VPI Classic - Now you have one......

I've had mime now for about 4 months and am quite pleased. I must state that this is my first analog rig..so I have little to compare to. My "listening session" frinds have much much more accomplised rigs than myself...so that comparison is a bit unfair..although much closer than I expected. Its been a rough 4 months letting cart, wires, cables, phono stage burn in. I'm running my Classic with the standard arm (no VTA..although I am interested in this upgrade at a later date) a Benz ACE S HO, Furutech AG-12 cable, and built in phono stage of a McIntosh MA6900. Now that things have had time to burn in and settle a bit I'm in the process of ordering a mintLP alignment tool....to realign everything. In regards to listening, I think that I'm most impressed with the completeness of the sound. On one hand its robust and full and on the other its quite resolving....lots and lots of detail without being etched or forced. PRAT...out of this world. And as others have mentioned, the bass is very good...both full and articulate. I had the opportunity to add the HRX center wt. and periphery ring for a short period.....subtle difference...I'll add at a later date. For now, I'm very pleased with my "new Classic".

Thanks, John

Cmalak,

I have a McIntosh MCD201 SACD Player, Kimber Kable Silver Streak IC, Black Sand Violet Z1 pc, Finite Element isolation. All in all, about $200 difference b/t my analog and digital front end. So, a fair comparison. I find that my rig has become very recording dependent (both digital and analog)That said, they are very close..(I'm not going to use all of the audiophile descriptives)give a little here take a little there. But the ringer is this (as my wife summed up) "The CD player sounds great, but it sounds as if the music is filtered through a machine and the turntable sounds more real more alive."

Thanks,
John

I recently read an article (or part of an article....March 2010 Stereophile "As We See It" by Steve Guttenburg p.3)in regards to the Classic. I don't have the article in front of me and its been a few weeks since I have read so forgive me if its not 100% accurtate..but you'll get the picture. The Classic has already been revised. The arm has been lengthened by 6mm, the motor is mounted with a different plate, the platter although visually the same is made by a different process and the bottome is covered with a damping materieal. Now it seems that the plinth has been changed as well....after reading the last few posts of this article. If anyone can confirm or comment about these changes please do so.
Thanks, John