Voyd Turntables

I had a Voyd for several years, I sold it a year or two ago for £750.00 I think it was. It's a great deck, pretty easy to set up and once set up, doesn't need messing about with. I only had a Rega RB250 arm and a fairly low end cartridge with it and it was always my intention to upgrade them to something more fitting, perhaps a Helios Cyalene and a Koetsu, which were said to be great, but very expensive partners. Of course a better arm and cartridge would warrent a better amp and speakers as well. However, circumstances changed, I went back to full time education, and expensive hi-fi had to go on hold. Given the fairly ordinary arm, cartridge, amp and speakers I had at the time I don't suppose I ever heard the Voyd at its full potential, certainly my current system blows my old Voyd based one away, but it was a very highly regarded deck at the time I bought it.

I would have kept it, but while moving about, going to college, changing jobs etc. I left the deck, and a whole bunch of other stuff, in storage at my parents house and bought a lot of CDs for use in a mini system. When I finally stopped moving all over the place I had far more CDs than LPs and many copies of albums in both formats, so I decided to sell all my LPs and the Voyd.

I took a look on Ebay, the RB300 arm is considered a bit of a giant killer, as is the RB250 and I recall that when I bought the Voyd the sales guy reckoned that the Rega arms were a better match for the deck than the SME arms for example. However, the ultimate match was the pricey Helius. Helius arms will be difficult to get hold of, I believe they've gone out of business, although I might be wrong: www.ear-usa.com/helius.htm

Here's a Cyalene that looks to be mounted on a Voyd: www.vinylengine.com/phpBB2/album_page.php?pic_id=523, the Orion is a replacement for the Cyalene.

Some of the higher end Rega arms now available may also be worth a look: www.rega.co.uk/html/tonearm.htm. Rega only made the 250 and 300 models until a few years ago.

Also, make sure you know which version of the Voyd you are getting, there were several versions that all looked very similar and several different power supplies as well. I believe the Valdi listed on Ebay is the baby, with only two motors rather than the three of the Voyd and Voyd Reference. When you bought a Voyd you could also specify individual bits, such as a Voyd with a Reference platter and bearing and a standard, split phase or reference power supply, so you might come accross some odd combinations.

The Voyd Reference at around £5,000.00 back in the late eighties was 5 x the price of the standard Voyd and was considered to be up there with the best turntables in the world at the time, but the standard Voyd was no slouch either, so improvements down the line would probably not be wasted.

Of course .. thanks Rick ... cartridge and arm!

So ... [opens potential can o'worms] what difference could an arm make? Guess thinking about the limiting case (no arm) then the arm should be invisivble to the colection of the analogue data, and should not impact - so bearings, balance? So how would a good arm be determined over a very good arm?

As various people have said, the Voyd was/is an excellent turntable. They made four models

• The Valdi - which had two motors and was about the same size as most other decks
  
  The Voyd which was physically bigger, had three motors and a fairly small external power supply
  
  The 0.5 Reference which had a Lexan platter and a much biggerr power supply and
  
  The Reference which had a better finish, some upgraded parts and (most importantly) three very big and powerful Papst motors.
  
• 
  
• 
  

Audio Note bought the designs for the turntable from the original designer and carried on manufacture of the higher end versions. They can still service and repair them - I should know I have one of the very first ones. They are just launching a brand new turtable - see www.audionote.co.uk/products/analogue/tt-3_01.shtml - but this will be mega expensive.

Audio Note currently recommend their own arms, or the Rega ones. The lower end Audio Note arms are, in fact, Rega ones with upgraded wiring. Helius arms were widely fitted originally, but they went out of business some time ago so I don't know whether they are repairable.

They still change hands for very good money.

Hope this helps

Alan

wrong link ;D

www.vinylengine.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=19

www.vinylengine.com/library.php?make=Voyd

this one looks pretty cool

www.vinylengine.com/phpBB2/album_page.php?pic_id=2611