Vinyl Asylum: REVIEW: Teres Verus motor Turntables by kurt s

Model:	Verus motor
Category:	Turntables
Suggested Retail Price:	$1690
Description:
Manufacturer URL:	Teres
Model Picture:	View

Review by kurt s on December 22, 2007 at 18:37:59
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for the Verus motor

I just got this motor to replace a very old DC motor with belt drive that originally came with my old version Teres 255 model. The rest of the TT system includes an acrylic/lead shot platter, wood base, original old VPI JMW-10 tonearm, and a rebuilt 2001 vintage Koetsu Urushi cartridge.

I was torn between getting a new tonearm or this new low cogging multiphase direct coupled motor system that has been popular lately. I believe the advice to buy this motor was a good one and that's what I did.

I feel justified in writing this review after one listening session because the differences were so obvious to me. And it was not in a way I expected at all. Normally I expect the usual audiophile adjectives to pop up when I hear an upgrade on something like this. Not quite this time. It does things better in a different way. People say you can't hardly describe the difference, but I think I can. And the longer I sit around trying to remember the differences that took place, the more I think I will start to forget them. And since it's so doubtful that this piece of gear requires a break-in period I'm going to go ahead and just write about it now.

Here's a list of the things that changes when you use this motor compared to a pretty good belt drive: the bass lines clear up with much less muddiness, the midrange clears up as well, the noise floor of the recording sounds like it goes down, the frequency balance tends to tilt up, the excess warmth of vinyl dimishes, the pace and drive of the music flows with greater ease, a greater degree of immediacy occurs, a more forward projection of the soundstage appears, and a more lifelike overall sound is heard in general.

How does it do it? I have a theory about what's going on, but I am not a mechanical engineer and frankly I don't think most mechanical engineers would know for sure either. I think the smooth precise turning of the motor that presses on unperturbed by micro-modulated friction around the platter (be it from an imperfect bearing to modulating groove friction) is helping out a lot. A belt drive isolates motor from platter and platter from motor which will allow such micro-modulated friction changes to go unchecked. A strong low cogging motor can counter that effect from platter to motor as the motor wants to reject it when in direct contact.

Also, when you drop the vibration of the turning of the platter, you unload some of the damping duties normally required by the cartridge body and tonearm. So in essence with this motor you get a tonearm upgrade for free as it has less impact on the system.

The VPI JMW-10 tonearm was criticised for excess lower mid/upper bass warmth that later versions helped fix. Well I will report that a great deal of that excess warmth evaporated when the Verus was installed.

Interestingly, I have found out that tonearms should not be used to correct for TT deficiencies. The modest JMW-10 arm works well now. And in anouther case I can recall, the highly touted SME-30 uses a fairly "ordinary" SME IV or SME V tonearm to very high performance as well.

Going back to that JMW-10 midbass warmth that was talked about for example, when I played my most challenging bass recording I have, "Blow Up" by the Isao Suzuki Trio/Quartet on Japan's Three Blind Mice label, the multiple plucked basses stopped being so darn muddy like it used to be. I wondered if the recording was bad all this time, or the Koetsu couldn't play it. But no, it just needed this motor to fix that all up. Now the Koetsu plays bass lines about as good as any cartridge I heard before on previous systems.

In the lower midrange, I listened to "Songs for Distingue Lovers" by Billie Holiday where a sensational deep saxophone played with eery realism, void of any noticeable distortion artifacts.

With the excess bass gone and the treble remaining about the same as it did before, the overall balance sounded a bit tilted up a couple decibles. It amazingly started to match the CD player in tonal balance, something that came as a surprise. Maybe there's some truth that vinyl lovers like the warmth that CD's sterilize too much and think CD's are bright and LPs correct when CD's are basically correct balance-wise, although still horribly deficient in inner detail and smoothness on top.

I then played another record that was a little challenging to sound clean, "The Healer" by John Lee Hooker. This one features John singing duets with pop artists and sometimes just solo with pop instrumentalists like Carlos Santana. Santana's guitar sounded a little muddy in the background before but again came out clear as a bell this time with all musical lines fully delineated.

On these jazz numbers they all shared another common trait. They started me actually wanting to dance, and I don't dance. I now have a better understanding of what pacing and timing is about and when it lacks it. Teres was a tad sluggish with belt drive but is highly compensated for with its new Verus direct drive.

This Verus direct drive does so many things right for my TT system that I cannot recommend it highly enough. If you think you will miss that vinyl warmth, don't worry. You'll just be missing excess warmth, that peach fuzz that's just junk. What you are getting closer to here is a more direct connection to the master tape lying underneath.

I feel Teres has put out a killer product here. This one can transform many TT's out there because it's compatible with many high-end TTs as well. I think they're really on the right track with this.

I wouldn't order a new Teres TT without the Verus option.

Product Weakness:	Don't think there is one.
Product Strengths:	Clarity, good pacing, exceptional bass to midrange.

Associated Equipment for this Review:

Amplifier: DIY 300B SET
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated): Passive autotransformer volume control
Sources (CDP/Turntable): Ayre CX-7e / Teres 255
Speakers: Focal-JMlab Micro Utopia Be w/ DIY sub
Cables/Interconnects: Cardas Hexlink speaker wire / DIY interconnects
Music Used (Genre/Selections): Jazz/Classical/Rock
Room Size (LxWxH): 20' x 12' x 8'
Room Comments/Treatments: Bookcase diffusers / Fiberglass insulation absorbers
Time Period/Length of Audition: 1 day
Type of Audition/Review: Product Owner

Amplifier:	DIY 300B SET
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	Passive autotransformer volume control
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	Ayre CX-7e / Teres 255
Speakers:	Focal-JMlab Micro Utopia Be w/ DIY sub
Cables/Interconnects:	Cardas Hexlink speaker wire / DIY interconnects
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	Jazz/Classical/Rock
Room Size (LxWxH):	20' x 12' x 8'
Room Comments/Treatments:	Bookcase diffusers / Fiberglass insulation absorbers
Time Period/Length of Audition:	1 day
Type of Audition/Review:	Product Owner