[Berndt]

I found the same tt with an sme 309 for 1k locally.
Is this a reasonable #?

[TheChairGuy]

I found the same tt with an sme 309 for 1k locally.
Is this a reasonable #?

Hey Bill,

I answered your email already on this...it's not quite the same.  The TT is inferior and the SME tonearm is, by price at least, superior than my re-wired Rega 250.

You can find HW-19 Mark III's regularly on Audiogon...occasionally on ebay, too, for less than $1000.00 set up this way.

John / TCG

[Psychicanimal]

In fact, until 20 minutes ago using this substitution, I didn't think the $700.00 spent was a great investment...it was sounding only a bit better than my old (not terribly loved) Thorens and about on par with my modded $50 JVC Direct Driver (maybe a tad better in a few ways).  

NOW, I know this is a stellar table and why the turntable freaks worship Harry Weisfeld.  It's very good, very tweekable and upgradeable, built very well and a terrific value  

You are now ready for the Creature on Steroids, grasshopper...

[JoshK]

PA is back....uh oh.  j/k  long time.

[TheChairGuy]

Holy cow, it is indeed Mr. Psychicanimal....defender of truth, justice, salsa and street music and Technics Direct Drive TT's everywhere 

[Berndt]

The VPI I was looking at got swooped up.
here it was for reference...

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/ele/175850011.html

[TheChairGuy]

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?anlgtabl&1156098088

Bill, try this one...and buy a used Rega 250 or 300 arm; this table is one step above mine...and has the outboard Stand Alone Motor Assembly (SAMA), as well.  For $1200 or so with tonearm (it's already drilled for a Rega) you'd have a table beaten by only those for $$$ thousands more, most likely.

[Psychicanimal]

PA is back....uh oh.  j/k  long time.

I know! Your appearance has changed!!!

Holy cow, it is indeed Mr. Psychicanimal....defender of truth, justice, salsa and street music and Technics Direct Drive TT's everywhere 

Well, glad I'm remembered...my sabbatical is over!

I saw the begginings of your journey.  You had a good course and heading  , then you strayed off listening to the mermaids.

The trail left by the ship on the sea, the snake on the rocks and the man on the virgin are the same, according to the book of Proverbs.

At the time I Beta tested the modded Groovemaster, my cartridge was an Ortofon X5-MC and already had the fluid damper installed.  The Ortofon was chosen over many many other cartidges for performance, compatibility and value.  I went through the same challenges you saw on the nautical chart, but I navigated around them.  Nowadays, the KAB modded 1200 is a world class contender in the Vinyl Asylum and has been compared A to B to turnables several thousand dollars more expensive, holding its own.

The stern of the vessel moves in the direction of the propeller rotation.

[Berndt]

The Kab is still interesting to me...btw.
I am not locked in to following chairguys footsteps the rest of me life, albiet his guidance has been valuable.

[TheChairGuy]

Hey PA - welcome back - you add more than a little flavor to this board.

I was truly pleased with my JVC direct driver for $50 from ebay, personally I find the Ortofon X5-MC too tame for my taste (even with my own DIY version of a damping trough added and the van alstine Longhorn glued to it's front).  The clarity and imaging character is amazing, however.....simply outstanding in that regard.

I bought my used VPI set up for $700......a new, fully tricked out Technics SL-1210M5G with damper, strobe disabler and outboard power supply from Kevin/KAB was a bit over $1000.00...so it really came down to dollars and sense more than anything else in the final outcome.

I'm still open to the possibility of a Technics in my future...albeit with reservations about it's inherent motor mounted permanently right under the platter and it's tonearm (too many solder joints trying to pass teeny <2mv signals thru).  But, Origin Live now has a neat mounting plate to allow for Rega's to be mounted to Technics with little modification...so there is hope on that front.

[lonewolfny42]

Link for KAB......for those that may be wondering..."what's" KAB...

Hey PA....how's it going....

[Wayner]

I own a VPI-HW 19 mkIII with a Sumiko Blue Point and the sound is glorious! I also tooled up my own record mat.

Here is a comment on vibrating motors. The belt needs to be cleaned with dishwashing detergent and water, rinsed clean and dried. Then the belt needs to be talced with powder. I would also clean the drive pulley on the motor with 99% isopropyl alcohol. Next take the platter and shaft out of the bearing well and clean and re-lubricate the shaft with 3-in-1 sewing machine oil.

For those of you that have a warble in your platter....remove the spindle and clean both tapered surfaces of the spindle and platter of any crap. to seat the spindle onto the platter perfectly, insert the spindle back into the platter loosely and then screw on the record clamp on the top side. The clamp will draw the spindle into the platter almost pertfectly. tighten it fairly snug, but don't jack-hammer it.

[TheChairGuy]

Wayner,

My motor is beyond a simpler belt cleaning/redressing or change out...the motor itself wobbles.  I find boiling the belt for just a few seconds shrinks it nicely and cleans it, too for further usage. But, thanks 

For the bearing well, VPI recommends Slick 50.  For a much purer form of PTFE teflon, I use Tufoil...it is truly wonderful stuff. You will ditch your Singer Sewing machine oil or other right quick when you hear the difference it makes.  The platter seemingly spins forever (sans belt) once lubed with it - friction against bearing walls is absolutely negligible using it.

To all about the platter - there is no perfect seating. No matter what you do to re-seat the platter, there will be some small 'movement' when viewed from the side...I was told by Mike at VPI this very small difference is not audible.

John / TCG

I own a VPI-HW 19 mkIII with a Sumiko Blue Point and the sound is glorious! I also tooled up my own record mat.

Here is a comment on vibrating motors. The belt needs to be cleaned with dishwashing detergent and water, rinsed clean and dried. Then the belt needs to be talced with powder. I would also clean the drive pulley on the motor with 99% isopropyl alcohol. Next take the platter and shaft out of the bearing well and clean and re-lubricate the shaft with 3-in-1 sewing machine oil.

For those of you that have a warble in your platter....remove the spindle and clean both tapered surfaces of the spindle and platter of any crap. to seat the spindle onto the platter perfectly, insert the spindle back into the platter loosely and then screw on the record clamp on the top side. The clamp will draw the spindle into the platter almost pertfectly. tighten it fairly snug, but don't jack-hammer it.

[BobM]

I had a problem initially with my platter wobbeling. VPI suggested (aside from making sure everything was clean) to rotate the platter 90 degrees and try seating it again. Sometimes things just don't line up the way theya re supposed to. I had to do this 3 times before the wobble was gone.

I also found that a toothpick worked quite well chipping out a talc buildup in the motor spindle groove. Alcohol alone wouldn't clean it out.

Enjoy,
Bob

[Wayner]

I want to thank The Chair Guy (John) for his nice suggestion of Slick 50 on the turntable platter shaft! It is now on all of my turntables (4). I am an old fart and I wasn't warm to the suggestion, but I got rid of the old EGO thing and went down town to find some. I think I bought enough for 10,000 turntables but it was on sale for 12 bucks. When I put the stuff on, the viscosity of it made me wonder if I just should put it in my truck engine insted, but I did it and the results are not what I expected. A more silent background is what I heard. The wife even made a comment....now that's sayin' something! I wonder if this would be good stuff to put on a AR tonearm shaft? I do use Dow Corning 1000 stroke for that because it is a co-polymer and I am suspecious that Slick 50 may be as well. Thanks again!

[TheChairGuy]

I want to thank The Chair Guy (John) for his nice suggestion of Slick 50 on the turntable platter shaft! It is now on all of my turntables (4). I am an old fart and I wasn't warm to the suggestion, but I got rid of the old EGO thing and went down town to find some. I think I bought enough for 10,000 turntables but it was on sale for 12 bucks. When I put the stuff on, the viscosity of it made me wonder if I just should put it in my truck engine insted, but I did it and the results are not what I expected. A more silent background is what I heard. The wife even made a comment....now that's sayin' something! I wonder if this would be good stuff to put on a AR tonearm shaft? I do use Dow Corning 1000 stroke for that because it is a co-polymer and I am suspecious that Slick 50 may be as well. Thanks again!

Cool Wayner - u r welcome 

The cheaper the bearing, the better Tufoil will work.  I was simply miraculous on my old Thorens TD-316, and merely excellent on the VPI HW-19 III.  The background noise was considerably less in both instances.   Slick 50 is a less pure, more heavily advertised substance that's not quite as good (pure).  It's still better than most other oils you can use in there (including Singer Sewing machine oil, Marvel Mystery Oil tried)

Several years ago, the Guinness Book of World Records chose Tufoil as "The World's Most Efficient Lubricant." (We didn't pay them to do that.) We are the ONLY engine treatment in the Guinness Book (even today). So, far, no one has been able to break that record!

Tufoil was tested by the United States Government at their federal laboratory (The National Bureau of Standards, now known as NIST) and passed with flying colors. As a matter of fact, it was here that we discovered that Tufoil has a surface friction so low that it makes Tufoil the most slippery substance known to man.

I can't find Tufoil locally....I haven't found it locally since 1992 or when I lived in Long Island.  I've been mail ordering it for years now.

My JVC direct driver had a simple bearing located well away from the tonearm and I squeezed a little Tufoil in there....a fantastic upgrade; simply stunning difference in performance on the JVC afterwards.  Tho I looked at my Rega 250 arm a few times, I couldn't find out where to squeeze some in to reach the bearing.  I have little doubt that it would improve upon a stainless steel ball against some aluminum or steel surface in their bottom-of-the-line arm, as well, if I could find where it goes. 

The 96% that's left will work great in your (car / truck) vehicle.....just add to crankcase after your next oil change.  If you have a late model car, you will experience very little mileage betterment or power...but your engine will run considerably cooler at any time of the year.  If you have an older car, you may experience better mileage and power gains....as well as run cooler.  I think tolerences are tighter nowadays in the piston/cylinder walls and many cars have various piston surfacing to reduce friction already...but many don't.

Tufoil is the the gift that just keeps giving I've found....it's particularly friendly to vinylphiles with older cars 

[creativepart]

Hello, I haven't posted to this board and quite a while, but I've read this thread and wanted to add a good VPI HW-19 tweak.

One of the most important tweaks has been what is called a DIY SAMA. Now, with a SAMA, you are buying a new motor from VPI that has been re-engineered into a stand alone device that is placed under the plinth (the original motor is removed) so that the motor is no longer sending vibrations into the TT frame.

You can achieve the same isolation technique by separating the plinth from the frame. This leaves the motor attached to the frame of the TT but since the plinth isn't touching the frame anywhere you have achieved the same result as buying a SAMA.

All you need is to rig a method of supporting the plinth from the table top.

I use 3 pipe/washer/sorbathan pucks to do the job on my VPI HW-19 MKIII. Simply measure the effective height of the frame, legs and springs (or whatever) and then start looking for ways to create a freestanding device that will raise the plinth the same amount about your tabletop.

Here's some photos of my DIY SAMA


Here are the necessary parts 2" reducing coupler and 2" coupling sleeve and a 1.75" washer. (all the plumbing parts say 1.5" on them but they are 2" inside diameter each) That black part is the sorbothane puck that VPI replaces the springs with now.


The reducing coupler just rests in the sleeve and the washer just rests in the reducer. These could be silicone glued together for more isolation between the parts. There are not threads inside the sleeve. The washer was only necessary to make the total height the proper 3.75".


Here's the finished DIY part with the sorbothane puck installed. The massive weight of the HW19 plinth and platter (nearly 40 lbs for the MK III that I have) keep it all together.

 I put three of these under my plinth (four seemed to be too crowded) and it supports the plinth at just the right height for the motor pully to line up at the stock height. And the result is an improvement in overall sound. I'd say it's faster and with greater overall balance and clarity. You can put your hand on the base and feel slight motor vibration. But you can't feel any vibration on the plinth. And you have the stock VPI sorbothane suspension just like normal too.

Total parts cost? $5.14. We'll worth trying.

Other DIY SAMA's I've heard of... Campbell soup cans (full) and stacked rolls of white athletic tape. Really anything that stands 3.75" approx tall and has some dampening will work.

Paul Green
PS. I have also purchased the SDS power unit used on Audiogon and this makes a great change for the better as well. I recommend buying an SDS someday too.

[TheChairGuy]

Awesome cheap tweek, Paul/creativepart! Love the pics, too.

I've got a shot motor, so my choices are limited to a replacement $180.00 motor of whole hog $400.00 SAMA.

My likely order of upgarde will be....

1.  SAMA (and ditch the wood surround frame and prop them up on those Campbell Soup cans filled with lead shot and a sorbothane 'pud' on top)

2.  VTAF (by Pete Riggle).  A great upgrade, I understand, for Rega owners

3.  SDS

4.  ???? Maybe nothing, but there is always something....

[Wardsweb]

Awesome cheap tweek, Paul/creativepart! Love the pics, too.

I've got a shot motor, so my choices are limited to a replacement $180.00 motor of whole hog $400.00 SAMA.

Does your table have a motor made by HURST (3203-001)?  If so, it's embossed on the bottom cover of the motor. I have one sitting on my work bench. It was going to be part of a DIY table that I never built.

[TheChairGuy]

Wardweb,

I disassembled the TT just now...that's the same one that's in there now (Model PB, 600rpm, P/N 3203-001).

You thinking of selling it...do you know if it works? I already got a shot one, I want one that works 

PM me, if you'd like to.

Thanks, John / TCG