VPI TNT 3

Thank you for your quick replies! I have reached out to VPI, but they are quite hard to get ahold of, however I did chat with a very friendly lady there who took down my information and was going to get the right person call me back today!  I will keep you posted on how that goes!  Not sure if they will still have parts for a 30 year old table? 

Again, thank you for all of the great responses!

I will look for that FB page!  Thank you.

Yes, my TNT 3 does have spring coils inside of the corner towers!  I have re-purposed a set of Sorbothane legs left over from a HW-19 Jr upgrade to a Mk III. I have used them to hold up an aluminum platform to sit the large TNT form-factor on.  Should provide great isolation! 

I was looking at the bearing, and it does appear to have some wear, but still working adequately.  When I speak to VPI, I will talk to them about the following items:

- replacement pulley system or plugs?

- replacement for my PLC, as it does not slow the motor down enough to play 45 rpm's.

- replacement bearing.

- upgraded feet

- upgraded clamp

Thanks for everyone’s great feedback.

That is a very good point that I did not think of… I thought I was just being resourceful re-purposing those Sorbothane legs!  I will definitely take them out and substitute some old tip-toe cones in place!  I will report back if I hear any changes (hopefully improvements). 

Well, you certainly raised a good point about the Sorbothane (double sprung isolation), I switched the Sorbothane legs over to standard solid tip-toe mini cones… and I can tell immediately that the bass was deeper (maybe stronger and more focused would be better adjectives), yet smoother (which was the biggest surprise), the mids and treble were clearer, less harsh (albeit only by a small margin).  So good call you guys!!! Thank you.

Again, thank you for all of your replies, great community for sharing ideas. Appreciated!  The platter that I have on my TNT3 is 1.5” thick, with the bottom 1” appears to be aluminum with 7 grooves around its perimeter, the top 1/2” appears to be black acrylic, the bottom has a sheet of cork covering the outer half of the platter with a lead-filled disk inside. It weighed in at 20lbs.

Quick question, right at the moment, I’m using my old PLC box (that came with my HW-19) to adjust the speed control to get 33.3RPMs tested with a stroboscope printed disk. To get 33.3 I need to turn the adjustment dial down to about 9:00.

However, for 45, I can’t turn the dial low enough to bring the speed down to match 45 on the stroboscope disk! Even at the lowest setting, it’s still about 2-3% fast. Does anyone have any suggestions to dial in 45rpms in the meantime until I’m able to pickup an out of production SDS or an updated PLC (currently VPI calls it the ADS).

Regarding the PLC not working for 45rpms… I took the PLC into my local Audio Repair tech… and in about 10 mins he had it working!  He said it just required a small adjustment!  And sure enough it spins 45’s right on speed. Fantastic!