Well after much thought and discussion with some well respected Audiophiles on here I decided some weeks ago to scratch an itch and to try another turntable. I had ended up with a list of 6 from these helpful chaps. The 6 listed below being considered great VFM and giving very good results, even when compared to some very expensive modern gear.

"1. Voyd great dynamics and bass slams and openness

2. Technics sp10 for sense of space and foundation and great imaging

3. Garrard 401 audio grail with a russ collinson cherry plinth prefferably with sme m12r or the timestep arm this would give superb grip over the music and superb timing with real good bass. the sme Iv will also do well

4. Nottingham analogue hyperspace for sence of grip with great bass and speed to boot.

5. Townshend rock reference hard to find but a real stunner in terms of performance i dont think you will find one but worth a mention.

6. Alphason sonata hr100 mcs fantastic midrange and vibrancy brilliant bass performance"

So after some thought and investigations, and further discussions with the guys I opted to try and find a Voyd that was as good as I could find, my limit was £2K so this ruled out a Voyd 0.5 or Reference. Fortune must have been on my side as I stumbled across a NM one with a dealer in Copenhagen, Henrik had taken it in part exchange. After a couple of phone calls and emails a good price was agreed and Henrik said he would hold it for me for a few weeks whilst I got the cash together. The deck had been tested by them and it was running very close to 33.33 and with very low wow/flutter. The only issue was that it did not have an SME arm board. It was decided to make one initially from a cut down Linn/SME arm board (on ebay for £39) it has worked and the arm/cartridge are correctly aligned, but i am not happy with it for the long term and am having one made by Steve at Magna Audio.

In advance I had made up a short phono stage lead using Cardas cable with a right angle SME plug on one end and a male pug on the other, this was because my Furutech lead is not very flexible and I wanted to avoid impeding the Voyd suspension. Prior to sending the deck Henrik had advised me to order a replacement drive belt, he had ordered one but it had not turned up, the original having seen better days, so i ordered one that I thought was correct.

Last Monday the Voyd arrived very carefully packaged, and after carefully getting it out onto the kitchen table I set about setting up the SME arm and levelling and testing the deck. I fitted the new drive belt and to my surprise it now ran 1% fast, I tried the old one but as Henrik said it had seen better days and kept coming off, the rubber had stretched. This episode set off a long investigation into Voyd belts and I have since found out it is critical to get one of the right thickness, apart from length, for the model of Voyd deck, mine needing one that is 0.5mm thick, the one I had being about 7.5mm. To some this will not make any sense, and it did not to me, but trust me the thicker the belt is the faster it will run. Anyway I have found a supply of the correct belts which should arrive early next week.

After a couple of careful hours setting up I put it in position in the lounge and plugged up and put a record on only to find I had only one channel. So down it came to inspect the home made lead, as I did so horror of horrors a pin from the SME was still in the end of the right angle plug, how this happened I do not know, it just failed at its base. So onto the phone to SME, and a trip to the post office on Tuesday morning, and off it went for repair. To my shock and delight the SME arm turned up on Friday afternoon fixed and me £93 lighter, but what great service from SME. So yesterday I got it up and working and had an initial listen and thought this sounds different.

Today I have sat down and listened to 18 test tracks that I am very familiar with and use to review new gear or system changes, have just done this these are my thoughts on the Voyd.

The Voyd has great depth of sound in the bass and mid-range, and sounds very engaging and dynamic, it gives a lovely musical rendition. There is no edginess, everything sounds as it should, punchy and dynamic with lots of detail. On certain tracks long notes just seemed to hang in the air. I also noticed more detail, I could hear aspects of the recording environment with echo evident room acoustics. The top end is very good as well, no harshness noticed from any instruments or vocals. Overall it just all sounds right, very impressive, a very well balance musical sound with superb dynamics and detail. By the way the isolation is great no microphonics from the cartridge even when playing a record when you tap the shelf it sits on. I would score it a very strong 9/10 for its overall performance, in fact its more of a 9.5/10 to my ears.

So at the moment I am very pleased with the Voyd.

I notice there is another one for sale on AoS and if you are in the market for another TT I would seriously consider it.

and here is mine:-