2020 update : JC Verdier La Platine

oh boy!  i had thought to buy one of those controllers as they recommend in that callas paper.  sorry to hear.  a real pain for you.  do you replace it yourself or get someone to do it?

re: holland/china magnets, what i meant to say simply was that in looking into magnets, there are a variety of magnet "compounds" available.  each has slightly different properties.  and besides that different sizes might be standard from manufacturers (plan extent as well as depth).  so variation from magnet source to magnet source seems quite likely.

for $3k AUD (say $2k USD) one can have the "Vitesse" a feickert product.  my audio retailer says people are very happy with it.  i read a review by someone on a forum saying it was a huge improvement on a la platine.

i am currently trying to get a price on the Sirius from Brinkmann.  this seems very good and quite expensive i am sure.  in both cases special power supplies can be used which increase the cost.

i reckon a good alternative could be the Origin Live motor kit.  but then someone has to mount in the la platine housing.  very permanent change which may not suit all.  much more affordable.

dereneville offer motors.  there is a review online (what's best) that indicated unhappiness.  other people  say they are great.  might use same papst motor as the Vitesse mentioned above.

then there is the teres as well?  this looks p good to me but again possibly significantly more expensive than vitesse.

it seems in many cases people have gone down this path and haven't found better performance than the original.  so it is sort of if it ain't broke leave it type situation perhaps.  my motor is a bit noisy though and of course poor @ledoux1238 you sound positively in wars so your hands are all but tied - you must buy a new motor and tell us all about it :-)

@mr_gray Regarding the speed controller part, I bought 10, so plenty left over. PM me, and I’ll send you a couple just in case.i know a tech who helps me with the replacement work.

i am using a Chinese made replacement motor with a Micro Seiki rubber belt ordered from Origin Live, and in no hurry to repair original motor.

Of the various motor you mentioned, Dr. Feickert motor is new and new to me with  no DIY work required, very appealing. Surprisingly, the motor issue is not high priority. Between fine adjustments of room acoustics, speaker placement, and cartridge alignment, listening to music has been a constant act of re-discovery and amazement. I’ll report back with motor update, if it happens.

@ledoux1238 this is something!  what difference do you find with this new motor?  any improvement or same?  i must admit i have been endlessly mucking about with rubber/linen/silk/suture silk threads.  the knot in the linen is a disaster.  i need to find a way to glue the ends together as i'm informed Kondo do for their beautiful "Ginga" turntables.

BIG IMPROVEMENT

yesterday someone on What's Best indicated la platine and Kuzma Safir was a bad combo because of the moving feet on la platine and safir's need for stable level platform.  they said one needed to use rigid feet  but the downside of that was the combo "lost its soul".

i had been considering trying rigid feet again (have tried previously but didn't like sound and tended to agree with soulless sentiment).

but of course things change all the time.  for example now i was truly floating on air.  plus frankly my recent experiments with silk, silk with chalk (heard people do this somewhere or other, for more grip i presume), suture silk, linen thread, rubber belts - none of it was satisfying me somehow.  now i had an instinct that double silk's "warmth" might offset the "clinicism" of rigid feet.

i use shaknspin2 to measure w/f and speed.  typical measurements will be 0.07/0.03 for linen thread.  maybe 0.06/0.02 for silk. 

anyway i pulled platine apart so i had less weight to deal with then stuck the platine up on 3 CMS speaker footers (LS2.25).  i got it level.  i then put it back together, put my chalked silk double loop on and off we go.

so straight away the motor sounded quieter.  i do measurements  and i am getting 0.03/0.03.  which is very low.  frequency of interest has gone from 0.55/0.43 hz (which is around the frequency of the knot passing thru the spindle of motor) to 0.18 hz.  

so then i listen to a record and lo and behold!  a sea change.  not a minor "is it this, is it that" type feeling.  but a very big positive change.  i could hear a tonne of atmosphere and i could hear swelling bass and harmonic overtones.  it seemed like the noise floor had dropped quite dramatically.  extraordinary nuance and information but very musical.  

so much improvement that i have to say this is the way.  there is no "oh i like the platine footers and will try them again".  no.  for me, from now on, its rigid footers on platine and motor.  it is unarguably, to my ears, an order of magnitude better than anything i've heard before.  i listened to beth orton's debut record hit "she cries your name". it was mental.  i had never heard better in my house, on my system.  the clarity of detail is unarguable.  but more than that, the harmonic overtones, the improved "depth" to the presentation, the sheer scale and entertainment factor, i could not deny.

coming from the garrard 401 i had wanted a sound that had less bearing in it.  so more depth, more nuance, more atmosphere.  last night we got there.  "mission accomplished".

now i have established this baseline i will no doubt still try different threads again.  unwaxed linen thread is my next to try.  because frankly the double looped silk only just makes 33.3 speed and won't make 45 rpm i feel quite sure.  but if i have to listen to silk and only 33 rpm records for the rest of my days, i won't mind a bit.  

i no longer have any interest in a new motor.  it seems like the motor chatter pertained to the platine moving relative to the motor (something i couldn't see at all). it is much quieter now.

HAPPY DAYS!

Hi @mr_gray,  I may have missed it in your earlier posts, but when you said you are now “floating on air”, are you putting your Verdier on a pneumatic anti-vibration platform, such as the Vibraplane or similar? I am wondering whether the “lost of soul” comment are due to the lack of suspension when the springs are deactivated, therefore letting vibrations reaching the arm and cartridge!