TERES - trially Good

Hi Abe,
Congradulations on your turntable. My Teres 265 arrived yesterday and today I will assemble it and put the tone arm on and tomorrow the cartridge.
What are you using for the belt, the peice of vhs tape that Chris suggests?

VHS tape? I have not tried that yet!

I am using a beaded chord named "Jewelry Designer" which I bought from a local Arts and Crafts store.

I haven't heard about Chris suggesting VHS tape for the belt. Is this something new?

I've been using Spectra 15# fishing line, which is totally non-stretch, and is hard to tension correctly, but sounds real good. I've read some others on the Teres forum are using rubber belts from Transcriptors.

Tell us about the VHS tape.

Amandarae,

Congratulations you lucky dog! I have an OL Silver, a Shelter and S&B transformers just waiting for my Teres to show up. As you say, it's wonderful to find such performance at this price point. Are you going to try TWL's HiFi mod on your OL arm?

Regarding saving up for a Shelter, all I can say is roll those pennies as fast as you can. While waiting for the Teres I set mine up on the old rig. It's absolutely amazing. The Shelter 901 may be a micron or two on the cool side of neutral (I'm hoping the Teres will address this) but its detail retrieval, dynamics, control and unlimited response at both frequency extremes are just jaw-dropping. It will knock you off your chair during the wildest orchestral/choral crescendos without breaking a sweat, yet in the next bar you'll hear the 3rd echo off a side wall or someone in the back row take a breath. It's just shocking. Depending on the type of music you like, the 501 may be as good or even better at half the cost. Great stuff.

Agaffer, if you just got your 265, mine should be coming any day! (Do you know what number yours was out of the twelve Chris Brady received in late July? I'm expecting #10.)

BTW, I believe Chris's current belt recommendation is a silk thread. Wasn't the tape idea supplanted by this?

I recently got some new pulleys that will accomodate a
1/2" wide belt. I have been experimenting with a bunch
of different drive materials, but it's still a work in
progress. In the sort term I started shipping the 265's
with the new pulley and both 1/2" VHS tape and also the
traditional silk string.

So far what I like best is 1/2" wide decorative mylar
tape. But I still have a number of evaluations to do. I also
would like to recruit some customers to do some evaluations
for a wider consensus. Once the evalautions are done there
will be an announcement on the Teres web page.

The wider tapes (mylar & mag tape) do sound better than
the silk but they are more of a hassle to use. I will
probably go to a wide tape for the higher end tables but
may still use a thread for the 100 series tables. I am
also evaluating some different thread types.

Before I get flamed... yes, it is very odd that you can
hear differences in belt materials. Easy to hear, hard to
explain.

Chris