Hi
I did a switch to the new Verus motor and could testify that it was worth it. I have the Teres 340 btw.
Nick |
There is a long thread that addresses this in some detail. Try searching. |
Theres also a big positive difference if you switch to a Teres lead loaded wood platter. |
I switched, also. It is much more accurate than the belt was. |
We compared a Verus with our Reference II/gold motor and holographic mylar belt, on our 320. It went back to Chris. The Verus's measured speed was inaccurate and it colored the sound in ways that did not suit our music or our ears.
For other music in other systems the Verus might be a net positive but there's no guarantee. I've corresponded with people who've liked it and other people who've disliked it.
Try it yourself, but keep an open mind and critical ears.
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I also returned mine to Chris. It was not compatible with my Teres 265. It transmitted low frequency rumble like mad. YMMV.
Ken Golden |
I am surprised by your findings that the measured speed was inaccurate. In fact, I don't know how that can be since it has internal controls to set the speed using a strobe disc.
I was able to get it dead on without any variance at all. However, I haven't rechecked it since. I will today to make sure that it has remained the same.
As to the direct coupling coloring the sound, could be. But, I don't hear it. But then I have, thank God, never heard the subtle differences that many people hear changing the VTA. However, I am glad that you reported what you heard. |
I've got a Verus motor, but haven't had a chance to really play with it, other than set it up. It was a whip to set the O-ring so it would roll smoothly and didn't produce a "heart beat". With enough messin', it's now at a point where you don't hear it (with your ear pressed against the arm board). I'm using a solid acrylic platter. I'll post some thoughts after I get some hours on it. |
Hi Agaffer,
The speed controller only ensures speed stability of the motor. It does not guarantee speed accuracy of the platter, which will vary with the circumference of the platter (and the O-ring).
The controller steps are in .32% increments. At a concert A=440 Hz, a speed shift of .32% equates to about 1.4 Hz. A 1.4 Hz shift up or down might be inaudible to many. It was noticeable to me and much more than noticeable to Paul. YMMV, as always.
Exceptional pitch sensitivity is not necessarily a blessing. My mother and I have both walked out of restaurants because the piped in music was intolerable. Paul's worse. He hears it from the parking lot and refuses to walk in the door! ;-)
***
The Verus's O-ring and feet act as rubber parts always act when constrained and exposed to vibration, they store energy and release it back into the platter, delayed and phase-shifted. The audio term for this is "feedback". Whether it would bother someone is probably music-, system- and listener-dependent.
Many rock music listeners expect and enjoy feedback. To them, music without feedback does not sound or feel "real". Tube microphonics and the waveform diffractions of some horn speakers are forms of feedback too. People who listen to any of these might enjoy or not notice the Verus's additional feedback - since they hear similar effects every day.
OTOH, we listen almost entirely to acoustic instruments and non-amplified vocalists. One of our major system goals is timbral and temporal accuracy (which requires VTA/SRA adjustment for each LP, unfortunately). For us, feedback of any kind is identifiable, artificial and unwelcome. Most of our system improvements/upgrades have been aimed at reducing it.
Some call it musicality and presence. We call it a coloration. It depends on one's perspective on music and sound.
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There is a very favorable review just posted on Vinyl Asylum by an experienced listener. Doug, your first post kind of suggests that your particular Verus was defective in some way (maybe an out of round O-ring), but then you go on to suggest that perhaps the concept is fundamentally flawed (in the use of rubber feet and a rubber O-ring). All idlers that I know of use a rubber or rubber-like coating on their drive wheels. Do you dislike the sound of idlers in general, and do you think that their appeal is primarily to those who "like" feedback? Of course, you're talking about the misapplication of feedback, where the feedback results in a spurious but audible signal. My only hands-on experience of idler drive is via a Lenco direct-coupled to a very heavy plinth, and I do not hear the effect of which you speak.
What's a "holographic mylar belt"? |
Dougdeacon, help me out here. I have read many of your posts and you seem to be very knowledgeable about turntables and their setups.
I am not grasping your explanation about the speed control. I followed the instructions Teres sent with the motor. Putting a strobe disc on the turntable. Turning on the motor controller and then adjusting it until the strobe disc held rock steady for a full 60 seconds.
Since the speed readings for the adjustments are taken at the strobe disc, how does that not translate to platter speed? I tried to get the same effect using my Teres Sig. Motor and mylar belt without success. I tried different tensions and two different belts and couldn't stop the speed drifts, although they are very slight.
My only complaint with the motor was that I had to build a platform to increase it's height. But, then, maybe the platform and the brass feet it sits on helped the sound? |
'I followed the instructions Teres sent with the motor. Putting a strobe disc on the turntable. Turning on the motor controller and then adjusting it until the strobe disc held rock steady for a full 60 seconds.'
Once you start playing your favourite LP, the platter speed slow down :) !!!!!
Since the O ring is constantly places against the platter, it will develop a flat spot after you stop playing. In the long run, there will be flat spots all over the O ring. I wonder how it might affect the sound.
With that kind of price, I can get a classic idler wheel TT with $$$ to spare :) ! |
"Once you start playing your favourite LP, the platter speed slow down :) !!!!! "
I guess I am really dense. Because, I don't get it. Why would the speed be different playing a LP rather than playing the strobe disc?
You all seem to know what you are talking about, so, what is it I am missing? |
I just upgraded my Teres #40 to Verus from Signature II. Will probably post more details later, but for now just comment on the O-ring thing. These things have an uneven casting seam that goes right around the outside and inside edges - exactly where you would not want something like this to be. So they are supposed to sand this off before shipping, and the owners manual describes how to diy if you ever need to replace yours.
As it turns out mine left Teres without having been sanded. One of the first things I did was to listen and feel for motor vibration, and noticed an obvious bump (dip, actually, it turned out to be) I could feel with my hand. Even at that it was apparent with music this motor is a nice upgrade from the Sig II. But it made a thump loud enough to hear between tracks and even during fade-outs.
Careful sanding removed most of this. Now if you feel carefully you can still feel the same bump is there, but much much less. Even so I would say overall vibration from Verus is much less than from the earlier motors. Certainly the motor sound coming directly from the motor is much less. I've cranked the volume up much louder than I ever listen to music and been unable to hear the bump, or any rumble at all.
Probably this is because the motor is so much less massive, and the table is suspensionless. I do believe vibration can be reduced quite a bit further with a better (more uniform) O-ring and more thorough precision sanding. Whether this improves the music remains to be seen.
For now I'm content to spin vinyl on it, continually amazed how much better everything sounds from "just" a motor. |
I think Agaffer is susggesting that the drag of the stylus will cause speed irregularities, but that's the whole point of idler and direct-drive; both technologies should (when properly implemented) be much more immune to stylus drag effects than belt drive. As far as "flat spots" on the O ring, I think that problem is way way over-stated. And I don't own a Teres table or a Verus motor; I do use a modernized Lenco direct-coupled to a heavy plinth. I do also respect Teres for taking the plunge. |
Lewm,
If someone has positive results I'm happy for them. As I keep saying, this is a YMMV sort of component. The Verus will satisfy many listeners while failing to meet the needs of some.
Our Verus was not defective, at least not compared with other Verus's. Chris checked it out after we returned it with our report. The O-ring was smooth, seated properly and everything was operating as designed. He and others listened to it and heard no problems. They simply do not listen to music the same way we do.
The problems we heard do result from elements of the design. They are predictable in theory, though their sonic effects required listening to verify.
I actually posted my concern about the rubber elements back in July, weeks before we received the Verus. We were hoping not to hear any ill effects, but unfortunately we did.
A speed controller that relies on incremental steps instead of continuously variable adjustment risks having insufficient resolution. Steps of a certain size might be "small enough", or not, depending on the listener.
We have not heard any idler wheel tables so I could only speculate. FWIW, a friend who owns three Garrards and hears speed problems with nearly every belt drive hears no loss of dynamics or pacing on ours. It's all in the implementation.
"Holographic mylar" is a material sold by McCormick's, a company that supplies belt materials for Teres and Galibier DIYers. McCormick's is linked on both company's sites. Galibier has used this material for years and we've found it to be superior in performance to the 7 or 8 others we've tried.
Agaffer,
I'm glad the Verus produces accurate speed with your platter but that doesn't mean it will produce accurate speed with some other platter.
Those dip switches don't control the speed of the PLATTER, they control the speed of the MOTOR. With any rim drive the RPM's of the platter depend on its circumference. Do the math or do an experiment. Increase your platter circumference by putting a single layer of tape around it at O-ring height. Now check your speed again. I guarantee your RPM's will be different (slower).
My wood platter is not the same circumference as your acrylic one and no dip switch setting gave us a stable strobe pattern. It was either too fast or too slow. Our platter circumference needed an "in between" setting, which unfortunately does not exist. You get accurate speed with a setting that does exist, and that's good! :-)
Chuck911,
I agree the Verus motor is notably quieter than our Ref II/gold motor. That aspect of the Verus is clearly superior, great work by Chris. We'd love to try it implemented as a belt drive, which would eliminate one of the two issues we had.
Best to all for the holidays!
Doug
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Thanks, Doug. As my singing teachers could tell you, I am NOT blessed with perfect pitch. I wonder how the Verus works with a Garrard 301. There are some who have gone that route. The Lenco idler wheel is covered in a very thin rubber-like material that is also not perfectly round. With the platter off the table, one can readily see that the imperfect shape of the idler wheel does result in a fine vibration when the wheel is riding on the motor shaft. Yet neither I nor anyone else I know of can hear any problems resulting from this fine vibration, though many end users have taken steps to minimize it. I am surprised that the bump in the Verus O-ring is so audible.
I've never seen a Verus in person, so I did not realize that the speed control is stepped, rather than continuous. This seems on the surface like a genuine but solvable problem (by Teres, not by end users). |
I am surprised that the bump in the Verus O-ring is so audible. Ours didn't have any bump. Unlike Chuck911's, our O-ring arrived sanded quite smooth and round. There was zero rumble in the dead wax or between tracks. It was just as quiet as our belt drive, which is dead quiet. Given the Garrard reputation (again, I haven't heard) for rumble and a noisy motor I'd expect the Verus might often be a significant upgrade. Assuming a smooth O-ring it is very quiet. The motor itself is superb. You're right about the stepped speed controller. It's fixable, but not by me! |
After several months with the Verus on my Micro-Seiki RX5000 I noticed a rumble started to appear a couple of weeks ago and the motor felt as though it was hunting. I took it away from the platter while running and the vibration dissapeared - so it is an issue of motor-plinth interface. I sanded down the o ring and that did make a difference; but not complete removal of vibration driving this heavy platter. I also noted that the rubber had left an invisible deposit on the platter which requires removal to decrease vibration. You can play around with the torque adjustment and this does have a discernable impact on noise level.
As it stand the Verus is an upgrade for me over belt/silk drive. But I feel that the design is still either work in progress or requires user tuning and careful set up.
I have to say that the most dynamic sound still comes from a heavy plinth Lenco and a Technics SP10 in heavy plinth and with a heavy metal turntable mat is very lively and detailed as well.
Steve |
Doug:
I had a similar problem to Chuck911. My O-ring arrived with a ridge that needed to be sanded. Even with sanding the O-ring produced noticible rumble when it hit the imperfections in the rim of the platter. Perhaps with a perfectly smooth acrylic platter it's not an issue.
Ken Golden |
Dougdeacon, thanks for the explanation as to why you couldn't achieve speed stability. I guess that there are slight differences in the diameters of the various Teres platters. I believe we have the same TT, the 320. I must have been lucky with mine. |
The Verus controller adjustment is in 0.16% steps. This means that the worst case speed error will be 0.08%. On average the error will end up being about 0.04%. Doug had a very early controller that used adjustment steps that were much larger. All of the controllers have been upgraded to use the finer adjustment steps.
A continuously variable adjustment scheme would be less accurate because analog circuits drift. You can get the speed spot on but does not stay that way. With the Verus controller you may end up with a small speed error, but it will stay exactly the same and does not need to be re-adjusted. It would be very difficult to get an analog circuit to remain within 0.04% over a long period of time. |
Chris,
Thanks for the update. Glad to hear you made that change.
The invite's always open, assuming you can tolerate our choice of music! ;-)
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I have added the Verus to my Teres 255 with the acrylic/lead platter just recently. But my belt drive motor was an old string type on an old motor.
To say there was an improvement is an understatement. I never heard a bit of rumble, and in fact the whole noise floor just dropped. However, I can't say how it compares to those later high end belt driven motors.
In my system there was no "feedback" noticeable, but again I didn't have the best belt drive setup to compare to. I will say that this motor isn't about making more depth and detail, it is mainly about making less fuzzy bass and midrange. And in my case there was some gain in depth and detail, just not what I would have expected from a precision motor upgrade. Maybe that is the "feedback" that blurs compared to the best TT's out there or maybe my tonearm isn't the best it could be. But that effect is so slight to me I am not hearing it at this point. The system resolution is not motor constrained right now.
As far as strobe speed accuracy, it's far more accurate than my ears can hear. I am almost tone deaf in that regard, in terms of absolute pitch perception. I couldn't tell 2% error in speed, or at least I would just get adapted to it quickly. But I could set the speed dead on long enough to say "good enough" for anything I will hear.
So for my case it was 100% gain, no loss whatsoever.
Kurt |
