The Agnew Analog Reference Instrument Type 631 is a high performance direct drive motor, designed for professional disk mastering lathes and turntables. It is usually positioned on the floor under the lathe or turntable, driving the platter directly by means of a long driveshaft, similar to the drive system of the Neumann VMS-70 and several other professional disk mastering systems.

Some time ago we were asked to repair a vintage Westrex 2B feedback cutter head.
As with all Western Electric and Westrex products, their cutter heads were beautifully made and represented the state of the art in their time. Not only did they sound great, they also looked aesthetically pleasing, with curved lines that were not a trivial task to manufacture, in the days before CNC machine tools, CAD software and pocket calculators!

We have developed a range of precision machined driveshafts that can be supplied in any length required for your applications, with end diameters to your specification. Each end could be made a different diameter, if required, and we can also supply a useful range of accessories, such as constant velocity flexible couplers, vibration dampers, soft-start clutches and mounting flanges, to suit your application.

A good machine spindle is one of the factors defining the accuracy attainable from rotating machinery. This applies equally to machine tools used in industrial manufacturing and to disk recording and mastering lathes, used to make phonograph records.

At Agnew Analog Reference Instruments, we use some of the finest and most accurate industrial manufacturing machine tools ever made, to build some of the finest and most accurate disk recording and mastering equipment ever made, so we have had to learn a thing or three about machine spindles along the way.

For many long years, J. I. Agnew has been examining, adjusting, repairing and replacing bearing systems of all kinds, from disk recording lathes and turntables to tape machines, high precision machine tools, measurement instruments, industrial equipment and all manners of motor vehicles, from passenger cars to heavy trucks. Over the past few years, he has designed and machined countless bearing units to replace worn or damaged units on a diverse range of disk recording lathes and machine tools. Valuable experience was gained, which along with his solid engineering background, was put to good use in improving his designs further and further, up until the current stage of development was reached.