In the very early 1990's, that would be the very first version of the Xerses. The company only started in 1987. There were a number of problems with that first design that resulted in the plinth sagging as TBone said. Pinning the plinth up resulted in it sounding mediocre.
As a resident "industry expert" please have a look at what he has done over the past 25 years before making a statement like that. To judge Touraj's body of work based on his freshman design and to say that the Roksan Xerses is a mediocre mid-fi design is disappointing.
For all intents and purposes Gary, Roksan brand and their products have always been made and priced for the mid-fi market, both in the UK and here. As another resident "industry expert" you're well aware of this, why is my comment about the jump from mid-fi, and actually low-fi when you consider the Artemiz to a $35k arm, disappointing?
Xerxes table was on the market for about 4-5 years before I purchased mine, certainly enough time to fine tune and debug a product! That's not an excuse. I googled Mr. Moghaddam and his company didn't find anything. Please indulge me, besides some evolutionary modifications to the Xerxes which was never high end product in the real sense, has he ever built a high end tt since his "freshman design"? The RG-1 looks like the same basic "freshman design" too, with upgraded parts and acrylic instead of mdf, not a new or different concept. Am I wrong?
david