Sota Eclipse packages for VPI tables.

Does anyone know if SOTA motor fits on the Classic Companion table?

The SOTA ensemble will transform your VPI, and you can keep it if later you upgrade to a better VPI.

But I don’t think the SOTA motor is totally free of cogging bc it is not coreless so far as I know. Don’t worry about it at all.

@peter_s 

If I understand your question, the speed controller alone won't work with the VPI motor.  The Sota system comes with a motor that will fit most VPI motor housings.

The Sota motor is better than the Hursts that VPI uses.  It runs with much less vibration and there is no cogging.

IMO, the Sota package is better than the VPI motor with SDS, which I have on my second table.

If you do go with the Sota, I would highly recommend getting the Roadrunner with it (Total Eclipse Package).

I am looking for advice as to whether it would be worthwhile to add the SOTA speed controller for a simple VPI scout turntable. Is that inconsistent with the value of the turntable, or worthwhile?  Thanks in advance.

There are no critical issues between bearings and platters other than the bearing has to be able to support the weight of the platter. 

VPI makes mundane bearings. Any magnetic thrust bearing is going to create less than 1/2 the noise. The spindle bearing takes relatively minimal stress. The mass is focused on the thrust bearing. What is going to make less noise and be more reliable a ball and thrust plate bearing or a magnetic field thrust bearing. The answer is obvious.  @lewm, Clearaudio makes significantly quieter bearings than VPI, the company that told you anti skating was not necessary and shafted people with a poor quality unipivot arm. Give me a break! Clearaudio even uses ceramic spindles!

@vinylzone , You have to remove the bearing from the plinth and see what you have. Go to Clearaudio's web sit below. Look at the bearings. You have to get one the thickness of your platter or a little less. You would punch a hole in the platter the exact diameter if the bearing housing. Then you need a hole in your plinth the size of the lower housing. If you look at the bearings you will see immediately what has to be done. I do not know if this is practical to do on your turntable. You have to figure that out on your own. The bearing is most definitely better. 

For those who think designing a turntable is complicated and difficult, it is not. Turntables are extremely simple devices. Then why doesn't everyone make dynamite turntables? Because they are more interested in money than producing the finest turntable. There are a few exceptions. David Fletcher wanted to make the best turntable for a reasonable price. He learned from Edgar Villchur and came up with the Sota Sapphire, the rave turntable of it's day that many could afford. His good friend AJ Conte decided to take the same design to the max and founded Basis. People thought nobody would pay that much for a turntable but they did. Of course there is always a chance that a company really has no idea what they are doing and there are a few companies that fit this description. 

 

@mijostyn 

On top of the plinth or on top of the outer housing?  

Machining would probably make the Clearaudio bearing fit?  Looking at their bearings, you would have to completely obliterate any chance of going back to the original bearing in order to try the Clearaudio, based on what? Pure conjecture?

Do you realize that a platter and bearing are designed as a system?

@hattrick15 Any time.  I'm always glad to be able to share my experience if it's relevant.

 

Unless the VPI platter has the same mass and distribution of mass that is characteristic of Clearaudio platters with the mag lev feature, I would be very cautious about making such a big change to the bearings of the VPI. Anyway, there is probably nothing wrong with VPI bearings. And mag lev is a potential can of worms. What is the evidence that Clearaudio bearings per se are "much quieter" than VPI bearings?

Having a new Sota Cosmos with the full set up I can attest to it being a top notch drive system, cleverly engineered. As drives go I can not imagine it getting much better than this. My table runs +- 0.002 rpm and is dead silent. With a stethoscope on the top of the plinth you can not hear a thing.... assuming I am not deaf yet.

I can think of one other upgrade that might improve a VPI turntable. Clearaudio sells replacement bearings for it's turntables. These have opposing magnets for a thrust mechanism. These are very quiet bearings, much superior to what VPI uses.. I think one can be made to fit but it will require some machining of the plinth and platter. 

@vinylzone , very helpful!  Thanks the all of the detail.

@hattrick15 

Sorry, I didn't see the question until now.

For the TNT, it was a matter of removing the old motor and the old captive power cord, I removed the the switch and routed the power in connector where the switch was mounted.  The Sota motor fit, but was slightly too tall to sit directly on the motor housing, so I used some small washers as a spacer.  Then I wired everything up with their connectors, as there's no motor control circuitry required.

Installation is considerably easier if you have an IEC power connector on your motor housing, as Sota can provide a replacement that routs the power connections thru.

I could have had Sota mill the motor well out another 1/4" or so, but I decided not to.

Then the power connector attaches to the output of the Condor, the Roadrunner attaches to the the Condor, and also to a sensor board that you install according to instructions.  Then you attach a small magnet on the underside edge of the platter, and attach the sensor board to the plinth so that the magnet passes over the sensor.  It took me maybe 45 minutes, and was pretty easy, but I'm very comfortable with electronics having built tube preamps and amps in the past.

I couldn't be more happy, speed is +/- .005 rpm.  The motor is audibly more quite and produces much less vibration than the stock Hurst motors that VPI provides.  If you run a VPI motor without the housing, you can literally feel the motor cogging when running free.  There's no vibration from the Sota motor under any circumstances that I've observed.

I have another table with a VPI motor, same platter, and a SDS.  Speed stability is slightly better with the Sota package, and though it's hard to tell because they have different suspensions, plinths and tonearms, I think the Sota setup is quieter, has better pace, and better, deeper bass.

@vinylzone, can you share your experience of making the upgrade to your VPI?  

I have a VPI Signature 21 and am thinking of getting the Total Eclipse Package.  I’m not sure of the specific steps to do this upgrade or how difficult it is.  Would appreciate your thoughts now that you made the upgrade last year.

What I did with the TE package and my HW19.  Base-mounted initially and just changed to a SAMA.  The VPI alternatives are not competitive in the least.

http://vpiforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=13319

https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?conversations/sota-toal-eclipse-sama-for-hw19.1013569/

I pulled the trigger on the Total Eclipse package, an early Father's Day gift from the wife :).  I spoke with SOTA about it and it seems it's a simple upgrade to the VPI motor, with just a spacer needed to account for the greater depth of the new motor, and some minor wiring.  

Thanks to everyone for the advice.

I'm going to go with the full package.  I think I'm going to need to have the well of my motor housing milled out first.  Apparently the Sota motor is deeper than the VPI Hurst motor.

@vinylzone. I must ditto @lewn’s advice.  I have the Sota predecessors Eagle and Roadrunner driving a heavily model VPI HW-19 MK IV.  It is a great improvement but you get nowhere near the full benefit without the Roadrunner.

@vinylzone. I must ditto @lewn’s advice.  I have the Sota predecessors Eagle and Roadrunner driving a heavily model VPI HW-19 MK IV.  It is a great improvement but you get nowhere near the full benefit without the Roadrunner.

The next thing you might want to consider is an isolation platform you can put it on.

My turntable has an air bladder suspension.  The stock VPI suspension required you to fill each bladder separately, but since I was already running my ET 2.5 off of an air compressor with a precision low pressure regulator, I removed the valves from the air bladders and ran tubing from each of the towers to another precision low pressure regulator.  It made a huge difference vs the stock setup.  I can literally tune  the resonant frequency of the suspension while the table is running.  I can hit the shelf (1.5" thick maple) with a mallet with no sonic issues whatsoever.

Lewm is quite correct. Forget the Walker. I would not buy a shoe lace from them. Get the full package. The Road Runner will make sure the platter continues to spin at the selected speed regardless of whatever drag is placed on the motor. Mass will save you from abrupt speed changes but not slow ones. The Road Runner looks at each single revolution and not a small segment of a revolution and adjusts the speed gently making sure each revolution occurs within the exact time selected.
It is a much different approach than most negative feedback systems use, looking at a larger interval. It is difficult to hear slow changes relative to fast changes which are more obvious. As an example let's say you use a sweep arm during play. When you put the sweep arm down on the record you subject it to more drag and over a few seconds slow the platter down. The road runner detects this and slowly adds more torque until the speed gets back up to 331/3 rpm and holds it there. The correction is so gentle you can't hear it and you can rest assured knowing that regardless of what you do the platter will spin at exactly 331/3 rpm.
I think this should make a great improvement on your turntable. The next thing you might want to consider is an isolation platform you can put it on.
The best is the MinusK but it is expensive. There are others on the market. I think Townsend makes one that is less expensive. You could make your own with a little cleverness. Even better you can attach a dust cover to it. 

The Walker is ridiculously expensive for what it is.

The Eclipse package, which includes a better than VPI motor will perform even better than the Eagle with the VPI motor.  You can begin with just the motor and control.  But for the full effect you will want to add the RoadRunner which not only reassures you about platter speed, but will control the motor to keep the speed absolutely stable.

The Walker is akin to the Eagle without the RR, except the Eagle has more power by far. And I suppose there are other differences in favor of the Eagle. I used a Walker for years before the Eagle, and it definitely is beneficial. You need to be sure it can deliver the Watts that the particular motor requires.

Walker Audio?  No thanks.

I use Walker Audio’s. I  highly recommend his unit. I have a Vpi scout II with the upgraded 300 rpm motor. It works flawlessly, and t the flick of a switch you can go fro 33 to 45. No motor hum, no heat.  Wonderful unit. 

I have the original Eagle/RoadRunner package on my VPI.  It's a great set-it-and-forget-it package.  Over at the VPI Forum you can read of others who have installed the SOTA Eclipse package.  Folks over there will help you if you go this route.  The SOTA motor is a higher performing one then the VPI.

As you are heavily invested in vinyl, you probably want to dive into this.  It's the best value IMO, though it will require a bit of fiddling.  VPI dropped the ball on this aspect of turntables, and IMO their ADS speed control device was never ready for prime time, and it's more expensive than the entire SOTA device and costs more.  It does far less.

VPI kept promising better, but never delivered.  

Lewm is right get the road runner.  I can not use it on my controller but being able to see 33.333 move in .001 in the best.  If the sota unit will take the feed back and do the slow correction that is icing on the cake.  I would not be without one.  You can also use it to troubleshoot speed variations  issues.

Enjoy the ride
Tom

I guess the only way to tell is to get it and see.  It's not expensive in either case.

"The inertia of the table should negate the need for constant correction."Famous last words. I realize bucks is bucks, but if it is a choice between spending $350 more for a cartridge or tonearm vs buying the Roadrunner, I can only advise you to buy the RR and wait on the cartridge or tonearm upgrade.  Whenever you do purchase the RR, try it with vs without in order to determine whether the theory of inertia holds water. Anyway, you're going in a good direction, IMO. And I wish you the best.

@lewm 

I'll take that under consideration.  I'm not sure I will need it with around 30 lbs of spinning mass though.  The inertia of the table should negate the need for constant correction.  And I can always add it later, there's no discount for purchasing it in the package.

I strongly suggest springing for the RR up front. In order to reap the full benefits.

@lewm

The Eclipe package with motor (without the roadrunner) is $750 US. The Total Eclipse has the roadrunner for $1100.  The Roadrunner can be added later.

@earthtones, Thanks.  It's the stand alone, extremely heavy motor, also a separate flywheel. 

OP, are you saying the complete Eclipse package new costs the same or less than a used SDS? If so I’m very surprised and it’s a no-brainer in favor of Eclipse. I use the antecedent Phoenix Engineering controller on my Lenco, and it’s a big upgrade.

My package came with the SOTA belt which works fine on my tt. I do plan on ordering an OL belt though.

@earthtones,

Yeah, I made some damping layers out of MyMat material and vinyl damping material from www.partsexpress.com

Much better isolation than stock. Which was a thin rubber O-ring.

With this upgrade, I dramatically improved my Classic 4. The tricky part was figuring out what size belt to order from Origin Live, plus I had to rig up a custom motor mounting to get rid of plinth-transmitted noise.  Is your motor fixed or is it standalone? The job is easier if it’s the latter.

Thanks for that. I have the TNT 4, which has the massive separate motor housing and separate flywheel.  Based on the drawings, the motor should fit but might require a small spacer between the motor and base, or maybe have a machine shop slightly deepen the motor well.

I have the SOTA Eclipse package on my Classic 3 Sig SE.

The motor plate has to be modified to bolt the new motor to it. Not too difficult.

I've owned the SDS and have an ADS. The new package is more accurate and doesn't require any manual speed adjustments, nice.

SQ is an overall smoother presentation.
Love it.