VPI redesigning experiment

Well, I received my VPI HR-X clear- acrylic platter and reverse bearing(ball on top). The bottom part of the bearing shaft that goes into the plinth has a nut and a washer to lock it in place by screwing it to the bottom of the plinth. That nut and washer can be found in any hardware store, I hope that in the future VPI will upscale the quality of the nut and washer, it is certainly not up to par with the asking price. Harry is a VERY nice guy and he accomodates plenty, one big drawback that causes problems to him as well as his customers is the lack of adequate instructions. I regret my complaining to him about the brightness of the JMW tonearm whereas the culprit was not the arm itself but the fact that its female bearing cup was not touching the silicon dumping liquid. I learned of this one year later from the Audiogon forum and when I made the adjustment the brightness was gone.
Now I have to do the difficult stuff, to custom fit the platter assembly and the tonearm to their dedicated 4" thick maple boards. I have noticed that the 2" boards are a lot cleaner, with less cracks and putty repairs than the 4". I guess that the selection of a thicker slab of wood gets more difficult as the thickness increases. Also, the 2" boards came in one solid piece, whereas the 4" were made of 2 pieces of maple glued together, so from an audiophile's standpoint, the 2" maple boards would sound purer and look better.
I will continue with my progress as it advances.
Ted

My first impressions of the new Turntable: Big, sprawling sound, silent backround,(Not void,CD like, but pregnant with the "sound" of silence), Lush dynamics, deep explossive base, I am rediscovering my record collection. The best thing is that I get all the above without even having set up the TT properly. I have yet a long way to go, tweeking and refining, since there is no precedent to this design I'll have to try everything with a trial and error approach. Unfortunately I cannot quantify the improvement of the maple boards alone, since I also got the new VPI platter-bearing assembly, but the new clear platter sounds better than the older black acrylic, filled with lead, combination. Once again Pierre Sprey is proven right! Lead is not a good sounding material and I can verify it from my experience. I also placed a lead weight on top of the tonearm's plinth and even though the sound became firmer, it lost bloom and naturalness. So far I only used the dedicated platter and tonearm plinths without their sub-bases, I just placed them on top of the cork-rubber Isoblock footers that Mapleshade makes, I find them neutral and musical without imparting their own sound to the overall presentation, they also have the advantage of holding the maple boards secure without sliding, a very important point to watch when you have a stand alone tonearm which has to have a precise relationship placement to the platter.
I am looking forward to add the maple base boards under the maple plinths. I also want to replace the bearing shaft's holding nut with a brass one, Pierre told me that brass sounds more musical than any other metal and I believe him, the man knows his stuff, if we had more men like him in the American stereo industry, we would probably not be in decline now, people would not feel bored with their systems because their brain told them that what they hear is unatural.

I shall return!
Ted

OK I finally placed the sub-boards under the platter and tonearm plinths, each standing on Isoblock feet ( the cork and rubber combination). If I had 3 words to characterize my sound they would be: 1) Unfatiguing. 2) Relaxed. 3) Natural. The dynamics are all there but you only hear them when they are called for, I had to increase the volume because the backround noise floor got in to vanishing point, until the first crescendo kicked in, WOW!
I am still tweeking.
Stay tuned.
By the way TT looks great, Big, but handsome. I hope I can post photo's.
One correction: Pierre told me that the maple used is Virginia grown, the reason given it sounds better than the Canadian!

Ted, congratulations on your adventure. I would like to suggest using the Sistrum Audiopoints under the plinth instead of the cork/rubber feet. They are made of brass, and very well designed. I have them under the wood base of my Teres, and am very happy with the result. They use a special brass alloy that is designed to transfer the vibration to ground, and are very effective at doing this. I think this is in keeping with your design ideas and also Pierre's. I believe you will like the effect it has on your TT. Dynamics will be even better with these Audiopoints compared to the absorptive composition of the cork/rubber feet.

Dear TWL
This is what Pierre also suggested to me, to use his tripple brass points. I am hesitant only because I used them in the past and gave my TT some unwanted hint of brightness, a subtle sense of ringing, To be fair when I used them the TT's plinth was acrylic sitting on sqare pucks of ebony. Ebony is hard in sound, although very musical. I'll probably use the brass again to see what results I get with maple this time.
Ted