Yes, the compressor needs to be remotely located, no doubt.
Most turntables are in one way or another "art".
That's part of their charm and value.
I really like(d) the arm, so when the opportunity to get this one came along, I grabbed it.
There are many schools of thought on TTs, a wide range including this sort of air bearing design, back through the Garrard 301 & broadcast TTs, and around the corner and back from there... big, small, light, heavy... etc...
Good thing it has been reduced to a science, eh? :b
_-_-bear
Most turntables are in one way or another "art".
That's part of their charm and value.
I really like(d) the arm, so when the opportunity to get this one came along, I grabbed it.
There are many schools of thought on TTs, a wide range including this sort of air bearing design, back through the Garrard 301 & broadcast TTs, and around the corner and back from there... big, small, light, heavy... etc...
Good thing it has been reduced to a science, eh? :b
_-_-bear
If anyone has interest.. I have a 1.2 (actually a 1.0 upgraded) for sale.
I am the original owner. Bought it in '88 ? (have to check m receipts) at Rosines on Oakton in Skokie Ill. Upgraded to 1.2 via John Bichts upgrade kit sent to me in (I think it was '92)
It's been sitting unplayed for more than a few years. (I've gotten onto Garrards 401's for analog these days) It's in pretty good shape, but all the silicone surgical tubing has gotten old, stiff and brittle and is cracking. Has the adjustable aziumth head shell and the stand. It would probably need a good going thru to get it back to top flight condition. Drop me a note here or email jeffdavison@comcast.net
Haven't thought about a price, but open to offers
JD
I am the original owner. Bought it in '88 ? (have to check m receipts) at Rosines on Oakton in Skokie Ill. Upgraded to 1.2 via John Bichts upgrade kit sent to me in (I think it was '92)
It's been sitting unplayed for more than a few years. (I've gotten onto Garrards 401's for analog these days) It's in pretty good shape, but all the silicone surgical tubing has gotten old, stiff and brittle and is cracking. Has the adjustable aziumth head shell and the stand. It would probably need a good going thru to get it back to top flight condition. Drop me a note here or email jeffdavison@comcast.net
Haven't thought about a price, but open to offers
JD
I just stumbled on this site and this thread. I've owned a 1.2+ for quite a few years now. It is a 1.2 with the larger compressor from the 2.0 which is a mod that John sells plans for which allows much higher arm pressure and platter vacuum. I have a Koetsu Coralstone installed on it. This is an amazing record player once you get some experience with it and are comfortable with adjusting various things once in a while. For example leveling is quite critical. I would recommend against defeating the suspension. The 1.2 upgrade kit includes some damping pots which are a good solution. Any updates from other Versa Dynamics owners? Jeffrey, did you sell you 1.2?
Sadly, mine still collects dust as it awaits a rather extensive repair/modification.
I have put in an application for longer days, and endless and boundless energy. Waiting to hear back...
_-_-
Sad. What is wrong with it? And what sort of modification are you planning to make?
Just bought a Model One
All,
I'm delighted to tell you that I am waiting for a restored Model One (including the original spec tall table) to land here in the UK, having finally found one to buy at a sensible price in California. (Here in Europe, I have seen them go recently for Bergmann Magne prices second hand.)
I will then have the slightly less delightful task of paying the eye-popping customs duty and sales tax levied on both purchase price and shipping charges by our voracious government to spring it. But it should be with me within ten days.
I shall keep you updated and would be grateful if I can tap into your pool of knowledge and experience as I bring it into commission.
My experience of air bearings has so far been limited to a (British) Terminator Pro and the American MG-1 Linear Tracker, both of which rely on aquarium pumps to provide the pressurised air, so am used to running air pipes and using clutch cleaner to keep key surfaces clean. And I have yet to wreck a cartridge on one of these arms...
Photos will follow in due course.
Best
Peter
All,
I'm delighted to tell you that I am waiting for a restored Model One (including the original spec tall table) to land here in the UK, having finally found one to buy at a sensible price in California
. (Here in Europe, I have seen them go recently for Bergmann Magne prices second hand.) I will then have the slightly less delightful task of paying the eye-popping customs duty and sales tax levied on both purchase price and shipping charges by our voracious government to spring it. But it should be with me within ten days.
I shall keep you updated and would be grateful if I can tap into your pool of knowledge and experience as I bring it into commission.
My experience of air bearings has so far been limited to a (British) Terminator Pro and the American MG-1 Linear Tracker, both of which rely on aquarium pumps to provide the pressurised air, so am used to running air pipes and using clutch cleaner to keep key surfaces clean. And I have yet to wreck a cartridge on one of these arms...
Photos will follow in due course.
Best
Peter
Hello Peter and All,
I am the former owner of a Model Two. In addition to an intimate familiarity with the Versa design I've been in the audio industry for 30+ years and having designed both loudspeakers and electronics - including turntable motor drives.
I've also known John Bicht for many years. Although I've not kept in contact with him, he lives only about 50 km away in Loveland, Colorado with his partner Laura Dearborn. I've been to his shop and spoken with him.
Although I am absolutely certain that he would disagree with me, I am confident that there is one area of both models that could be dramatically upgraded - the motor and drive electronics. The originals used a microprocessor to create square waves to drive a stepper motor. I know a lot about stepper motors, having used them to operate rotary switches in our preamplifiers for over 20 years.
IMO, they are a sub-optimal choice for a turntable for two huge reasons:
1) The microprocessor in the control box creates tremendous amounts of RFI that pollute the entire audio system. Much of the upgrades John made many years ago centered on controlling the RFI emitted by the control box.
A far better solution is to use all-analog electronics to create motor drive signals as Ayre did for the DPS turntable:
Ayre Acoustics dps
2) A three-phase synchronous motor is the best available motor system. To the best of my knowledge only the DPS and SME turntables use 3-phase synchronous motors. With a 3-phase, all vibrations and motor pulses are canceled completely - no "cogging" and no vibration This is in stark contrast to a stepper motor, which all it does is "cog".
Most synchronous motor are 2-phase types. The first phase is made from the AC from the wall. The second phase gets a 90 degree phase shift from an external capacitor, and there may be some additional phase shift because the load (the stator coils) are inductive. This sine-wave drive creates far less "cogging" than does the square-wave drive to a stepper motor, but only with a three-phase motor sine-wave-drive motor can one totally eliminate all "cogging" or variations in torque throughout the full rotation.
All other external turntable motor drives with which I'm familiar use cheap digital electronics to create either square-wave drive (divided down from a microprocessor) or use DDS (Direct Digital Synthesis) to create a sine wave digitally using a DAC. The problem with DDS is that there is a high-frequency crystal oscillator spewing RFI into anything connected - both the AC mains wiring and the power to the turntable motor.
While Versa's upgrade added a lot of ferrite filters to try and mitigate the noise, a far better solution (IMO) is to not generate it in the first place. The Ayre all-analog 3-phase power supply is available separately from Ayre dealers. If there is enough interest I will find out the 3-phase motor used by DPS. Then the group could arrange a group buy to have a custom pulley machined to match the Versa platter diameter.
If necessary I could even have the custom frequencies created for the Ayre PS. (The standard ones are 50 Hz for 33-1/3 rpm and 67.5 for 45 rpm.)
Hope this helps.
I am the former owner of a Model Two. In addition to an intimate familiarity with the Versa design I've been in the audio industry for 30+ years and having designed both loudspeakers and electronics - including turntable motor drives.
I've also known John Bicht for many years. Although I've not kept in contact with him, he lives only about 50 km away in Loveland, Colorado with his partner Laura Dearborn. I've been to his shop and spoken with him.
Although I am absolutely certain that he would disagree with me, I am confident that there is one area of both models that could be dramatically upgraded - the motor and drive electronics. The originals used a microprocessor to create square waves to drive a stepper motor. I know a lot about stepper motors, having used them to operate rotary switches in our preamplifiers for over 20 years.
IMO, they are a sub-optimal choice for a turntable for two huge reasons:
1) The microprocessor in the control box creates tremendous amounts of RFI that pollute the entire audio system. Much of the upgrades John made many years ago centered on controlling the RFI emitted by the control box.
A far better solution is to use all-analog electronics to create motor drive signals as Ayre did for the DPS turntable:
Ayre Acoustics dps
2) A three-phase synchronous motor is the best available motor system. To the best of my knowledge only the DPS and SME turntables use 3-phase synchronous motors. With a 3-phase, all vibrations and motor pulses are canceled completely - no "cogging" and no vibration This is in stark contrast to a stepper motor, which all it does is "cog".
Most synchronous motor are 2-phase types. The first phase is made from the AC from the wall. The second phase gets a 90 degree phase shift from an external capacitor, and there may be some additional phase shift because the load (the stator coils) are inductive. This sine-wave drive creates far less "cogging" than does the square-wave drive to a stepper motor, but only with a three-phase motor sine-wave-drive motor can one totally eliminate all "cogging" or variations in torque throughout the full rotation.
All other external turntable motor drives with which I'm familiar use cheap digital electronics to create either square-wave drive (divided down from a microprocessor) or use DDS (Direct Digital Synthesis) to create a sine wave digitally using a DAC. The problem with DDS is that there is a high-frequency crystal oscillator spewing RFI into anything connected - both the AC mains wiring and the power to the turntable motor.
While Versa's upgrade added a lot of ferrite filters to try and mitigate the noise, a far better solution (IMO) is to not generate it in the first place. The Ayre all-analog 3-phase power supply is available separately from Ayre dealers. If there is enough interest I will find out the 3-phase motor used by DPS. Then the group could arrange a group buy to have a custom pulley machined to match the Versa platter diameter.
If necessary I could even have the custom frequencies created for the Ayre PS. (The standard ones are 50 Hz for 33-1/3 rpm and 67.5 for 45 rpm.)
Hope this helps.
I looked up an eBay listing and it made reference to a substitute platter "mat".
DANGER! NOT RECOMMENDED!
Here is the story on vacuum platters. They use air pressure to hold the entire record surface against the platter. The first turntable in the US with this feature was the SOTA and it had an acrylic top layer on the platter to provide "mechanical impedance" matching. The problem was that records are (in general) not flat.
A vacuum platter will flatten out most (mildly) warped records, but all LPs (except some of the Classic with a special flat profile) have a thick "lip" at the outer perimeter. This lip was designed so that on an automatic record changer the LPs could drop onto a spinning one and not scratch each other. (45 singles did not have this lip, but also were used on automatic record changers - odd.)
The SOTA platter had a slight bevel at the out centimeter or so to accommodate the lip. When the vacuum was applied, the record would bend at the inflection in the platter, and any dust or dirt on the platter would be pressed into the LP and damage it irreversibly. I ruined several hundred LPs before I figured this out.
When Bicht was developing the Versa record player, he absolutely had to have the vacuum to force the LP to be perfectly flat. The radically short "tonearm" would create massive "warp-wow" if the LP were not perfectly flat. But any soft platter mat would ruin the sound because the LP needs a firm mechanical support.
This conflict nearly killed the Versa before it was even born. Fortunately Bicht was able to find exactly the right material. It was soft enough to absorb any dust or dirt, yet thin enough not to damage the sound quality. This special platter "mat" is only about 0.006" thick and is extremely important!
Without the special mat, the records can be damaged. Yet any conventional mat will ruin the sound, as the record will not properly couple to the constrained-layer platter. Only the original mat will do, and anything else will spoil the sound quality. Yet the original mat is fragile and can shrink over time.
There is no substitute for this mat. If you have a Versa turntable, plan on buying at least two or three mats from Bicht while he is still alive so that you will have spares. Even if each mat lasts 10 years, the record player will last many, many decades. Buy them while you can. I know of no substitute for this mat, nor any economical way to make your own.
You may want to also purchase a spare "lip" that holds the vacuum at the edge of the LP. Those are the two main items that can wear out and are literally irreplaceable. I consider them mandatory for any Versa owner. Please check his website for other spare parts, but those two are imperative.
DANGER! NOT RECOMMENDED!
Here is the story on vacuum platters. They use air pressure to hold the entire record surface against the platter. The first turntable in the US with this feature was the SOTA and it had an acrylic top layer on the platter to provide "mechanical impedance" matching. The problem was that records are (in general) not flat.
A vacuum platter will flatten out most (mildly) warped records, but all LPs (except some of the Classic with a special flat profile) have a thick "lip" at the outer perimeter. This lip was designed so that on an automatic record changer the LPs could drop onto a spinning one and not scratch each other. (45 singles did not have this lip, but also were used on automatic record changers - odd.)
The SOTA platter had a slight bevel at the out centimeter or so to accommodate the lip. When the vacuum was applied, the record would bend at the inflection in the platter, and any dust or dirt on the platter would be pressed into the LP and damage it irreversibly. I ruined several hundred LPs before I figured this out.
When Bicht was developing the Versa record player, he absolutely had to have the vacuum to force the LP to be perfectly flat. The radically short "tonearm" would create massive "warp-wow" if the LP were not perfectly flat. But any soft platter mat would ruin the sound because the LP needs a firm mechanical support.
This conflict nearly killed the Versa before it was even born. Fortunately Bicht was able to find exactly the right material. It was soft enough to absorb any dust or dirt, yet thin enough not to damage the sound quality. This special platter "mat" is only about 0.006" thick and is extremely important!
Without the special mat, the records can be damaged. Yet any conventional mat will ruin the sound, as the record will not properly couple to the constrained-layer platter. Only the original mat will do, and anything else will spoil the sound quality. Yet the original mat is fragile and can shrink over time.
There is no substitute for this mat. If you have a Versa turntable, plan on buying at least two or three mats from Bicht while he is still alive so that you will have spares. Even if each mat lasts 10 years, the record player will last many, many decades. Buy them while you can. I know of no substitute for this mat, nor any economical way to make your own.
You may want to also purchase a spare "lip" that holds the vacuum at the edge of the LP. Those are the two main items that can wear out and are literally irreplaceable. I consider them mandatory for any Versa owner. Please check his website for other spare parts, but those two are imperative.
David,
Bad luck.
I put in a bid and thought I might well lose as, with the time difference, I was in bed when the auction closed. It evetually sold for a considerable amount less than a previous one I was chasing.
The whole thing is coming to me in bits and I'll carefully go over everything as I assemble it, but from the photos I've seen, it looks well restored.
Happy hunting for another one.
Best wishes
Peter
CH
Do you know of what material the mat is made of?
Being so thin, it must have some kind of way to keep it down?
I have always used a lens cloth on my SOTAs for the very reason you state and an important point made considering tables like Air Force 1,2 that use glass, aluminum, etc!
Regards
David
Do you know of what material the mat is made of?
Being so thin, it must have some kind of way to keep it down?
I have always used a lens cloth on my SOTAs for the very reason you state and an important point made considering tables like Air Force 1,2 that use glass, aluminum, etc!
Regards
David
Yes, I do. I will not reveal it, as that would be stealing Bicht's work, the same as posting a digital file of music for free download.
If the people who build vacuum 'tables with hard platters are too lazy to find a mat that prevents record damage and forces their customers to use a lens cloth to clean their platters, that is their problem and not Bicht's.
Payor (Rockport) at least found a different solution, but unlike Bicht's it changed the sound of the platter for the worse. He was not lazy, but instead trusted "theory" instead of his ears.
The irony here is that all of the "reviewers" fawned over the Rockport because at least Payor was smart enough to understand that a turntable as difficult to use as one with a vacuum platter would never sell in great numbers. He therefore charged an appropriate price ($75,000) for a limited-edition, handbuilt object. Bicht, on the other hand, was used to the high-volume world of Mission (for whom he designed a tonearm) and naively thought that thousands of people would buy a vacuum 'table. He priced it to only be profitable in quantities of thousands ($15,000).
All of the corrupt reviewers who "listen" with their wallets ("It must be better because it is so expensive") were smitten with the Rockport because it cost 5x as much as the Versa.
Even today Peter was able to buy a record player for $2200 that likely sounds better than the $200.000 Continuum. The only disadvantage is that Peter will need to spend a few hundred dollars on spare parts before Bicht retires altogether. When the Continuum fails, the reviewer will sell it for twice the price he paid for it, as he is the one who created the demand for it with his reviews. He "listened" with his wallet and concluded the Continuum sounded better - obviously it must or they wouldn't charge 10x the price of the Versa...
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