PRIME TIME! - Vpi in da house.

That is a sweet looking rig. Congratulations! I wouldn't have believed that vinyl could sound so consistently superior if I hadn't lived with a premium table for an extended period of time. The entry level tables sound fine, but a dose of perfectionism goes a long way in upgrading the virtual reality experience of analogue hifi. Good for you for setting it up. I am mechanically inept. My dealer has to do it all for me.
 
Great rig! I got a VPI Classic 3 with 3D arm a few months ago and its fantastic. Works great with my Koetsu Rosewood Signature and I had a hard time finding an arm for that cart because the compliance is so low. One thing I did was replace the feet. After looking at the stock feet and those ball bearings on the bottom plus the screw in/out leveling system on the feet, I started thinking...... What if I took them out and used Isoblocks or even better, Herbie's Tenderfeet? That however, necessitated perfectly leveling my entire 450 lb cast iron rack which I painstakingly did hopefully for the last time unless we have an earthquake. Anyway both were a dramatic improvement but the Big Tall Tenderfeet clearly won. This was one of the best and cheapest tweaks I've done (excluding my labor on the rack.) Absolutely rock solid stability and it shows up in tracking.
 
slowgeezr said:
Smart move. Accurate speed control makes a big difference.
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Thank you, very kind. I was actually surprised how big the difference is.

But as an experienced analogue dealer explained to me recently, already the slightest of speed variations lead to quite significant frequency changes. This is to an extent that it is not uncommon that classical orchestra musicians, constantly trained on the correct pitch, have a hard time listening to a table without motor control.


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Tedtag said:
Great rig! I got a VPI Classic 3 with 3D arm a few months ago and its fantastic. Works great with my Koetsu Rosewood Signature and I had a hard time finding an arm for that cart because the compliance is so low. One thing I did was replace the feet. After looking at the stock feet and those ball bearings on the bottom plus the screw in/out leveling system on the feet, I started thinking...... What if I took them out and used Isoblocks or even better, Herbie's Tenderfeet? That however, necessitated perfectly leveling my entire 450 lb cast iron rack which I painstakingly did hopefully for the last time unless we have an earthquake. Anyway both were a dramatic improvement but the Big Tall Tenderfeet clearly won. This was one of the best and cheapest tweaks I've done (excluding my labor on the rack.) Absolutely rock solid stability and it shows up in tracking.
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Thank you and appreciate your sharing of the mods you have made, they sound very interesting. I am a little bit of a Stillpoints fanboy, so I try to put everything on Stillpoints.

But I have to check out those Tenderfeet you mention as you say they make a difference. I also agree on the Vpi ball bearing feet, as there is only one layer of the bearings, there's no real decoupling happening.


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With the stock feet I was constantly having to adjust VTF and azimuth and now the settings rarely move. I sort of think the stock feet were sliding the whole table around on the ball bearings in tiny increments that really had an effect. Four of the Big Tall Tenderfeet with shipping cost about $75.
 
Tedtag said:
With the stock feet I was constantly having to adjust VTF and azimuth and now the settings rarely move. I sort of think the stock feet were sliding the whole table around on the ball bearings in tiny increments that really had an effect. Four of the Big Tall Tenderfeet with shipping cost about $75.
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I replaced the stock feet with Finite Elemente Cerabase footers on the weekend (similar to Stillpoints).

Oh boy, what a difference. The Vpi is a completely different record player now. Detail level improving, better definition and especially the bass made a huge jump forward.

Can only recommend to anyone to ditch the rather simplistic standard footers for something more appropriate.
 
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