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VPI Rim Drive vs. belt drive sound files

Greetings All,

About two weeks ago I installed the VPI Rim Drive on my HRX turntable. Having gone through the same frustration of getting the speed stable discussed in other threads, I ---> THINK <--- I finally have it fairly well tweaked. The difference in sound appears to be a much more focused sound stage at the expense (?) of a change in tonal balance. Specifically, the mid tomes of piano keys seems to be a bit more harsh and there appears to be a bit more extension in the very bottom octave.

As I use my turntable purely as a front end for archival capture and mastering, I have digital files of the same tracks, though the identical signal path with both the belt drive and the rim drive. If anyone has the patience to download these large AIFF format files, the link below will give you access to a few of them. I’d be very interested in getting feedback from all on both sonic differences between them as well as any suggestions to improve the Rim drive set up based on listening. If you’d like to check them out please go to:

http://clients.crossroadstelevision.com

user: dean
password: marvin
go into the “VPI RIM DRIVE TEST” folder

Cheers,
Dean
dean358

Showing 1 response by dean358

dean358 OP
12 posts
 
Hi Gents,

Very glad you like this thread. Thanks for the description Stringreen – interesting that you like the piano tones and are not finding them harsh.

As for the signal path, in addition to the HRX with Super Platter and Rim Drive, I’m using:

Shelter 9000 cartridge
NBS Omega Extreme 2 cable
Pass Xono Preamp
Apogee Electronics Rosetta 200 analog-to-digital converter
Apogee Electronics Mac Pro based Symphony system with Ben master clock
BIAS Peak PRO 6 software
Exact Power EP15A and EDPS power conditioning

Regarding using 96K or 192K sampling rates ----sigh. We (or at least I) live in a 44.1Khz world. Therefore my goal in capturing is to optimize for 44.1 KHZ. I’ve done MANY experiments digitizing at higher sampling rates and then down sampling to 44.1 KHz. My findings are that if, and only if, the final product from my turntable (not true for live recording) is to be 44.1 KHz than the best results are obtained by sampling at 44.1Khz / 24 bit and using the Apogee hardware bit mapping to convert the files into 44.1 KHz / 16 bit files when recording. YMMV :-)

I do NOT apply any noise reduction software or EQ. I’ve tried a bunch of these and, in summary; they are not remotely worth the trade off in sound quality. I will, however, occasionally paint out a big glitch in the waveform by hand.

Regards,
Dean
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