Harley-Davidson and Pro-Ject create Bar & Shield turntable, record player
Harley-Davidson has teamed up with Pro-Ject to make a rather serious turntable, complete with leather, polished metal and enough rotating mass to make a biker feel at home.
Harley-Davidson has made a turntable, and no, it’s not April 1st. So, if you've ever looked at your motorcycle and thought it would make a nice piece of hi-fi equipment, your oddly specific prayers have finally been answered.
The Harley-Davidson Turntable is the result of a collaboration with Austrian audio specialist Pro-Ject, and it's designed to appeal to people who like their music equipment with a bit of Milwaukee attitude.
The plinth takes its shape from Harley's familiar Bar & Shield logo, while polished aluminium, stainless steel and a genuine leather platter mat give it the sort of material mix that wouldn't look entirely out of place in a Harley dealership.
And this isn't just a cheap bit of branded tat with a Harley logo stuck on it. Pro-Ject has gone properly technical underneath the styling, using an aluminium-MDF sandwich chassis (sounds tasty - ed), a diamond-cut aluminium sub-platter and a 300mm glass platter.
It also has an 8.6-inch S-shaped aluminium tonearm, SME headshell, and a factory-fitted Pick it PRO moving-magnet cartridge, whatever they are.
Then there's the bit that will probably appeal most to anyone who has ever spent an unreasonable amount of time discussing the relative merits of different bits of rotating machinery: the moving drive mass is 2.75kg.
That includes a frankly magnificent 915g Harley-Davidson record puck, which sits on top of your vinyl to hold it against the platter. That's nearly a kilogram of Bar & Shield-branded pressure being applied to your favourite records. Harley says the puck is part of the turntable's substantial construction, while the belt-drive system uses a synchronous AC motor and electronically switches between 33 and 45rpm, which is basically flat out on a Milwaukee 8.
There are also height-adjustable aluminium feet with TPE damping, a leather mat and a semi-balanced phono cable, while the tonearm gets a gravity-based adaptive anti-skating system.
In other words, this is rather more serious than a novelty record player with a Harley badge on the lid, and definitely classier than those Technics 1210s you used to abuse like Kevin and Perry in the early 2000s.
Naturally, the price is where things get interesting. The Harley-Davidson Turntable costs £2,299 in the UK, making it considerably more expensive than some perfectly respectable motorcycles. It is available to order now through Pro-Ject's UK distributor, Henley Audio, with a dust cover available separately.
That puts it into proper enthusiast hi-fi territory, although Harley fans presumably aren't being asked to justify the purchase purely on pounds-per-decibel. It is a piece of branded design as much as it is a turntable, and one aimed squarely at the sort of person who might have a Harley in the garage and a sizeable Springsteen vinyl collection in the house.
There is something pleasingly appropriate about the whole thing, too. Motorcycles are all about mechanical movement, vibration and the interaction of carefully engineered components, while a turntable is essentially doing the same thing on a much smaller scale. One moves you down the road, the other moves a stylus through a groove.
You can find out more on the official website.
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Simon (AKA Toad) has been working within the motorcycle industry for more than twelve years, and a member of the motorcyclist family since birth. Growing up around British-built single and twins, it was inevitable that a life on two wheels was on the cards, from a very early age!
