Ed Selley
Active Member
Strange times chez Selley today as the Vertere gets to meet its Dad;
Vertere is owned by Touraj Moghaddam who is responsible for the bulk of the design work at the company. Before Vertere, Moghaddam was a co-founder of Roksan where he designed the Xerxes turntable. Because the hifi industry is fundamentally odd, even though he no longer has anything to do with Roksan, you can still buy a Xerxes, brand new and continuously updated since 1985. I didn’t think I’d ever have a work reason to have both side by side but it’s managed to happen.
The two turntables follow the same basic pattern. They’re belt driven (the motor of the Xerxes is under the platter and acts on a sub platter whereas the Vertere sits it outside to act on the outer edge of the single piece platter) and use a series of rubber domes to split the main plinth and decouple an inner subchassis. Both sit on three feet and use a unipivot type arm. They are both designed to have the spindle pull off once the record is on the platter to help with decoupling and both have a slot in the plinth to hold it; although it’s magnetised on the Vertere. Both have external PSUs but the ‘VSC2’ on the Xerxes is a combined PSU and phono stage which is good idea. You get a lid as standard too which you don’t on the Vertere.
Some parts of the Roksan are much more annoying though. This afternoon’s exertions have confirmed that it is an order of magnitude harder than the Vertere to get up and running and the weird ‘tags on cables’ on the Shiraz cartridge are a warcrime. The Mystic cart on the Vertere is rather more confidence inspiring as is the SG-1 arm, which even though it’s a unipivot, doesn’t need to run the lead out cable out the top either. On the other hand, I do think that the Roksan is prettier; one of the most proportionally perfect turntables you can buy in fact.
I’m not saying that Roksan is taking this quite seriously but the original spec for the review sample was supposed to be XPS8 PSU, Nima arm and an MM cart before someone let slip that I own a Vertere. As such, what has actually shown up has a Sara arm, Shiraz cart and VSC2 PSU and is yours for a robust £12,990. This afternoon’s exertions have confirmed that it is an order of magnitude harder than the Vertere to get up and running and the weird ‘tags on cables’ on the Shiraz are a warcrime. Anyway, it's in and running and it should be an entertaining session.
Vertere is owned by Touraj Moghaddam who is responsible for the bulk of the design work at the company. Before Vertere, Moghaddam was a co-founder of Roksan where he designed the Xerxes turntable. Because the hifi industry is fundamentally odd, even though he no longer has anything to do with Roksan, you can still buy a Xerxes, brand new and continuously updated since 1985. I didn’t think I’d ever have a work reason to have both side by side but it’s managed to happen.
The two turntables follow the same basic pattern. They’re belt driven (the motor of the Xerxes is under the platter and acts on a sub platter whereas the Vertere sits it outside to act on the outer edge of the single piece platter) and use a series of rubber domes to split the main plinth and decouple an inner subchassis. Both sit on three feet and use a unipivot type arm. They are both designed to have the spindle pull off once the record is on the platter to help with decoupling and both have a slot in the plinth to hold it; although it’s magnetised on the Vertere. Both have external PSUs but the ‘VSC2’ on the Xerxes is a combined PSU and phono stage which is good idea. You get a lid as standard too which you don’t on the Vertere.
Some parts of the Roksan are much more annoying though. This afternoon’s exertions have confirmed that it is an order of magnitude harder than the Vertere to get up and running and the weird ‘tags on cables’ on the Shiraz cartridge are a warcrime. The Mystic cart on the Vertere is rather more confidence inspiring as is the SG-1 arm, which even though it’s a unipivot, doesn’t need to run the lead out cable out the top either. On the other hand, I do think that the Roksan is prettier; one of the most proportionally perfect turntables you can buy in fact.
I’m not saying that Roksan is taking this quite seriously but the original spec for the review sample was supposed to be XPS8 PSU, Nima arm and an MM cart before someone let slip that I own a Vertere. As such, what has actually shown up has a Sara arm, Shiraz cart and VSC2 PSU and is yours for a robust £12,990. This afternoon’s exertions have confirmed that it is an order of magnitude harder than the Vertere to get up and running and the weird ‘tags on cables’ on the Shiraz are a warcrime. Anyway, it's in and running and it should be an entertaining session.
