https://www.hifinews.com/content/roksan-attessa-turntable-package

Don Henley’s vocals on the title track from The Eagles’ Long Road Out Of Eden [Universal 0602517546950] have seldom sounded more vivid and securely placed centre stage, with a level of projection out into the room that was quite uncanny. I’ve heard decks many times the cost of the Attessa make a far worse job of this and I was hugely impressed. Despite its apparent simplicity and relatively budget nature, the arm here clearly follows in the estimable footsteps of its more expensive Roksan stablemates.

The same album also hinted at the deck’s good speed stability – there are some fine keyboard effects throughout the track and it doesn’t take too much to give them a subtle tremor. But through the Attessa they sounded solid, suggesting its drive system is more than capable. This also paid dividends at the low end with a detailed bass, and individual notes easy to pick up on and follow.

https://www.audiophilia.com/reviews/2016/5/25/the-vpi-aries-turntable

The VPI Aries lends much credence to the belief that it is the turntable, not the tonearm or cartridge, that is of supreme importance when it comes to the faithful extraction of an LP’s embedded analogue signal. While the Audioquest PT-6 tonearm and Benz-Micro MC Gold phono cartridge used for this evaluation are both budget overachievers, they are more likely to find their way into a relatively modest analogue front end than one with state-of-the-art aspirations. Yet under the expert guidance of the Aries, the performance of both the PT-6 and MC Gold was elevated to a level which was quite unexpected – leaps and bounds, in fact, ahead of their performance when partnered with lesser turntables. Little wonder that VPI highly recommends the budget Audioquest arm for use on both the Aries and TNT if VPI’s own JMW proves financially prohibitive.