So weird that mine's like this. I'm probably SOL but I've emailed VPI directly to see if I have any recourse at this point. Usually I'm on top of stuff like this (to a fault) so I'm kicking myself for not addressing the issue when I first noticed it. I wonder...is anyone home at VPI? Usually I hear back from them eventually when I email but not this time for some reason.

Thanks Mat! Jim sent me a Square contract yesterday so we can advance-exchange the complete motor & housing (just the new motor you sent me last week didn't solve my issue) so hopefully that'll ship out this week.

Thanks for the suggestion! There was no vertical play in the motor shaft, but I loosened the brass collar anyway, lubed underneath it while I was at it, pulled the shaft up while pressing down on the collar, and tightened everything back up. Unfortunately the noise is still there, and now there's a little bit of noise even when there's no load on the motor. I spoke to Mat this morning and he said he's going to ship out a new motor (hopefully) today. I have a Hana Umami Blue on the way so I'm extremely anxious to get this motor noise sorted. 😁

Great advice, Tony! I was able to speak to Mat this morning and he's taking care of me.

Thanks Tony! I'll give 'em a call first thing in the morning. I hate to be obnoxious, but I think my issue can be resolved rather quickly given all the troubleshoot I've already gone through with the help of Brf.

I did try the dental floss suggestion (very clever BTW!) and it didn't make any appreciable difference. At first I thought it had but that was because the belt had jumped to the 33 RPM setting without me noticing. My suspicion all along was that it was a magnetic/electrical noise of some sort. Now the challenge will be trying to get in touch with someone at VPI... Next question - how tough is it to remove the motor from the assembly? I see screws on the top of my motor pod but they don't appear to match any of the motor patterns shown on the motors for sale at VPIDirect.com. Thanks so much for your help!

I do hear the same noise when playing 33 RPM records; it's just not as loud. I will give the dental floss a try. What concerns me about this noise is that it's new and might indicate a problem that will continue to get worse. I have an older recording of a different motor noise that I was able to fix and this new noise was not present at all on that recording. Again, I very, very much appreciate the help. It seems like the most expedient solution at this point would be to simply swap out the motor, but I can't get in touch with anyone at VPI.

Thanks for the suggestion Brf. The noise of the toothpick grinding on the bottom of the brass stopper made it hard to hear the noise, but it doesn't appear as if the noise changed at all.

Just to follow up, I held my motor at an angle so that I could more easily get 2-3 drops of Super Lube oil on the spindle under the brass collar. However, I've been running the motor for about 30 minutes at 45 RPM and there's no change to the noise. :-(

Hi Brf, thanks again for your reply! I have changed nothing recently except for moving the belt on the pulley from the 33 to 45 RPM setting. I was running the TT through a Furman power conditioner but I also tried plugging it directly into the wall...neither setting made any difference to the noise. I lubed the motor on top of the pulley, I removed the pulley and lubed the top of the brass balance collar, and also tried to get it as best I could under the balance collar. I'm using VPI's recommended Super Lube light oil (in the small pen) to lubricate the motor. I will remove the motor, hold it on its side, and try to do a better job of getting lube under the collar and see if that helps any. Also, I cleaned the platter bearing again with alcohol and Q-Tips (in the platter) and then re-lubed with just a pea-sized dollop of Super Lube grease on top of the ball. The platter is spinning very, very smoothly now - I can't imagine that platter drag is contributing to this noise issue. Any chance my motor is simply starting to fail? What concerns me is that this noise was definitely not there from the beginning. I actually have an older audio recording of the same VPI motor and it was making very minimal noise then. If this is a sign of the motor starting to fail I'd sure like to get it replaced while it's still under warranty!

Also, I got to thinking...if my platter bearing has enough drag to cause the motor to struggle and make noise, then wouldn't my turntable be running a little slow? So I measured it using an iPhone app and its speeds are just about perfect - 33.33 RPM and 45.08 RPM. I don't know if that means anything, but I wish I knew what the heck is going on...

Thanks for the quick reply! I always thought the platter spun freely (although it doesn't spin forever), but just to make sure I cleaned all the old lube off of the inverted bearing and re-lubed everything. Unfortunately there was no change to the noise. :-(

No, the noise is present as long as the motor is driving the platter. Changing the tension on the belt didn't change the volume of the noise, but just to check I did move the motor as close as possible to the platter.