2020 update : JC Verdier La Platine

Hi Lewm,

I agree with your assessment on the JC Verdier. After I came out from my 4-5 years sabbatical from audio, the first turntable that I bought was a La Platine. I have defeated the suspension, using a tungsten carbide ball on the bearing, and put the whole system including the motor on a pneumatic optical table. The motor is only a couple of inches from the plinth.

Although it is only early days on my fine tuning, my initial impression is that while the La Platine it is not as detail / resolving as more expensive (a lot more expensive) turntables, it is very musical and enjoyable. I have no doubt more fine tuning will yield further improvements. I think it is a very good deal with it's second hand price.

@ledoux1238 , before getting into motor or cartridge upgrade, I would suggest you consider trying some industrial antivibration platform, like the MinusK as Lewm has suggested, or some pneumatic optical platform if you don't mind having a compressor / pump unit. Good luck on your journey with the La Platine, it is indeed a very good turntable!  

@thekong Yes, getting an isolation / anti vibration platform will indeed be the next upgrade for me. You have opted to put the table and motor on the  same platform. Have you tried motor and plinth on separate platforms? What pneumatic platform are you using?

Minus K had been a consideration. As I was going to put plinth only on it, I have read that Minus K does not like asymmetric loading. I wondered if any La Platine user might throw some light on this? Another contender is the Polish Stacore Pneumatic  platform, though very pricey. The two most likely Options seem to be  pneumatic footers by Pneunace Audio or a air bearing platform from FFYX, a Chinese  audio co. 

@ledoux1238  No, I have not try putting the motor on a separate platform, partly because it is not that practical in my setup, but mainly because I simply do not believe in it. I doubt that he remember this, but many years ago I had some email exchange with Thom of Galibier, where we talked about having the motor and plinth on separate platforms. I learned a lot about the drawback of such arrangement from him, and it all made sense to me. Even today, if you look at some of the top turntables with separate motors, such as the Kuzma XL and even the Walker, they all have their motors relatively close to the plinths. I think that is not a coincident.

About pneumatic platform, I have been using the floor standing model from TMC since nearly 20 years ago. I was thinking if it was good enough for Rockport, it probably was good enough for me. I have always been very satisfy with them!

While you can certainly test it yourself, I would strongly recommend against putting the motor on separate platform if you are using a pneumatic platform, and especially the MinusK. I have seen the MinusK working in my friend's system. It has very soft springs, so I am pretty sure the pull of the belt (if the motor is on separate platform) will affect its leveling. And yes, the MinusK doesn't like asymmetric load, so you may need to experiment with placing weight on different positions on the platform to achieve leveling. Also, it is so sensitive to the weight that if you use a record weight during setup, you will always need to use the record weight, or you may throw the platform out of level. It is because of all these inconvenient that kept me from using the MinusK, although, at least on paper, it performs even better than my TMC.

I would never recommend mounting motor and TT on two separate platforms especially if either one of the two is sprung or otherwise designed to move in response to external stimuli. In that case both devices must be on the same platform of course. (Minus K doesn’t use springs.)

The MinusK does use springs, but probably not in the conventional manner.

According to their website: "Vertical-motion isolation is provided by a stiff spring that supports a weight load, combined with a negative-stiffness mechanism (NSM)."