We had the distinct pleasure to interview award winning designer about their original and creative design work. is an award-winning creative designer, that makes our world a better place with their original works.
("") answered Design Interview ("DI") questions about their award-winning work . Interview questions prepared by Frank Scott.
: The ultimate goal of a hi-fi turn table is to re-create the purest and uncontaminated of sounds; this essence of sound is both the terminus and the concept of this design. As a reference to the purpose of this sound re-creating product, this design is inspired by the sound itself. It is about how sound could be perceived and represented in a 3 dimensional space. Therefore it is inspired by lots of physics specially the graphical representations of how sound travels and how sound behaves. As I learnt more about these products I realized that most of the fascinating technology behind high fidelity was developed in the 50s and the 60s so I used similar design language of that era to signify that this device shares the same technical passion.
: What I wanted to achieve was, a turntable that I would be proud of by just owning one, because it is as abstract and as sophisticated as the music I listen to.
: This design has given birth to it's producer company Calliope Audio where it is also available of purchase.
: Project started on March 2008 at the time it was my graduation project from University. The first prototype was very rough but I was still able to graduate with it. Then some time on mid 2010 I build an improved version of the turntable for myself, keeping in mind that it might turn in to a product one day. After receiving very positive feedbacks from some audio critics I decided to build a final improved version of the turntable on June 2011. Completely redesigning the turntable, making numerous acoustic tests, finding correct components, optimizing quality of the production on numerous workshops in France and Turkey and finally assembling all the pieces together took me more than seventeen months.
: During my final year we were fortunate enough to chose our final projects and hi-fi was one of the subjects that I was looking for an excuse to learn plus the size and the complexity of the project was just ideal that is why I choose this subject. All the inspiration and the concepts fallowed afterwords.
: At the very begging, because it was a school project I had regular feedback from the staff and in time I had feed back from hi-fi experts, mechanical engineers and production specialists.
: Due to the nature of the industry, production volumes and difficulties in production this product is rather on the expensive side and aims for the top market in hi-fi.
: Well I am not going to bore you with all the technicality but in terms of sound quality this is one of the top turntables available. In terms of design (according to my taste) all other turntables available are just soulless machines and when compared, this one is a sculpture.
: That was a difficult task and in fact I couldn't came up with a proper name, a close friend of mine Hakan Cezayirli came up with the name Calliope; she is one of the Angels (Muse) in ancient Greek mythology, she is the bringer / introducer of music and poetry to the human race.
: So many I almost used every thing I know, modeling in Rhino and Solid Works, finite element simulation in Ansys, renders in Maxwell and retouch in Photoshop and Light room.
: During the design phase I read about mechanical vibrations and how the form of an object could affect it's resonance frequencies there for it's sound quality. Although the form of the turntable appears to be just as styling it is an intensely studied form to maximize the sound quality of the product. This fact literally joins form and function in a spiritual manner for this product and my personal favorite aspect about this design.
: This particular design has many aspects in many different fields so I did collaborate with many people such as Professors in the field of mechanical vibrations, mechanical engineers, production specialists and hi-fi gurus.
: Both in production and design stages technology was essential. From the CAD modeling to real life vibration measurements or to CNC milling it would be absolutely impossible without technology.
: Rather than influenced the correct word should be build on. As you know the resonance frequency of an object is related with its form, material and it's contact with the outer world. Using a finite element software we were able to calculate the resonance frequencies of the components we use and modify the form of the object to lower it's resonance frequencies. We did many form studies and eventually backed up this data with real life measurements.
: The production was very difficult achieving proper high quality finishes was so difficult particularly on just one prototype.
