experience in this field. SAEC has already cooperated with SAEC in the development of the Teac TN-3B Turntable. Here and there, the company relies on a so-called S-shape tonearm, which is made of aluminium and has particularly precise, sophisticated bearings. The tonearm base allows all relevant settings to be adjusted to suit different pick-up systems. However, the customer who chooses a Teac TN-5BB turntable will hardly ever need this, as an Ortofon 2M RED MM pick-up system is already pre-mounted on the removable aluminium headshell ex works.

As a special feature, the Teac TN-5BB Turntable has an automatic arm lift, so that the arm can be lowered gently at the touch of a button, and raised at the end of the table instead of simply running laps in the discharge groove. This function can also be deactivated.

The manufacturer particularly emphasises the wiring of the tonearm, as this is based on PC Tripe C conductors from SAEC, which are said to have excellent conductivity and thus optimally transfer the naturally very weak currents to a phono preamplifier.

The fact that the drives from Teac Corporation are always equipped with a phono preamplifier is already a good tradition, and the fact that this time it is not the case stands out as a novelty. In addition to an unbalanced output in the form of RCA sockets, a pair of XLR connectors is now also available for balanced transmission. These are to be used first and foremost for the connection to a phono preamplifier from Teac Corporation, namely the Teac PE-505 Fully-balanced Phono Amplifier, the Teac 505 Reference Series phono preamplifier recently presented by Teac Corporation.

By the way, the entire drive rests on aluminium feet and a matching dust cover is an integral part of the scope of delivery. This is connected to the chassis by means of hinges. Power is supplied by an external 12 V power supply unit, which is of course also included in the scope of delivery.

The new Teac TN-5BB turntable measures 450 x 148 x 351 mm and weighs 10.5 kg. The chassis of course has a marble-like structure, but the colour designation in the data sheet is ultimately plain black.

The new Teac TN-5BB turntable will be offered these days, 1. December it should be in stores. The price will be € 1.599,-

Getting to the point

According to Teac Corporation, the new Teac TN-5BB turntable will take on the role of the flagship of the product line. Even though the same design principle and strategy is used as for the models available to date, the new model is intended to stand out clearly. In all relevant aspects, refinements have been made, be it in the chassis, the drive and turntable, the tonearm and cartridge, which is pre-assembled. The most striking feature of the new Teac TN-5BB turntable is that it does not have an integrated phono preamplifier, but instead has balanced outputs. In view of this, the pre-assembled pickup seems a bit out of place, even if it is a fine MM pickup system, which was ultimately designed as an entry-level solution.

Manufacturer:Teac Corporation
Distribution:Aqipa GmbH
Price:€ 1.599,-
Show More

Michael Holzinger

Michael Holzinger, founder and editor-in-chief of HiFi BLOG and sempre-audio.at, has been working for years as a journalist in the fields of IT, photography, telecommunications and consumer electronics.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button