What is the connection between Stanley Kubrick's film "A Clockwork Orange" and the German actor of the "Sea Wolf" era, Raimund Harmstorf?
What role did the once powerful Grundig Group play and why are they all converging on the North Rhine-Westphalian town of Bergisch Gladbach? These are the ingredients of the story of the company Transrotor, aka Räke HiFi.

If you make a list of the ten German forges that are internationally renowned. Räke HiFi and its brand Transrotor are undoubtedly among the top three. The company's founder, Jochen Räke, owes his success to his technical expertise and business know-how.

Engineer Räke has had a soft spot for turntables since his youth. As a teenager, he built his first turntable from a British kit.
Fascinated by British turntable technology, Jochen Räke started importing turntables from England in the early 1970s.

He only imported David Gammon's turntables such as the 'Hydraulic Reference' model, which were technically superior to the German products.
However, the English turntables lagged behind the German production in terms of quality and consistency of series.
For Räke, buying from Great Britain meant first checking each imported turntable and, if necessary, making it functional.

Räke ended up making his own improvements to the British productions and his close contact with David Gammon enabled a technical exchange. Räke also took care of his customers in case of warranty and service. In addition to the turntables, he also bought large quantities of spare parts whenever he visited England.
Even today, Räke HiFi / Vertrieb is the first address for the repair of old transcriptor record players.

In 1971, Jochen Räke participated in the IFA exhibition, which had a decisive impact on the future. His stand area was large, the total stock of products at that time consisted of ten identical vinyl decks. A few podiums were assembled from boards, all covered with black moltons. On each of the podiums, a turntable was lit by a spotlight. Loudspeakers to animate the exhibition and the presentation stand was ready...
 
In 1971, Stanley Kubrick adapted Anthony Burgess' novel 'Clockwork Orange' for the cinema - a must-see film for all film and culture professionals. The central character of the film, Alex, is the head of a criminal gang and is extremely brutal in this film. Alex has a passion for music, especially Beethoven, which will be fatal for him in the course of the story. He listens to his favourite music in the film through a Transcriptor Hydraulic Reference turntable, which is beautifully staged from different angles.
This is how the celebrities from radio and television who visited the IFA in those years discovered the turntable at the Räke stand.

One of the results was a visit from a tall, strong man who sat down at the Räke stand and listened attentively to the decks. He then asked Räke if he could design a glass turntable for him. Räke said yes. Räke then asked his neighbour who the man was and learned that it was Raimund Harmstorf, who was at the time the main character in the German TV series "The Sea Wolf".

A few weeks later Räke delivered the famous glass turntable to him. This enabled him to get his ticket to the Münchner Schickeria, in which Raimund Harmstorf sponsored him. At various events, Harmstorf made no secret of his satisfaction with Mr. Räke's installation - which brought him new customers.

As his success grew, Räke became aware of the need to address the quality problems of imported products. Transcriptor had been building its own models for Räke for a long time, so in 1973 it was time to differentiate from the English models by creating its own brand. Inspired by Transcriptor, Räke called its brand Transrotor.

The cooperation with David Gammon was made more difficult when Räke asked for more and more autonomous transrotor models, while Gammon wanted to concentrate on the English market. Eventually Räke developed its own model.
The parts were initially sourced from England, where the assembly took place. The idea of manufacturing the turntables in Germany was initially rejected, as assembly in the UK was considerably cheaper.

In the years that followed, Jochen Räke developed his own product range. He integrated and developed the SME tone arms and then completed his range with cartridges. After the experience he had gained with the various turntables, he focused on his own priorities. These included building vinyl decks that were as simple and robust as possible, relying heavily on standardised industrial components. This way, the supply of spare parts can be guaranteed for a long time.
In addition, he was always looking for new ideas to improve his chassis. This resulted in new products, such as highly shock-absorbing rubber feet.

The absorbing feet called "Speaker Pucks" were reminiscent of the record trays of the time, which were equipped with additional round weights.

Räke happily recounts that this product saved Transrotor, which was affected at the time, and many other vinyl turntable manufacturers from the arrival of audio CDs and Japanese competition in the 1980s.

Those who have lived through it know the story: the euphoria over the new CD format was followed by disillusionment.
Debates about 'hard' digital sound caused a lot of talk, which allowed the warmer analogue sound to once again become the yardstick against which CD players had to measure themselves.
After a long period of depression, the trend was reversed and vinyl came back stronger.
Also, many DJs never really made friends with CDs. Many of them remained faithful to vinyl, so the old medium enjoyed a great reputation among the younger generation.

The vinyl record was resurrected. Many of the turntable models were no longer available from hifi dealers and the manufacturers had disappeared. The remaining companies, such as Transrotor, subsequently experienced a surprising boom - in two respects: on the one hand, the demand for vinyl turntables started to grow again and, on the other, customers demanded high-end players. It was also the fault of the audio CD.

Firstly, there was the frustration, not to be underestimated, that CD player manufacturers tried to counteract the poor testimonial many audiophiles were giving to their devices by continually changing the D/A conversion: 16-bit, 18-bit and 20-bit. Data rates were increased by two, four and eight times. The following year, the devices that were just being developed were already becoming obsolete. In addition, the mechanics of CD players were becoming increasingly complex, as playback security was the manufacturers' goal.

Top-loading CD mechanisms were as much in vogue as belt-driven CD players, damped playback units or cases such as armoured boxes. All this, of course, at ever higher prices. No wonder that the analogue faithful were prepared to invest money in phono technology - it was seen as ripe and secure for the future. The mechanical effort made by CD manufacturers only confirmed the accuracy of analogue.

Grundig joined Räke in 1986. Grundig was a global group at the time. At first, their approaches to how to cooperate were far beyond Transrotor's capabilities. But skilful negotiations imposed conditions that enabled it to cooperate. Thus, the transparent acrylic of the Classic became black, the chrome parts became gold. By then, the company had found suppliers in the vicinity who manufactured the necessary parts. Short distances and small production runs also allowed the company to experiment with new products. New transrotor models were developed. At the instigation of the editors of Stereo magazine, Räke built the quintessence, whose platform was driven by three motors.

A model whose lines were reminiscent of the steel industry in Bergisch Gladbach, Transrotor's long-standing headquarters, was introduced in 1992 with the Iron, where both the chassis and the engine are made of steel. A CD player was even produced. However, the complexity of the mechanics and electronics was not enough to convince the subcontractors, so there was no large-scale production.

In 1998, Räke returned to design. For Giovanni Ferrero (yes, THE Ferrero), he built the first record player with gravity, which is always positioned horizontally, a technique that has since been used in all the top models such as the Artus or the Argo.

Today, the company's expertise is in the hands of Son Dirk Räke - which is not to say that Jochen Räke has retired.

With innovations such as the modular system, which allows many components such as plates or bearings to be used for different models, Transrotor now offers a wide range of models.

On the one hand, Transrotor responds to different requirements in terms of the design of the equipment and on the other hand to technical choices for most models. For example, some models are equipped with the new TMD transmission, in which the motor drives a lower plate via a belt and the transmission to the main plate is carried out via a magnetic coupling, so that the plate itself no longer has any mechanical contact with the motor - which should definitively prevent any influence of the motor on the plate. Hydrostatic bearings are standard for all models.

In addition, many models can be upgraded, for example by adding additional motors or bases or even by upgrading with a TMD bearing.

Räke always keeps in mind that these are really development levels where, as far as possible, no existing parts are superfluous. Whenever something has to be changed to upgrade a turntable, Transrotor always offers upgrade possibilities.

Indeed, despite the possible levels of sophistication, it is claimed that a record player is always a complete system. No customer should feel that they are buying a turntable that still needs to be upgraded. Very nice, this reasoning.

It is also nice that the Räkes claim to build record players for eternity.

As Räke senior says, everything he does now ultimately benefits his son - and anyone who buys a transrotor turntable can be sure of passing it on.

The likelihood of a transrotor actually being inherited by its buyer is surprisingly high. On the one hand, because Transrotor turntables will certainly work indefinitely thanks to the high quality of the processing and, because of the use of standardised components, they can always be repaired if necessary.

On the other hand, because it seems that the disc will still have its place for the next few decades. While the turnover of audio CDs is declining and media such as SACD or DVD audio have not become widespread, the turnover of discs has been growing year by year in recent years. At a low, but constant level. And in some ways it is significant that more high-quality recordings appear on disc than in the form of high-definition music data. Over 125 years ago, Emil Berliner invented the record. And it looks like, despite many challenges, it will continue for the next 125 years.