I’ve been happy with mine, but it may be time for an upgrade. The new VPI carbon could be the one. Or just buy a new turntable. AMG had been on my short list for a while, but I learned of its shortcomings: mostly reliability issues.
A nice thing about VPI is that when you press the button, it works. Yes, there are stories of failures, but given the number of their tables sold, I think their reliability (and longevity) is probably a safe bet.
That and the ease of adding an Eagle/Roadrunner speed controller, essential for my Prime.
I love my LP12. But I have been intrigued by the HW40 direct drive for a long time. I would love to try one. Maybe I’ll buy a lottery ticket.
Hey, I thought you were the one buying Porsches with your investment windfalls!
Done with any more cars.
nnnnnnnno. Who am I, Michael Fremer?
I have to agree. My buddy has one of those and it beats anything and everything else, ever. His tonearm has gold accents. It looks like a snake in person. And the sound that comes from it is almost too much for me. I can only listen for two hours or so before my mind starts to crumble. The sound is so intensely there.
Looking closer at the photo, I see the second tonearm is a Supatrac. I’d like to try one someday. The pivot idea looks like it makes sense.
Unfortunately for me, inexpensive turntables are not something I plan to study. For me, rock bottom is a REGA P10. Wait, more expensive gear is available? Went there, done now. Whew! But a P10 would be just fine.
It’s a decent table.
Any nice turntable can fall prey to sounding bad. All comes down to choices. There’s a guy down here with a Dohmann. He has a (name redacted out of kindness) $20-plus thousand dollar arm mounted on it with an almost equally expensive cart. Professionally set up (by who I don’t know). The thing can’t get out of its own way. Most of us who’ve heard it attribute it to the arm. It’s so complex with so many parts hanging off it that it’s likely just a massive resonance generator.
Has anyone listened to the Brodmann VC 7 speakers maybe at one of the shows or dealer locations? Thoughts?
Plenty of stories, if you follow the FB group it is almost daily someone posts about an issue. I have owned 3 of them, the scout was the best, still have a HW19 in my closet.
Once I went with Dr Feickert and Technics all issues went away.
I dunno, I already spent at least six hours per day listening music between discs and streaming. I don’t have time to listen to another media. I really don’t! My ears get tired.
Gotten rid of vinyl 20 years ago was still my best “upgrade” to date, because then better upgrades can be used on other parts in the rabbit hole.
My new cheap active ground box arrived in USA, it may take a bit time to clear the custom. I will try to break it in fully this time before I get my next mini-upgrade, a new set of jumpers to compare to AQ Dragon.
I’ve heard Brodmann speakers at a number of shows, including Vienna. I think the VC7s were at one of these shows. I can’t say for sure if I heard that one, but I can say that each time I heard Brodmann speakers I was pleasantly surprised with what I heard.
Thanks to AI, it estimates that VPI has sold 40,000-60,000 turntables over the company’s lifetime. Feickert (maker of very nice tables), 6,000-10,000. VPI started selling tables 50 years ago, back when off the shelf Pabst motors were being used by pretty much every belt drive table manufacturer. I would expect higher failure rates just out of sheer numbers sold and time in the field. However, I don’t wish to discount Feickert’s excellent engineering. Technics is a completely different animal IMO, as it has the scale, automation, and resources neither of the other two companies can match. Yet even Technics tables over time have required repair.
@aangen and I had a great lengthy conversation with Brian the owner and designer of Supatrac the day before Axpona started and it what extremely informative. He discussed how Supatrac was developed during his stay at home covid tenure and gave us both a class on how the tonearm works and setup. He is a very personable man and you can tell a true audiophile.
The My Sonic Labs Diamond cartridge I bought a while back for $12,83,70 from Japan, I was charged $1,2837 from DHL for Trump’s tariff. I just got a credit of $837 from DHL because Trump’s tariff was found to be illegal by the Supreme court. He was robbing the american people like us that buys from overseas by these stupid tariffs.
