Vertere's Imperium follows quite closely behind the new SG-PTA tonearm and VeRum interconnect as the ideal products to match the Vertere SG-1 record player, says the UK-based brand. 

The new Imperium motor drive is apparently the product of SG-1 and RG-1 record player owners looking to upgrade from the Tempo but wanting something more affordable than the Reference MD.

The importance of a quality motor is underlined in that, contrary to quickly thought logic, the only energy that produces output from a phono cartridge is the record player's motor. Vertere states that the quality of this motor, the motor mounting, the drive belt and especially the motor drive, including its power supply, massively influences the player's sound quality.

Imperium features trickle-down design elements from Vertere's Reference Motor Drive: it includes a simplified power supply and control functions. As a result, it sits above last year's launch of the innovative Tempo.

We're told that Touraj Moghaddam's focus was to make a motor drive with as pure a sine and cosine wave output and as little noise as possible. However, he also kept in mind that the design and cabling also had to consider possible RF pickup and ingress.

Enclosed in a precision CNC milled from solid aluminium shell lies a twin-regulated linear power supply feeding the primary circuit, the 12V external supply for the record player's illumination and the digital regulation for the microprocessor and DAC.

The double screened programmable and updateable microprocessor digitally generates the sine and cosine waves (which are switchable to be ± 0, 0.25%, 0.5%) to the equally double screened DAC. The output of the DAC feeds two 'power amps' provided by an extremely clean supply to drive the approximately 17V the motor requires.

Furthermore, a gold-plated two-layer PCB utilises extensive ground planes alongside fully regulated voltage rails powering different circuit sections. Vertere states that these all ensure in-control and 'clean' final power delivery to the motor. We're informed that the PCB mixes SMD and thru-hole components using the best of both technologies. In addition, copper foil shields the entire digital, microprocessor and DAC circuitry, and then the whole PCB is secondarily shielded using a stainless-steel shield plate.

The motor drive output is a high-quality gold plated 7-way thread-locked DIN connector, connecting Imperium power to the record player via a dedicated motor link cable.

Imperium is designed with the optimum linear power supply internally to reduce any external noise pickup and lower the impedance path.

Imperium is supplied fully optimised and set up for the record player motor. In the case of an upgrade, the retailer can adjust the output voltage and phase for absolutely the lowest motor noise and vibration. This is adjustable for both 33.3 and 45rpm rotational speeds.

Vertere Imperium is available to order now and will sell for £7,950/ €9,998 and includes a motor link and a 2m Redline mains cable.

Visit Vertere for more information