THE DEBUT SIGNATURE SERIES:  AN 18 YEAR LEGACY OF PERFORMANCE AND STABILITY No system can make up for a compromised signal from your turntable. Enjoying the ultimate in musicality, tonality, detail and imaging when playing records requires a turntable that is fully isolated and mechanically inert. The Basis Debut unconditionally answers your question, “What am I missing?” by excelling in all areas of performance. The Debut allows you to feel the music.

The Debut, in Vacuum and standard form, has been used as a reference turntable by more top tonearm, speaker, and electronics manufactures than any other premium turntable. The sheer performance of the Debut is enough to justify its exalted status. The absolute reliability and “last forever” construction only amplify the legend, assuring that when you want to listen, your Debut turntable will always work.

THE 2200 SIGNATURE:  A LEADER IN PERFECTION The 2200 Signature represents an all new Basis model, placed between the 2001 and 2500 in our lineup. The 2200 incorporates an innovative adaptation of the Basis fluid damped suspension of the Debut model.

By incorporating the suspension under the turntable platform Basis has been able to reduce the size of the subchassis, gaining an advantageous “thickness-to-length ratio” for improved resonant behavior. We have named the suspension isolators “Resonance Annihilators” as they indeed perform the function of converting vibrational energy, on each side of the Annihilator, into heat energy. The close proximity of the tonearm to the adjacent isolator is a great advantage of the 2200 over any other turntable design: tonearm energy, created as the stylus traces the record groove, is effectively and immediately eliminated by this close isolator. The result is an immediate and direct sound, the hallmark of the suspended 2000 series turntables.  The 2200 turntable is the result of the same “Basis Systems Approach” of product development as other Basis products, where each individual subsystem contributing to the performance of the product is identified. Specific goals for the performance of each subsystem are developed based on the function of that system. Each system is designed, based on fundamental principles of physics, and then tested and optimized to perform its function to the highest level. Only after each system has demonstrated superior performance at its defined function is it approved for use in the final product.  The result is a totally engineered product. When looking at other products it can be obvious that the designer has “fallen in love” with a certain aspect of a product. This may be a novel shape, a supposed isolator made of many layers of materials, or an unusual material. Such shortsighted, incomplete designs are all too common in the record player field and result in one-dimensional performance. With the Basis Systems Approach the buyer is assured of a complete design, a truly refined final product that will withstand the test of time by performing at a state of the art level for decades.

THE WORK OF ART:  SONIC AND VISUAL ECSTASY!! Due to the challenging nature and the prestige of the Work of Art, Basis has been able to convince two Tool and Die Makers to machine all parts for this product. Combined, these two craftsmen have forty-five years of experience. One has been a supplier to Basis Audio since 1984, and the other since 1987. This type of machining, consuming thousands of hours for a small production run of the Work of Art, is one of many reasons why the Work of Art will always be unique in the marketplace and will represent the pinnacle of analog playback and art for decades.

Unfortunately, production of such an intricate piece of equipment as the Basis Work of Art is not like “churning out” a mass-market consumer item. The Work of Art is an ultimate statement of precision, performance, and the art of analog playback. The turntable itself is indeed a piece of art, sculpted from solid billet pieces of material. Not one part of shape is extruded or molded. All of the features, contours, and architectural shapes are created by precision machining operations. Further, all machining is performed by “Tool and Die-Makers”, machinists of such high caliber as to be differentiated by their ability to create the special tools, dies, and molds that are used to produce molded, cast, and stamped products. Only the best machinists ever achieve this level, working on dies that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and yet may be ruined by one wrong move on the maker’s part. Most such machinists, after attaining this status, no longer will accept production work of components for products, reserving themselves for the more difficult job of creating tooling. Most consumer products are designed with an eye toward “ease of production”. The Work of Art, however, is no normal production product. Instead, the Work of Art was designed to be an ultimate work, whose design is based only on the requirements of performance and unique, sculptural shape. Even the polishing of the four inch thick acrylic subchassis is a major difficulty: normal acrylic polishing businesses refuse the work due to its difficulty and the cost of the component should they damage it. Therefore, the designer of the Work of Art performs the acrylic polishing using his own proprietary process. Basis Audio hopes that the above helps explain both some of the intense requirements of building the Work of Art, and why quantities of this product will remain limited for the life of the project.