VPI 3D tonearm

"3D Arm"?
What does this mean?
I thought all arms were 3D.......or is that just me?
Made without joints in one piece......?
Oh please....give me a break.
There are umpteen ways to create a 'one-piece arm without joints'.
Welding, brazing, casting, machining...and in the case of wood....turning.
With plastics, there are even a few more.
Continuum has had one piece hollow plastic resin arms (with no separate headshells) for over a decade.

Why is epoxy superior to aluminum or steel for an arm?

Good question.....but I can guess that Harry wouldn't know...or care?
This 3D printing for a tonearm is a cynical grab for the technologically challenged audiophile impressed by gimmicks and 'buzz-words'.
3D printing does have....and will have many valuable uses for the world in general.
I doubt that advances in tonearm design will be one of them?

There are now 3 or 4 threads talking about VPI products. Good or bad impressions aside, I'm sure Harry is enjoying the active interest and discussion this is generating.

I personally don't know why there is so much hatred for VPI. I would personally think Wilson, ARC, VAC and others would generate more of that, since their "upgrade" policies have more or less swamped anything VPI has done, and at prices that are much further away from reality. Maybe it's just that Harry's prices are closer to what is affordable to a broader audiophile audience than theirs are, so we feel the itch to try it more but wonder if its just a change or an improvement.

From what I heard, the new ceramic platter is an improvement, at at little cost over his other platters. The 3D arm wand is also an improvement, and IMO will bring the JMW arms (which were always the weakest link for VPI) into competition with other top of the line arms on the market (whatever the marketing hype or manufacturing process).

Halcro and Don, you are right on target. 3-D printing captures the imagination of non-technical folks, confusing a new process that has no practical advantages for production items with the false concept that the final product made from the process might be better.

In marketing, buzz is always more important than reality, and in high-end audio it has gotten worse and worse.

Stringreen
One more point ....the upgraded JMW arms are wired with Nordost wire....I was told that the 3D arm is wired with a very new Discovery cable which is very much better than the Valhalla.

Isn't/wasn't Valhalla Nordost's top of the line wire retailing for thousands of dollars as a speaker or interconnecting cable? How "very much better" can this Discovery cable be? This is getting ridiculous.

So it seems that the consensus is that the 3D arm is junk without anyone here having auditioned the new VPI product.