I can't believe I came across this baby at a garage sale in Hoboken!
What a find! (at only $2.55!!) - The worlds only Steam-powered turntable. It's claim to fame at it's 1986 introduction was that it was 'turntable with no rumble'!! Well, that was all fine and dandy, but how does this baby perform?
I had to dig to find old 45's in the bottom of my closet...including fine pressings of the "Theme From Happy Days b/w Crusin' With the Fonz" and of course the disco version of "Theme from Star Wars b/w Cantina Band Song." I hadda clean off the records a bit, I think the dog was messin' with 'em a few years back..dried dog saliva is NOT easy to clean (I musta went thru a whole bottle of Formula 409!)...anyhoo..I slapped on the Star Wars 45' and fired up the old Lirpa. I had to find some alternative fuel, as I didn't have any green olives (mfg. recommended) in the house, so I used some aging Kiwi fruits (later I tried some rhubarbs but that closed the soundstage right up and the high-end went to hell). Once that fire-tube (this thing ain't got no friggin' solid state crap) boiler kicked in, a rock-solid speed of 35 rpm is attained! (well that's the price you pay for NO rumble - I can live with the slightly higher pitch, thank you). I ain't heard such audio-magic since my first David Cassidy 8-track! The alien Steel-drum thingy from the Cantina Band piece sang like cat in heat! I was stunned. The steam-pressure held the 7" tightly to the 'table, only once did the steam power fart, sending my Aldo Nova 45" flying across the room, nearly taking off my head! Ah, but life is a *fantasy* with my Lirpa Labs Turbo Steamtable. Highly Recommended!!

The best turntable ever made.

Must be matched with other Lirpa products for best results.
Break-in period.

A little knowledge is always a dangerous thing. Everyone posting here has merely experienced the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Lirpa Labs, and is, therefore, a fool! Although the Lirpa Turbo Steamtable is, of course, the best turntable ever made, it's sound cannot be optimized by matching it with components from Levenson, Wilson and other second-tier world-class audio companies. Those of you who have done this are enjoying only a small fraction of the pleasures delivered by a fully dedicated Lirpa system. You probably did not know that Professor Lirpa created other equally innovative products such as:
*the Lirpa Non-Electric Phono Cartridge,
*the Lirpa Monoclock Power Amps,
*the Lirpa Passive Magnetic Preamplifier,
*the Lirpa Passive-Energizing Non-Magnetic
Reverse-Polarized Pre-Preamplifier,
*the Lirpa Non-Metallic, Polyureathane Tubular
Echo-Reinforcing Interconnects and Speaker Cables,terminated with the Lirpa Real Banana connectors
And, Of Course:
*the Lirpa Multiple Element Real-World Sound Reproduction Speaker Systems, featuring the patented brass element for brass instruments, the patented wooden elements for the various woodwinds, The patented gender-dedicated human vocal chord elements for vocals, etc., etc.

Believe me, none of you has come close to experiencing the Absolute Lirpa Sound, as I have, without assembling the full system. All of the modifications previously listed on this site are essentially worthless without the synergy created by the full Lirpa sytem of components.

In addition, if any of you had taken the trouble to actually read the carefully written 338,432-page owner's manual shipped by separate truck with the original turntable, you would have realized that Professor Lirpa explicitly specified that the turntable would take precisely 46 years, 3 months and four days to fully break in. This means that you will not actually hear the optimum sound from this ultimate component for 5 more years.

Recognizing this, I have purchased through on-line auctions 62 of the original 69 turntables made at the soon-to-be-bargain price specified above.

Now that I have revealed the truth about the Lirpa Turntable to the masses, I will be offering these must-have items to you fools at three-to-four times that amount over the next few months. Hurry, supplies are limited.

Similar Products Used:

Serious Turntable

Robustness, flexibility

High demand - low availibility

Well it came time to replace a worn-out belt on my VPI, I gave the good folks there a call.

Several months, phonecalls, much confusion, and well, a millenium, later, four brand spanking new belts arrive in a little box with an invoice for $100.00 or so.

Trembling with enthusiasm, I open the box, take out one of the belts, unbolt the cover to the tiny flywheel thingy on my MK IV, and try to put the dang thing on without it slipping off.

Well, maybe I wasn't made to operate a Stereophile approved turntable with a "Class A" cartridge, because several minutes later the belt still isn't on, and for the life of me, when I look at it up close and personal like there doesn't seem to be a needle on that fancy smancy low-ouput, low-financing cartridge sitting on that air-conditiioned, air-bearing tonearm of mine for some reason.

Hunting and pecking on the floor, I eventually find the dang thing, but, now matter how much I admire the Red Green philosophy of life, realize that this sort of nit-picking technology doesn't mate well with duck tape solutions, and so leave it there, out of its misery for the vacuum cleaner to eventually take to a better place.

Now some of you may be able and might even appreciate technology like that, and if you are, then by all means, drop me a line, cause have I got a deal for you, since there's no way I'm going to shell out $3000.00 Canadian or so for another of those fancy smancy cartridges, when all that it reallly played was my old Jamey Aebersold jazz-play-alongs, as I listen mostly to CDs.

But for the rest of you, may I humbly add my voice to the growing number of Lirpa Labs Lirpa Turbo Steamtable devotees.

Now here's a turntable that anyone familiar with even a Model-T Ford can service. No wussy, $25.00 easy to snap, hard to put on right belts - just take one from your nearest autoshop, and cut to size if neeed be.

No wussy little "better treat me right" low-output moving coil cartridge either - the Lirpa (as opposed to the Lyra) "he-man" (if you can find one - as far as I know I've got the only, though I hear good things about the "Skelator") can play through the best of grooves and cut through the worst of them.

Not only that, but you've got a table that even the kids can play on - erector set or jungle gym anyone? Now talk about value.

Now the only drawback I can think about would be sound quality - as much as I love the Lirpa, I do miss the way my former reference VPI/ET/Clavis/Wisa/Airech rig sounded playing those few 180-gram Vinyl discs that I have in my collection, especially through YBA grear which I had on loan for a while from a friend, but the Lirpa has them all beat for flexibility and a clean shave.

If you need "that sound" talk to your local audiophool /audiophile salesman, or drop me a line, p0pstar@hotmail.com and I'll make you a deal on my VPI.

If your grown-up, however, and can handle adult-sized power-tools and audiogear, look no further than the

System:

Lirpa Labs Turbo Steamtable (original Model)
Lirpa "He-Man" Re-Loadable Cartridge w/Gilette Mach III Upgrade (no power or power-amplifer needed)
Home-built RCA-spec Horn

Former System:

Lyra Clavis DeCappo MC Cartridge (now w/out needle)
VPI HW-19 MK IV Turntable
Eminent Technology ET-2 Air-Bearing Tonearm
Wisa AudioGrade Air Pump
Airtech Tank / Airline Filter
VPI Power Conditioner - Variable Frequency Power Supply
Various Back-ends (still in use elsewhere)

Similar Products Used:

VPI HW-19 MkIV w/ET-2 Tonearm, Lyra Clavis DC, Wisa Air Pump, AirTech Tank and VPI PLC

Awesome sound! Tons of low level detail. So lifelike it's scary.

Reactor section can get pretty hot, but mercury terminations help out quite a bit.

I found this table as a demo unit at a local audioshop. Hi end audio is somewhat of an underground phenomenon in my town. However, when I enquired about a turntable up to the standards of the Rockport Sirius III and Goldmund Reference, the salesman took me to the "secret room" which was full of absolute audio treasures! He had the Lirpa table front and center of a pretty cool setup that included vintage Marantz tube gear driven through a pair of Cello speakers. All I can say is WOW! This is by far the most lifelike table I have ever heard. Perhaps this is the one and only source component capable of producing absolute sound. The Rockport may sound like mastertape of the recording session, but the Lirpa sounds like the band itself!

The only quibble is of course the high heat dissapation from the reactor core, but this table came with the optional mercury terminations and silver wire. This upgrade no-doubt lends the table its uncanny ability to produce sounds so lifelike that musicians on the recording are not simply holographs but rather entities with mass occupying space.

I have mine hooked up to a pair of Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista amps, a Mark Levinson No. 32 preamp, Audio Research Reference Phono Stage, Clearaudio Insider phono cartridge, and a pair of Nearfield Acoustics Pipedreams.

Similar Products Used:

Simon Yorke Series 7, Goldmund Reference, Rockport Tech. Sirius III

The Ultimate Sound System

Plastic Dust Cover, All who hear it go insane.

Allow myself to introduce....myself. My name is Andrew Lirpa, grandson of the one and only Professor Lirpa. My grandfather recently passed away(he was 105!), so now, the entire truth can be told. As "Terry" the gentleman who posted below me pointed out, the Lirpa Steamtable can in fact only be properly appreciated when listened to with associated Lirpa components. You were correct, Terry, when you told them what ignoramouses they all were for not understanding this and I congratulate you on your purchases of the 62 'tables. However, not even you are aware of the existence of the one and only one, Lirpa System Zero Quad-Demensional Cerebral-Holographic Signature Reference Steamtable (the "Zero" for short as grandpa liked to call it). Let me give you some history.

Around 1915, my grandfather visited this country in order to meet his idol, Thomas Edison, inventor of the phonograph.
The two became fast friends and later started hanging out with another genius, Albert Einstein. The three became inseperable and loved whoring around together and getting drunk. One night, while sitting around in a brothel in Paris in a drunken stoupor, the three concocted a plan for the creation of the ultimate turntable. They laid out the plans partially on a cocktail napkin and partially on a hooker's panties. The next day, Edison died and shortly thereafter, Einstein became involved in more "important" projects. Over the years, Grandpa stayed in touch with Eistein who laid out the theories of Quad-Demensional Cerebral-Holography. With this system, you would not only feel like you were at the performance, but it would actually make you believe you WERE the performer.

It took my grandfather 70 years to complete this project. The Zero is similar to the standard 'table with the following additions (bear in mind that Grandpa was into numerology): 1) 666mm thick Baccarat crystal platter; 2)666mm thick damping-mat made from the shaved pubic hair of 666 fourteen-year-old estonian girls (blondes only, of course); 3)'table is permanently housed in a facility in Edison's original laboratories and built directly into a 666-ton block of Carrara marble; 4) the steam engine is housed in a seperate building as is the cold-fusion reactor in order to isolate any backround noise (which so many of you have complained about) and connected to the drive mecchanism by 666meters of solid gold tubing; 5) and most importantly, and the reason why this Lipa Masterpiece could only be posthumously released, Professor Lirpa's very own testicles serve as the tonearm counterweights, which Einstein himself had mathematically calculted to coincidentally provide the perfect tracking force! The only quirk this system has is that no one can figure out why Grandpa gave the Zero a plastic dust-cover. Go figure!

And the sound? Well, I personally have no idea because anyone who has ever listened to it has gone stark-raving mad! I mean, howling at the moon, drooling all over themselves mad. Grandpa and his drinking buddies predicted this, however. You see, they left a trust fund for an insane asylum to care for these poor fools. It seems the Quad-Dimensional Cerebral-Holography creates an image so real, that any soul who hears it actually becomes convinced that the are the atist to whom they were listening. And that's not the worst part---the special solid-platinum test album used features songs my Ethel Merman and Andy Williams.

If you are brave enough and want to hear the world's ultimate sound system, come see us in East Orange NJ. All necessary waivers will first have to be signed, of course.

So, five stars plus (I think).

Similar Products Used:

Forsell, Rockport Technologies, "mass-produced" Lirpa products, and other such lesser devices.

Can also be used to destroy Earth.

Can only be used to listen to Zepplin albums and a couple of Queen songs.

The last review given by Andrew Lirpa is a testament to the rise and subsequent fall of the Lirpa family name. Andrew's grandfather was in-fact a genius, but fell ill during the depression era of the 1930s and began creating garbage like the Lirpa System Zero Quad-Dimensional Cerebral-Holographic Signature Reference Steamtable.

Fortunately, at age 16 he found in the family attic the ultimate Steamtable, which was used only in his personal system. This Steamtable had no name. Some say it harnessed the power of Hell itself.

This Steamtable bared the likeness of rushing water, but nobody has actually looked directly at it. There are two encased lobes at the front of the Steamtable which are in-fact the left and right hemisphere's of the great count of Istanbul's brain from the early 13th century, Victor Von Lirpa. These lobes, among other things, telekinetically levitate the tone-arm ½ atom distance above the etched vinyl so as not to create resistance-noise on the pick-up needle.

Victor Von Lirpa's contributions as founder are monumental to the Lirpa family and the Steamtable systems that consequently succeeded the original he created with the Devil.

The sound of the Steamtable from Hell? It's impossible to know, but some say Jimmy Page acquired this Steamtable, with which the Devil scratched Houses of the Holy directly onto a Platinum album as the original recording.

Similar Products Used:

Adolf Hitler's Steamtable

Extremely low wow/flutter. Has that real steam smoothness! Runs off its own internal power. HEAVY!

Fire hazard. Fragile tonearm. What's the deal with the shipping costs?

I just bought a used one for US$194 + $2700 SH. I got the new French Starlight plastic tubing option to replace the corroding origional steam tubes. Supposedly these replacements will withstand a nuclear blast! Too bad the same can't be said for the tonearm.

My unit is DIYed by someone at DOE. There's some sort of inertial confinement thingy with a couple of lasers on it...not sure what it does, though. Maybe it has something to do with the needle tracking.

The heavy water requirement is a little odd. I'm not sure how I'll replace it when my current supply runs out. Can you get that stuff from most turntable repair shops?

By far the most shocking part is that the inards really do get hot! I bet you could reheat some pizza in there or something. Just make sure you keep a fire extinguisher in the listening room. These things aren't exactly UL listed. I wonder if some BlueIce would increase the safety factor a little...

Similar Products Used:

Japanese ancient forged alloy interconnects. Refridgerated CD's. NIF.