VPI is Introducing a high-end Direct Drive Table

A large group of audiophiles from the NYC area were invited to the VPI offices on Saturday for a fun day of music, learning, food and conversation. Very nice of them.

Harry Weisfeld was excited to introduce two new products still in prototype form: the first is high-end direct drive turntable that is going to be their top product - he was particularly proud of the motor, designed for this purpose and apparently sourced from a military equipment manufacturer. In its current prototype form the turntable resembles a Classic 3. Harry was very enthusiastic about the absolute speed control that was better than any belt drive table. His words.


The second is a new composite arm-wand manufactured on-site using a $350,000 object printer. It is made of hundreds/thousands of layers of laser cured material and resembles their current arm-wands except for the black material and the complex shape changes made to further reduce vibration transmission. I listened to the combination of the new table and arm-wand for about an hour and was thrilled by the relaxing musicality produced.

I understand that these new products will be at shows soon - still in prototype form.

Surprisingly, there was a large display of classic amplifiers, reel-to-reel tape machines, turntables, tonearms and more. One that caught my eye was a mint direct drive JVC TT-101 turntable (very much like mine). It was the target/inspiration for the new table - I would love to compare the two, but that wasn't possible. Maybe at my house some day.

It was great to see that VPI is so committed to moving the state of the art forward using both the latest technologies and thinking and the best of the past.