Does anyone know more about this apparently obscure French turntable called the ERA (Etudes et Recherches Acoustiques). It was supposedly sold by J-Modular, Bob Fulton's old company in the mid-70s, and as a "system" included a Grace 707 arm and a Shure conical cartridge. The ERA turntable was unique for using a 48-pole synchronus motor. That's all I know.

Anyone?

http://www.retroaudio.ru/turntable/era-mk4.shtml

I know of someone who says is willing to sell me his, which he says is better than a Linn LP12 (except for the most current generation).

Stereophile rated the ERA very highly for a while in the early 70s, I think. for a while it was one of the few affordable belt drive tables available without an arm. But apparently the bearing on the early ones was not sufficiently durable-- after a period of recommending it, Stereophile dropped it, saying that the main bearing wore out, and then started rumbling. Don't know it this is accurate, or if the problem was fixed in later ones. I think it doesn't have a suspended subchasis, so it may be more feedback prone than other tables.
I might have bought one back then, since they were not expensive, but I never found a dealer.

Thanks for the info. It seems this was being sold by Bob Fulton in the 1977 timeframe. It had an inverted bearing, maybe that's the culprit. AC sychro motor ...not as desirable as DC nowadays.

I sometimes like odd-ball stuff, but this may be too far in left-field for me.

However, this is being given to me by a friend who has a good collection of turntables, and he feels it is real special. Better than a vintage LP12 or Thorens that I had been considering he says.

Its unclear if you are buying the ERA or he's giving it to you, but either way, listening to it is obviously the most useful type of information you can get. If he thinks its up with Linns and so on, the bearing must be fine. And its possible that with more modern lubricants you might even improve on it. I'd like to hear what you think of it.

Being a friend, he is willing to sell it to me for considerably less than what he would sell it to someone else (such as on eBay).

I talked to him yesterday, and he says it is actually an even newer version - a Mk.6c not a Mk.4 as show in the photo.

I will known in a couple of weeks and report in. Will try to do a compare to an LP12.