Turntable Reviews

VPI Avenger Direct Turntable & 12" FatBoy tonearm Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

Analog sources: Kuzma Stabi R turntable; 4Point tonearm; Clearaudio Panzerholz, Ortofon Verismo, VPI Shyla cartridges.
Preamplifiers: Shindo Allegro, Miyajima WO-1, Manley Steelhead RC phono preamplifier, Sculpture A Mini Nano SUT, Auditorium 23 SUT.
Power amplifier: Shindo Haut-Brion.
Loudspeakers: DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/96, Volti Audio Razz.
Cables: Interconnects: Triode Wire Labs Spirit II (RCA), Analysis Plus Silver Apex (RCA), Shindo (RCA). Speaker: Analysis Plus Silver Apex Speaker (bananas). AC: Triode Wire Labs Obsession NCF.
Accessories: Pro-Ject VC-S2 ALU Record Cleaning Machine; Audio Desk Systeme Vinyl Cleaner Pro; Hunt Mark 6 Carbon Fiber Record Cleaning Brush; IsoTek EVO3 Aquarius line conditioner; Salamander five-tier rack (2); IKEA Aptitlig bamboo chopping boards (under turntable, preamp, power amps); mahogany blocks (2" × 2" × 0.5") under cutting boards.—Ken Micallef

COMMENTS
FredisDead's picture
Submitted by FredisDead on June 1, 2023 - 6:13pm

something to the effect that it was nice to once again be on good terms with the magazine. Anyone care to fill in the details? I don't remember anything but very positive reviews as to every VPI table ever reviewed.

johnnythunder1's picture
Submitted by johnnythunder1 on June 2, 2023 - 7:40pm

and brutally honest take down of that short lived, poorly engineered Shinola turntable that was made by VPI? Or did I miss another review of a VPI product? If I recall, Fremer raved about their top of the line direct drive tt so who knows? Could be many things.

Mat Weisfeld's picture
Submitted by Mat Weisfeld on July 26, 2023 - 10:21am

Not sure about where the review is but that was a learning experience in working with a lifestyle company. They had the right goals and ideas... and I'll leave it at that. Either way, that table had its day, and when it ran its course everyone moved on in their own direction.

Mat Weisfeld's picture
Submitted by Mat Weisfeld on July 26, 2023 - 10:10am

There were some miscommunications that initially led to some frustrations. Sitting down, talking, and listening to music led to everyone getting on the same page :)

Phoenix Engineering's picture
Submitted by Phoenix Engineering on July 30, 2023 - 8:51am

Hey Mat-

Good to see you chime in; maybe you can clear up another miscommunication?

The review said the following:

In its earlier implementation, the motor was driven as a brushless, direct-current (BLDC) motor; in the later direct-drive 'tables, including the Avenger Direct, it is implemented as a PMAC (permanent-magnet AC) motor, "driven sinusoidally as a three-phase AC motor," Harry wrote in an email.

The HW40 used a controller from Elmo Motion Control (Gold Solo Twitter series) and did not drive the motor as a PMAC type, it used block commutation not sinewave drive. The review goes on to say the Avenger Direct uses a TI controller. So, did you change the controller between the HW40 and the Avenger Direct or does it use the same Elmo controller and block commutation? The quote above would imply that only the Classic Direct (ca 2013) used BLDC drive and newer tables (including the HW40) used sinewave drive, which the HW40 clearly does not. I confirmed with Elmo MC via e-mail in 2019 that the Gold Solo Twitter is not capable of sinewave drive or FOC. Can you please clarify.

If there is a new controller, is there an upgrade path for the HW40 users?

Phoenix Engineering's picture
Submitted by Phoenix Engineering on June 4, 2023 - 1:39pm

The torque spec they publish is somewhat dubious and contains the same typo as the HW40 (torque units are Nm not Nm/sec). The ThinGap TG231 motor is capable of 2.68Nm of torque for 1 second max and it takes 40A at 12V (~500W) to achieve this. On the HW40, this was limited to .74Nm at start up by the 50W power supply (and in software) and the torque during normal operation was 0.0068Nm, about the same as most modern belt drives. Not sure why they chose a 500W motor to drive a platter that requires ~30mW during normal operation.

It's interesting that they changed the drive electronics but kept the same magnetic ring encoder. The HW40 used an off-the-shelf industrial controller from Elmo Motion Control (Gold Solo Twitter) and employed block commutation which can produce torque ripple (cogging). It was also quite noisy electrically, producing 36VPP squarewaves at 10kHz with no filtering (class D output, I could actually hear a high pitched whine at start up). The TI controller should be better with sinewave drive (hopefully they got rid of the class D output stage).

The RLS magnetic ring encoder produces 80 pulses per rev for speed control, but the read head can synthesize 32 counts out for each input pulse producing the 2560 PPR they claim. The HW40 measured the speed once per second so the count for 33.333 RPM was non-integer (2560/1.8Sec=1422.222 counts/sec) and the speed was always going between 33.351 (1423) and 33.328 (1422) on the unit I looked at. Hopefully, the TI controller uses a different time window or can work with fractional counts.

I wonder if the early adopters of the HW40 will have an upgrade path to the new controller?

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