Congrats on the purchase, that is a really nice table.   (I own a 2013 version of the Classic 1 where they moved the motor to the back and incorporated a stripped down version of their SDS speed controller. )

You should check into picking up a Soundsmith Counter Intuitive.  It will greatly improve the ease and accuracy of adjusting tracking force and azimuth.
http://sound-smith.com/intuitive/index.html

It's so useful I don't know why VPI has not yet struck a deal to have them included with the table.

Good needledrops sound amazeballs through Yggy btw.

It's like the best of both worlds since once you get the signal into the digital domain you can either flat out remove or significantly mitigate most of vinyls weak points (surface noise etc..) and fix up any recording issues like channel imbalance or baked in hum etc...

I suspect it's only a matter of time till you pick up a good ADC and start doing the Fremer thing where you walk around shows with a USB stick full of 24/192 rips   

Congrats and welcome to the VPI family.

Congrats on the purchase, that is a really nice table.  

Congrats!

Thanks guys. Haha, all the vinyl guys are coming out of the woodwork.


"...depth of the sound you get and the physicality of the listening experience."
Couldn't put it better than that. A good way to describe this table. The opposite of STAX. Surprising how vinyl can slam more than CDs given much more limited dynamic range of ~60db of the former. That Phil Collins record was a real treat. I suspect that because of the format's restrictions (frequency response, dynamic range, noise) the mastering engineers had to work smarter (or simply work), thus the recordings ended up be better. The other possibility, however unpopular with the Hydrogen Audio crowd, is that digital just might, might be more flat sounding.

"Didn't Craig have the Transcription pre available for a while?  IMO seems to be a good market to get into (again)!"
That product was cancelled because of lack of demand. There is one more PCB left. Might be worth pursuing again now that the "Messiah" has started a trend. Given the number of people who went out to buy old Theta DACs (instead of say Hugo DACs), expect a moderate increase in prices of used VPI Classic and Nottingham tables. At least I have an in for Cinemag MC transformers.

"I suspect it's only a matter of time till you pick up a good ADC and start doing the Fremer thing where you walk around shows with a USB stick full of 24/192 rips"
Oh you know it. At least now there is a good reason for Schiit to put me on a beta list if Mike ever works on GAIN III. Would be interesting to see how a modern Moffat AD and DA chain sounds like.

"Soundsmith Counter Intuitive. "
Thank you for the link. That seems to be almost a requirement. I need a tracking force gauge to start too.

Mani has been sent to the Merv