[damacman]

I bought an Avenger from Ivan over Memorial Day weekend (as discussed in the turntable forum). It took a few weeks to receive it and I've now had it set up and running for a few weeks. This was an upgrade (!) from my trusty Technics SL 1300 Mk2 which I've owned for 26 years and been really happy with - yes, I fixed the cueing issue in the '90s.

This machine came equipped with the 12" 3D unipivot arm - of which there is a great deal of discussion out there about difficulty of setup. I experienced none of it. The alignment and azimuth adjustments via the included tools were so incredibly easy even a caveman could do it. With a little help from the younger eyes of my gf's daughter, I had the cartridge aligned perfectly in no time flat. VTF, azimuth, and VTA were are incredibly simple as the machine has been engineered to allow you to arrive at the correct setup in very short order. I passed on AS - seems to be the VPI way, although they do provide two ways of adding it should you desire. I've not missed it one bit. No IGD since day one.

I'm not much on lofty adjectives to describe the sound of HiFi gear. But, let me just say this - from the mechanical to the ease of listening this machine offers, I'm just floored. So is my gf and her daughters.

So, I'm a VPI guy now I guess. And, I'm a unipivot guy - what a brilliant design.

Well done indeed!