Alternative to VPI motor for Aries 3?

09-20-08: Stringreen
something is very wrong. Call VPI for an assessment. I have the motor which is DEAD quiet on my Superscout.

DEAD quiet?!?!! What if you place your ear next to the pulley. Do you not hear some high pitch sizzling noise?

I still cannot believe that these motor can be "DEAD quiet". I mean, come on... there must be some noise when you place your ear NEXT to the motor!?!!

I will try to call up VPI tomorrow. And I'll visit the VPI room on RMAF2008 to check if the motor on display is indeed "DEAD quiet"!?!

I have spoken to VPI, he told me to do two tests:
(1) Put a mousepad underneath the motor and see if the low level humming noise isn't come from the rack

(2 Unscrew the pulley and oil it with "REEL" oil available from Walmart to see if it gets rid of the sizzling noise at the pulley.

09-23-08: Crem1
Sounds appropriate ... hope it resolves your problem. By the way what kind of shelf/rack are you using ?

VPI was right, I did notice some low level 'hum' induced by the motor on my rack. My rack is made with an exotic ironwood (30% high density than hard maple). Each shelf is about 1.5 inch thick.

Looks like I need to look for some kind of isolation between the motor and the rack. The problem is this isolation cannot be too 'thick' or else the motor will sit too high relative to the turntable plinth.

I also have another rack made with 2" hard maple shelves which I bought from timbernation. This maple rack is 3 times more expensive than the ironwood rack. But as far as sound quality is concerned, the ironwood rack blew the maple rack out of the water. The maple rack sounded relatively 'brittle' and 'light'. The ironwood rack sounded 'focused', more 'weight', and more 'sparkle'.

I even have a Gingko Cloud 11, which I used to isolate the TT from the maple rack. I didn't like the Gingko sound at all. It sound 'brighter' than maple.

So the maple rack and the Gingko platform is the worst $1600 I have spent recently.