During the past six months, I have concentrated on improving the performances of my arm, Trans-Fi Terminator, and cartridge ( Audio Tekne MC6310 ) alignment, VTF, VTA..etc. The sound quality from vinyl playback is quite unbelievable. Last night the experience of listening to Everyone Digs Bill Evans is a case in point. Philly Joe Jones' drumming floats distinctly with 'air' on the right side behind the speaker and in front of the back wall. Quite uncanny!
Each record has a different 'sound' that I can easily distinguish and no two sound alike. The ability to hear into the recording venue, to separate the varies instruments, ....etc is all there. The listening experience is one of music enjoyment / appreciation without the interference or the awareness of the equipments playing the music.
Recently I got in touch with a fellow La Platine owner around my neck of the woods in Hong Kong. This gentleman, Dave, was a strictly digital guy until three years ago. With the help of a friend, he was able to compare in one sitting seven TT's, Gerrard, Teachdas, and among others. He decided on the Verdier. And he has a very knowledgable consultant, Richard Mak of AnalogMagik, who is himself a two La Platine owner. And below is some of his observations and experimentations:
1. Motor
Dave also opted to switch out the motor. Presently his is using the uber -expensive Dereneville motor. To make a long story short, he told me to stick with the original motor.
While I had been complaining about sound drift and speed instabilities in the beginning of the thread, the turntable seemed to have attain some sort of balance? I occasionally check with the ol' Sutherland Timeline, and I am getting spot on reading.
I have kept with the pure silk thread which is literally half the diameter of the regular linen thread. And I added neoprene spacers underneath the spindle. That is all the tweaking that I have done. In my mind the motor is a non -issue now.
2. Suspension
Using Stillpoints and some other footers, Dave had defeated the suspension. And his listening experience was not positive. He claims that the 'sound' became very boring. In the end he went back to the original suspension with ebony spacers added underneath the original footers.
While there are strong advocate of non-suspended turntable, the issue really is the combined dynamic of the plinth/platter, motor and the coupling of the two with belt / thread. Thom at Galibier advocates non-suspension, but with tape coupling motor and platter. I wondered if the thread drive which is favored by most Verdier users might not benefit from the suspension as was the original design intent and as had be mentioned by Chris in earlier threads.
3. Platform
The tweak with the biggest sonic benefit for the Verdier was the additional of an air-bearing platform by Dave. He currently uses a platform by the Chinese maker FFYX with improvements across the board. He now claims that the Verdier rivals the Techdas AF 1 no less. I prefer to take that as hyperbole, but he was quite serious.
4. Arm pod
Please refer to this link for the beautiful custom arm boards he commissioned from Magna Audio in UK: Armboards, Pods & Plinths | magna-audio. They are so heavy he added spring suspension underneath the plinth as support. I am not quite clear if they may not be overkill, but.....
In any case, my take away from talking to Dave is that the original motor is sound ( perhaps a DC conversion may be an option ), don't defeat the suspension, and adding a good platform under the TT.
Each record has a different 'sound' that I can easily distinguish and no two sound alike. The ability to hear into the recording venue, to separate the varies instruments, ....etc is all there. The listening experience is one of music enjoyment / appreciation without the interference or the awareness of the equipments playing the music.
Recently I got in touch with a fellow La Platine owner around my neck of the woods in Hong Kong. This gentleman, Dave, was a strictly digital guy until three years ago. With the help of a friend, he was able to compare in one sitting seven TT's, Gerrard, Teachdas, and among others. He decided on the Verdier. And he has a very knowledgable consultant, Richard Mak of AnalogMagik, who is himself a two La Platine owner. And below is some of his observations and experimentations:
1. Motor
Dave also opted to switch out the motor. Presently his is using the uber -expensive Dereneville motor. To make a long story short, he told me to stick with the original motor.
While I had been complaining about sound drift and speed instabilities in the beginning of the thread, the turntable seemed to have attain some sort of balance? I occasionally check with the ol' Sutherland Timeline, and I am getting spot on reading.
I have kept with the pure silk thread which is literally half the diameter of the regular linen thread. And I added neoprene spacers underneath the spindle. That is all the tweaking that I have done. In my mind the motor is a non -issue now.
2. Suspension
Using Stillpoints and some other footers, Dave had defeated the suspension. And his listening experience was not positive. He claims that the 'sound' became very boring. In the end he went back to the original suspension with ebony spacers added underneath the original footers.
While there are strong advocate of non-suspended turntable, the issue really is the combined dynamic of the plinth/platter, motor and the coupling of the two with belt / thread. Thom at Galibier advocates non-suspension, but with tape coupling motor and platter. I wondered if the thread drive which is favored by most Verdier users might not benefit from the suspension as was the original design intent and as had be mentioned by Chris in earlier threads.
3. Platform
The tweak with the biggest sonic benefit for the Verdier was the additional of an air-bearing platform by Dave. He currently uses a platform by the Chinese maker FFYX with improvements across the board. He now claims that the Verdier rivals the Techdas AF 1 no less. I prefer to take that as hyperbole, but he was quite serious.
4. Arm pod
Please refer to this link for the beautiful custom arm boards he commissioned from Magna Audio in UK: Armboards, Pods & Plinths | magna-audio. They are so heavy he added spring suspension underneath the plinth as support. I am not quite clear if they may not be overkill, but.....
In any case, my take away from talking to Dave is that the original motor is sound ( perhaps a DC conversion may be an option ), don't defeat the suspension, and adding a good platform under the TT.