Turntables, Arms & Cartridges

Talking with Vertere founder Touraj Moghaddam requires suspension of disbelief. It's as if he's thrown out all the truisms and prejudices. His philosophy has been refined over the decades, and he maintains it is critical that high performance products perform consistently over long periods of time – something which could not be said for many suspended sub-chassis decks of the past. It's his main reason for choosing cast acrylic, which 'proved to be the most stable, inherently damped material – this was our main requirement for the plinth structure'.

As for tonearms, Touraj admits a standard uni-pivot is cheaper to manufacture than a ball-race design for a given performance, but 'Without the ball-race's inherent noise. However, it does have a disadvantage of its contact point "skating" about and thus creating distortion and instability. The SG-1 PTA behaves like a uni-pivot when it comes to setting up azimuth but has the added advantage of no "skating", which provides the best of both worlds, if at a higher cost'.

As for record hold-down, he says, 'Coupling of the LP to the structure simply guarantees the existence of micro-noises, vibrations and disturbances, magnified thousands of times and fed into the amp. Vertere record players support the LP effectively by a "cushion" of air and tiny pieces of fibre'.

Having recently launched the Gen III Reference tonearm for the RG-1, says Touraj, 'It's clear there is a lot more we can get out of the groove'.