Vinyl Asylum: REVIEW: Well Tempered Well Tempered Record Player Turntables by yoyo

I just finished performing all the currently possible mods to my Welltempered Classic square motor Player. Observations were made after setting the cartridge and arm with a HI-FI News test record.

Mods list:

Dynamat Original applied to the under surface of the clear acrylic platter.
Dynamat Original applied to the bottom of the arm base, between the damping cup and the arm base, and around the damping cup.
Original armrest mounted directly on the plinth and not in the arm base.
Music Direct armwram around the aluminum arm wand.
The arm disk ( to adjust arm damping) is almost all the way out of the fluid in the cup.

The setup includes a Grado red cartridge.

Here it is.

Now that all the tweek have been performed, the sound is more dynamic and with a very low surface noise.
The highs are crystal clear but not edgy ( if the recording is not).
The bass is there, well defined and with impact, but not overblown or uncontrolled.
Mids are very, very realistic in terms of texture and color.
Channel separation and detail are excellent.
Speed stability is perfect even more now w/ the added mass on the platter. Not that it was a problem ever.

For cd playback I use a TEAC VRDS T-1 transport, same used by WADIA! and a Monarchy 22A (BB PCM 63K dual 20 bits)w/modified psu ( not the latest, but very good combo, about $2,500 when new). I have some records in LP's and CD, and the cds sound like am radio in comparison!

Right now I'm listening to Chasky's La Gaite Parisienne and the realism is spooky!

After setting up all the test tracks on the HI-FI new test records were passed w/ Flying colors. The arm needs almost no additional antiskate adjustment to pass all the test tracks.

I cant imagine a diff. using the Welldamped platter, this sounds so good and it costed about $2 that it would be hard for me to spend the close to $500 to find out if the other platter performs better.

I will be upgrading cartridge soon, possibly a Dynavector, Benz, or Clearaudio Aurum. I think the Dynavector 10x4!

And to think that I purchassed it used for $225, spent $125 for new platter bering, and reference record clamp, and another $100 for the cartridge! that $450 WOW!!!!

REVIEW: Well Tempered Well Tempered Record Player Turntables Review by yoyo at Audio Asylum