Here's a March 9, 2005 update from Gerald on his system. I took the liberty of converting his text to bullet points.
Any comments by me are enclosed in editor's brackets [   ]

• I redesigned the power supply for the [Verdier] motor
• I got two batteries connected, being able to switch between the two in case one is empty
• I removed the belt tension system from the wooden mounting platform and put it on cones, this helped a lot to reduce motor noise.
• Last but not least, I changed the arm pod which now is a more or less solid cylinder of aluminium. This is only comfortable, if you use top mounting arms like the Triplanar or the like, as you can#t feed the cables through the arm pod.
• A friend of mine built a new preamp for me, tubes only, whith a seperate phono amp. This one is first class, outperforming the best preamps I've ever heard!
• I also swapped my Apogees. I'm using home built Edgar horns instead, another dramatic improvement.