Turntable comments and recommendations, please

Ed, you already own one of the nicest turntables available. And the RB300 tonearm is a fantastic combination with the VPI.

It would take very little to raise the performance of your existing rig to an extremely high level of performance, especially for the music that you primarily listen to. Hence the beauty of VPI turnatbles.

Might I suggest.....

1):Rewiring your existing tonearm with the Incognito/Expressimo wiring kit (approx $195).

2): Adding an Expressimo Audio Heavyweight counterweight (approx. $100)

3):Adding an Expressimo VTA adjusting kit (approx. $45).

This will raise the performance of your existing tonearm to a level of which you would need to spend a LOT more money to attain. In fact, if you contact Expressimo directly, they can do the rewire, install the VTA kit and Heavyweight at an even deeper discount price, maybe $350 complete?

You will be absolutely amazed at the difference you will be hearing just with the tonearm upgrade. Your turntable will be transformed well beyond the $350 investment.

If you wanted to go one step further.....

4):VPI Industries Part# 2001, MK-4 upgrade including the Black Night platter and inverted bearing assy. (approx. $600)

Now??? I'm not kidding Ed, this level of performance with a good cartridge and all adjustments properly made, you would have to spend in excess of probably 3 times your investment to attain.

You will notice music emerging from a satin black background, detail that you would have probably thought unobtainable from ANY turntable, and a warm, natural presentation for a fairly minimal investment.

Now you wanna talk about the VPI SAMA (stand alone motor assembly)?

Just food for thought.

Ed, if you decided to go "full boat" including the SAMA, and a good quality cartridge, you would be attaining a level of performance knocking on the doors of turntables costing $6-$10,000.

With the myriad of new turntables available today, we often forget about "the benchmark standards" that have been around for years. Personally, I feel you would be hard pressed to find a turntable that will perform as well as the VPI after mods and upgrades. I mean, we can always try to find better. But once you reach this level of performance, you are going to have to evaluate if other products are possibly better, or just simply different sounding.

Best of luck, Ed.