Where can I hear Teres

I guess that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I recently purchased a Redpoint Testa Rosa and very much like its industrial look. The parts are shined to a high gloss and are very user friendly. I am using a Kuzma Stogi Reference arm and a Shelter 901 (still breaking in). I agree with the above comment regarding the background silence as I really didn't think that a TT could have this low of a noise floor. I am sure that it is hard to fairly judge a TT when you are listening to other peoples systems with unfamiliar components. When I plugged this into my system (Hovland preamp, SF power 3se mono's, and Vienna Acoustic Mahlers) the improvements over my previous VPI setup was significant.

Dmailer - I agree. It is difficult to accurately assess a source component in the context of an unfamiliar system. Perhaps that is the reason why I am still so confused about the the Redpoint/Teres tables. Having read so much positive feedback on these tables, I expected to be floored by the Redpoint regardless of system context, arm or cartridge.

However, the low surface noise was amazing to me... but the owner of the house / Gyro / system, didn't seem all that amazed by it. I asked him if there was less surface noise than his Gyro and he said, "hmmmm.. maybe a little bit, I don't know."

Aren't there enough substantive changes from the Teres to view the Redpoint as a different (albeit, related) animal? The differences in bearing and platter seem to me to be significant enough to warrant this.

It seems from viewing the link that Bwhite was kind enough to provide that Redpoint is more than an attempt to bring Teres to a more retail commercially oriented perspective.

Tom, can you shed any light on this?

I have never seen or heard the Teres first hand. One of the founders of Redpoint was one of the founders of the Teres project and he said that they wanted to expand on what had been done and take it to the next level with Redpoint. I must say the machining done on the spindle and bearing is really something and makes most others look pretty lightweight. They seem to have done alot of experimentation with platter materials which have resulted in more complex and expensive platter options but they feel these options are a sound improvement over acrylic platters. As far as using a battery powered tape drive I have seen no negative side effects since mine has been set up. I suspect that the battery powered tape drive is a good part of the equation regarding the low noise floor.

Ok. First the Teres is available as an assembled TT, so it is a "retail commercial product", as well as a DIY product, depending upon how you want to buy it. The Redpoint is made by some of the early Teres participants, and their intention was to "take it a step further". I have not heard the Redpoint TestaRossa, so I cannot say if they have done that, sonically. In fact, I cannot even say with certainty, that they are even on par with Teres. When the changes are as radical as the Redpoint, it can no longer be considered an "offshoot" product. It is its own design, and I'm not entirely certain that it is an improvement. I think these guys at Redpoint are good guys, and their product needs to be judged on its own merits. I am not one of the fans of their styling. On the tape-drive issue, this has been experimented with at Teres and at Walker, and both designers felt that a silk string drive was best. All I can say is that changing something does not necessarily make it better. It could be better, the same, or worse. I am disappointed that the Redpoint demonstration did not allow the sound to be related in the best fashion. I'm sure this was a disappointment for Bwhite, and for Redpoint as well. Every mfr. wants his product demonstrated in the best light, but this is not always possible.