Vpi 16.5

I'm thinking of getting this as it's not a whole lot more than the Nitty Gritty - any opinions on it. They want $540 including tax and shipping and insurance and it comes with one bottle of solution and brush.

Thanks

Hi RGA, good to have you back around. I've had my 16.5 for a few years and so far it's held up fine. It does an excellent job of cleaning albums. A couple things about it, of course they may have improved on some of this, the vacuum is pretty loud. I mean you don't keep it on long, for only a rotation or so but if in an apartment with thin walls or sleeping babies etc. the noise may be a consideration. This also adds to the ritual of playing an album. I clean a newly owned record one at a time right before listening. Some may prefer to do a stack at a time which may take away some of the trouble when just wanting to listen to one or two LP's. Once cleaned on the 16.5 you shouldn't have to do it again unless it's a grungy LP. Once clean an LP should stay that way with fiber carbon brushing before and after use.

I don't know if you've ever seen one, you put the album on a cork turntable, which has a powerful motor I might add, screw the clamp on the spindle to keep the album in place, turn on the motor so the LP spins, you apply the solution, take the brush and hold it on the LP for how many rotations you deem fit, swing the vacuum arm over the LP and flip the switch on, the velvet lipped arm sucks the solution and dirt off the surface. The brush lifts the dirt out of the grooves with help of the solution so it can all be sucked clean. The dirty solution goes inside into a tank. A hose hangs out of the back of the unit. The hose needs to be opened occasionally and the tank emptied. It really works good.

I think I'll probably get it. Seems to be quite good. I have seen one in operation but didn;t look closely enough at it.

My new turntable will eventually arrive and I don't want to muck it up with dirty records.

Nice to be back but the activity here has really slowed down - What's up?

I'm not sure where some of our members went. It seems the weekend is slow but things pick up during the week. I think many post from work. The forums don't seem to get the traffic we did a few years back though. I know before I turned off my Axtive-X the pages took forever to load and that can be a big turn off.

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Originally Posted by RGA

I'm thinking of getting this as it's not a whole lot more than the Nitty Gritty - any opinions on it. They want $540 including tax and shipping and insurance and it comes with one bottle of solution and brush.

Thanks

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My HW-16 turns 26 in August. Built like a tank. Invaluable to anyone serious about vinyl. Replacement parts are easy to get from VPI. I've gone through about four vacuum tubes (not that type!), two brushes and replaced the platter assembly with a threaded one over the years. Noisy, but effective.

rw