Here's a pic of my pride 'n' joy. VPI Aries II and VPI SDS with an Eastern Electric phono stage. I'm vinyl junkie and have listened to it almost exclusively for the past 10 years, other than some iPod use when away from home. I'm about to test the waters with Hi-Rez digital though…waiting on delivery of an Astell & Kern AK120… …I'm pretty stoked!
Here's a pic of my pride 'n' joy. VPI Aries II and VPI SDS with an Eastern Electric phono stage. I'm vinyl junkie and have listened to it almost exclusively for the past 10 years, other than some iPod use when away from home. I'm about to test the waters with Hi-Rez digital though…waiting on delivery of an Astell & Kern AK120… …I'm pretty stoked!
Talking about entry level... I don't think this is exactly cheap but pretty close to what we discussed. Darned good looking, well executed and well thought out.
This must be pretty much the exact opposite of the [insert curseword] Technics 1210: no mumbo jumbo, wistles or bells. No fake nostalgia. Sleek design with technology where it counts, well engineered and fabricated with pride by skilled workers that earn a decent living. No cutting corners except, maybe, by the standard ubiquitous RB202 arm which is pretty unbeatable at the price.
FYI the price over here in EU is lower that the VPI Traveller.
Talking about entry level... I don't think this is exactly cheap but pretty close to what we discussed. Darned good looking, well executed and well thought out.
This must be pretty much the exact opposite of the [insert curseword] Technics 1210: no mumbo jumbo, wistles or bells. No fake nostalgia. Sleek design with technology where it counts, well engineered and fabricated with pride by skilled workers that earn a decent living. No cutting corners except, maybe, by the standard ubiquitous RB202 arm which is pretty unbeatable at the price.
Yes...the SR828 and SR929 (know as the black beauties)...I almost bought one (the 929) for approx. $800 but the seller made me nervous on a speed issue and there is just no way to get the parts for these to fix (the chip)
This has to be the all time ( or at least current ) production Worst Case Of Missed Opportunity in turntables. Although most of the design is sound, it is ludicrously underestimating what is should be doing in the first place - and that is to extract music from the record. It is claimed to be the world's most accurate speed turntable - I lost track of counting zeroes between the decimal point and first meaningful other than zero digit in its wow and flutter specs - YET what on earth can this precision achieved trough DSP mean if the table ignors that the records themselves ARE NOT PERFECT - off-center pressings are, like it or not, not an exception but the rule. It is super easy to get 0.1% or anything to about 0.5% wow figure because of off-center pressings - does it in real life matter if the platter turns with 0.0...X % ? Not in the slightest.
It is the same as saying: we build the fastest racing car - because we eliminated suspension (it adds weight..), vipers on the windshield ( it creates drag, reduces top speed by a fraction of a mph...), etc, etc - BUT our car is fastest only in clear weather, on perfectly flat road, bumps not exceeding 0.0....X inch - or else we will have to search for another driver, as the car will get airborne (and...) at anything exceeding 100-150 mph...
And they claim much of the expertise put into this design came from the motorsport racing !
This is a 5 figure device - and at its present price, adding yet another couple of grands to it to really make it meaningfully useful and carrying its superiority beyond its brochure and into actual performance WITH REAL WORLD records should not prove too difficult. What is better - TT with a spec almost no one can confirm and is meaningless in real world - or slightly worse spec'd table that, trough its design, achieves at least one order of magnitude better performance with REAL records ?
DSP, as any other tool/technique/means - is only as good as its implementation.
This has to be the all time ( or at least current ) production Worst Case Of Missed Opportunity in turntables. Although most of the design is sound, it is ludicrously underestimating what is should be doing in the first place - and that is to extract music from the record. It is claimed to be the world's most accurate speed turntable - I lost track of counting zeroes between the decimal point and first meaningful other than zero digit in its wow and flutter specs - YET what on earth can this precision achieved trough DSP mean if the table ignors that the records themselves ARE NOT PERFECT - off-center pressings are, like it or not, not an exception but the rule. It is super easy to get 0.1% or anything to about 0.5% wow figure because of off-center pressings - does it in real life matter if the platter turns with 0.0...X % ? Not in the slightest.
It is the same as saying: we build the fastest racing car - because we eliminated suspension (it adds weight..), vipers on the windshield ( it creates drag, reduces top speed by a fraction of a mph...), etc, etc - BUT our car is fastest only in clear weather, on perfectly flat road, bumps not exceeding 0.0....X inch - or else we will have to search for another driver, as the car will get airborne (and...) at anything exceeding 100-150 mph...
And they claim much of the expertise put into this design came from the motorsport racing !
This is a 5 figure device - and at its present price, adding yet another couple of grands to it to really make it meaningfully useful and carrying its superiority beyond its brochure and into actual performance WITH REAL WORLD records should not prove too difficult. What is better - TT with a spec almost no one can confirm and is meaningless in real world - or slightly worse spec'd table that, trough its design, achieves at least one order of magnitude better performance with REAL records ?
DSP, as any other tool/technique/means - is only as good as its implementation.
That is the kind of stuff that makes this hobby what it is. I sold motor homes for 20 years, so they were both a truck and a house, but because of their cost and fact that they were a total non needed luxury, folks would spent years figuring out what they wanted. Learning about different areas of potential over- build is all part of the sizzle. And yes, so much is excess ideas that do nothing but sound good, in theory.lol
Ok so this table is a mini high performance race car that you can also play your records on. Still though ask any BMW owner if all the technology is needed daily and they will try to prove it to you.
Being that this thing does look like a car I can only imagine. So this whole area of turntables is full of cool ideas and possible lost causes. The fact that things do make a difference at times and that the market is always competitive basicly means that much of the new VPI direct drive wil be avalible sometime soon as a cheaper model, kind of like a direct drive VPI Scout with a 3D printed arm. Lol
So ya, they guy with the 100k to spend always gets the monoatomic gold bearings with oil friction dampening thermally adjusted in an alternate reality. His 200 pound counter weight reflects any movement due to the earths rotation. So he thinks that all this stuff sounds better for the ultimate placebo effect, plus he gets to brag to his friends about it. In marketing it also starts to trump the plain janes in the price bracket below it.
This has to be the all time ( or at least current ) production Worst Case Of Missed Opportunity in turntables. Although most of the design is sound, it is ludicrously underestimating what is should be doing in the first place - and that is to extract music from the record. It is claimed to be the world's most accurate speed turntable - I lost track of counting zeroes between the decimal point and first meaningful other than zero digit in its wow and flutter specs - YET what on earth can this precision achieved trough DSP mean if the table ignors that the records themselves ARE NOT PERFECT - off-center pressings are, like it or not, not an exception but the rule. It is super easy to get 0.1% or anything to about 0.5% wow figure because of off-center pressings - does it in real life matter if the platter turns with 0.0...X % ? Not in the slightest.
It is the same as saying: we build the fastest racing car - because we eliminated suspension (it adds weight..), vipers on the windshield ( it creates drag, reduces top speed by a fraction of a mph...), etc, etc - BUT our car is fastest only in clear weather, on perfectly flat road, bumps not exceeding 0.0....X inch - or else we will have to search for another driver, as the car will get airborne (and...) at anything exceeding 100-150 mph...
And they claim much of the expertise put into this design came from the motorsport racing !
This is a 5 figure device - and at its present price, adding yet another couple of grands to it to really make it meaningfully useful and carrying its superiority beyond its brochure and into actual performance WITH REAL WORLD records should not prove too difficult. What is better - TT with a spec almost no one can confirm and is meaningless in real world - or slightly worse spec'd table that, trough its design, achieves at least one order of magnitude better performance with REAL records ?
DSP, as any other tool/technique/means - is only as good as its implementation.
That is the kind of stuff that makes this hobby what it is. I sold motor homes for 20 years, so they were both a truck and a house, but because of their cost and fact that they were a total non needed luxury, folks would spent years figuring out what they wanted. Learning about different areas of potential over- build is all part of the sizzle. And yes, so much is excess ideas that do nothing but sound good, in theory.lol
Ok so this table is a mini high performance race car that you can also play your records on. Still though ask any BMW owner if all the technology is needed daily and they will try to prove it to you.
Being that this thing does look like a car I can only imagine. So this whole area of turntables is full of cool ideas and possible lost causes. The fact that things do make a difference at times and that the market is always competitive basicly means that much of the new VPI direct drive wil be avalible sometime soon as a cheaper model, kind of like a direct drive VPI Scout with a 3D printed arm. Lol
So ya, they guy with the 100k to spend always gets the monoatomic gold bearings with oil friction dampening thermally adjusted in an alternate reality. His 200 pound counter weight reflects any movement due to the earths rotation. So he thinks that all this stuff sounds better for the ultimate placebo effect, plus he gets to brag to his friends about it. In marketing it also starts to trump the plain janes in the price bracket below it.
I did not want my post to appear as bashing - because in many ways, Grand Prix Monaco IS A GOOD DESIGN. The designer, provided he/she had any idea what real world problems of turntables are, would, given his/hers expertise in DSP and manufacturing of carbon fibre pieces, actually be capable of creating "end of the (technologically meaningfull) game" in turntables. Currently, its price is about 20 K - add a couple of grands for revised design that would incorporate the features required to get the best resullts from normal records - and you have a clear winner. There are 6 figures TTs that are technologically far less advanced than GPM - and in comparison, GPM revised X.0 would look as a - bargain ...!
Irony is the fact that most of the mumbo djumbo required to play real world vinyl records well would not be required at all - IF the records were made with good enough precision. But records are what they are - and making of a TT that improves one iota in speed stability or rumble compared to the previous "Emperor" makes next to no sense to me - real turntable ( RECORD PLAYER - as a whole, not turntable as motor unit only ) performances are much more than by its motor governed by the cartridge and arm playing REAL records: http://www.vinylengine.com/turntable_forum/viewtopic.php?t=1281
Only AFTER arm/cartridge combination behaves as it should, start benefits of the better motor to be appearent and audible. In plain English - a well matched/adjusted arm/cart on the basic Rega/Project CAN in fact outperform in speed stability/rumble Grand Prix Monaco fitted with a less than optimal combination of arm/cart.
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![]eep](https://cdn.head-fi.org/avatars/m/139/139747.jpg?1273084439){kind=avatar}
This debuted in 1997
