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VPI turntable again......

Hi,
I make my judgement on any product based on observation and common scense. I never own a VPI turntable and I never will since I don't believe in their design. The VPI design just don't make scense to me.

Let see some of the VPI's design....like the tri-pulley design. It just don't make scense at all....just the bearing(the one which support the platter) already make a lot of noise and you can hear it !!! Now add three tiny pulley and spinning at high speed.....I really don't know how many rpm. At that small size....may be a 800 rpm !!!! And there are a total three high speed pulley spinning at 800 rpm....It is a truly noise make machine !!!! Where did the noise goes? It has to go somewhere...it won't just disappear into thin air....again you can hear more noise and it all come out from you speaker.

And another design is two motor driving one pully and then the turntable.....no two motor turn with 100% accuracy...there is always some variation in speed...Beside one motor is noisy enough, now add two. Double the noise output. Where did all the motor noise goes? Again, you can hear it from you speaker.

If I made someone angry in my earlier post....I apology. I hope this post help you to understand why I'm saying what I said.

Peace.............
edle

Showing 2 responses by jeff_jones

jeff_jones
418 posts
 
I applaud you for thinking things through and using logic as a guide. In audio stuff, in my opinion, there is a lot of "voodo" equipment out there that is sold to the most gullible.

That said, a lot of times what ends up being 'right' in any field of evdeavor is counter intuitave. In my opinion, VPI designs (and all other quality designs) tend to be based upon finding what sounds the best to the designer. This involves a lot of trial and error and the end result can end up being very different than would be predicted just by speculation.
jeff_jones
418 posts
 
OK, so I'm a nurd.
Was walking the dog this morning and got to thinking about your theoretical objection (i.e. 800 rpm = bearing noise).

There are two ways to get high effective inertia, one is to spin something really heavy, or with a really large radius at low speed, the other is to spin something lighter or smaller in radius at high speed. If you want to get really nurdy, Torque = (Inertial mass) * RPM.

When you go with the low speed approach you have to deal with a few problems, one is that there are physical limits on maximum size of a turntable system, another is that precision is more difficult to maintain as you scale upward, a third is that if your device spins on rolling bearings then the number of bearings (and the chance of getting one too far out or round)goes up as the bearing count goes up. When you go with the higher rpm approach some of the design challenges are reduced in magnitude and you can get higher effective inertia than would otherwise be possible for practical reasons.

In any case, still think that the proof is in the pudin, but even from pure speculation you can make a case for either approach.
Happy Listening!
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