VPI's new "Vanquish" Ultra High-End turntable is a STUNNER!

Gee, gymballed tonearm bearings.....

Just a mere bag of shells!!
"Price for the new Vanquish is yet to be finalized, but it is estimated to be in the range of $100K-to-$120K for the complete system. Ironically, this is still considered “affordable” in the world of ultra-high-end turntables."

At this level, I don't understand VPI's failure to design around two inherent compromises that VPI is infamous for implementing; 1) a junction box instead of continuous wiring from cartridge pins to connector of choice and 2) ridiculously lengthy armboards cantilevered from the plinth. 
As to 2), I don't care how thick the aluminum or alloy or whatever the armboard is constructed of, I don't care how tightly and securely it is clamped to the plinth, it will be susceptible to resonance that would not be present with a better design. 
When one looks at how the expense of production is allocated, I see bling predominating over ultimate performance.

Hmm...I'm a VPI fan, I have no desire to replace my aging Classic.

There are features/innovations that appear interesting, but the aesthetic is tired. Yawn. Stand Looks like an over grown Ares plinth. I'll take the table minus the stand. Is that look popular with the mega buck crowd? My order would request no red embellishment. Slightly cheesy.

14" plasticky tonearm on a high end table.I'd like to see an innovative linear tracker with a built in,ultra silent pump system for the air. 

I like the DD mag setup. At this level, you shouldn't see belts. Did I see blue lights around the buttons of the control box? I would tell VPI to loose that idea. Another tired aesthetic touch. Sooo 1990's. 
Pass on the matched red anodized control box and phonostage.

The presentation reminds me of the Clearaudio statement.

Armchair analysis over. I'm sure it sounds fabulous. I've heard enough VPI rigs with various carts to say they can play "with the big boys.

fsonicsmith

At this level, I don’t understand VPI’s failure to design around two inherent compromises that VPI is infamous for implementing; 1) a junction box instead of continuous wiring from cartridge pins to connector of choice ...

My understanding is that the Vanquish does not use a junction box, but instead has concealed wiring and a built-in phono stage. So you might want to check your facts on that.

I don’t care how thick the aluminum or alloy or whatever the armboard is constructed of, I don’t care how tightly and securely it is clamped to the plinth, it will be susceptible to resonance that would not be present with a better design ...

While that seems intuitively true, I’ve actually heard how these turntables and armboards work, and it was v-e-r-y impressive with no audible hint of resonance.

maybe a better name is ’The Harlot’? :-)

who would want that thing in their room? hopefully there are choices for the accent color. or maybe VPI visits different customer rooms than i’ve ever seen. i can’t recall a room where that would look right.

i guess it’s possible that in person it has an elegance that pictures completely miss.

and i’m a guy with expensive red and gold anodized amps and preamp.......so i am open to the color red. but with an ’elegant’ sort of feel. my darTZeel’s are not universally loved for their look. but this one takes that over-the-top.

seriously; i’m sure it will be a strong performer as VPI is a competent company. do they have the musical vision to play in that league? maybe they do. i love my direct drive Wave Kinetics NVS sitting on an active platform......so a big direct drive on it’s own rack appeals to me. like my gone for 8 years now Rockport Sirius III. i hope it’s wonderful sounding as we can always use another top flight turntable. and most all the other ’over’ 6 figure tt’s are belt driven.

will the market ’buy' an ’uber’ tt with the VPI brand? it’s a question. it will have to be more than very good. i do give VPI lots of credit for being all-in on this tt thing we all like.

i hopefully will hear it at Axpona.

I'm about to jump in my car to drive to the CAF.  I'll see it in person, I guess.

Lewm-

 If VPI is there, at least tell Harry/Matt enough with the blue light embellishment. 
Maybe a nudge to trickle down the DD/mag design to a $5K pricepoint? 

Yeah, it's a ridiculous suggestion.

While I am sure it sounds amazing, I don’t see 100-120k worth of sound.  I have owned 3 different VPI  tables over the years and they always seem to be bigger in size than most others.  Looks like they borrowed the look from ClearAudio.  I’ll pass. 

Old British saying....
Looks like a tarts handbag......

I'd very curious how the Kuzma Stabi XL DC performs head to head against this VPI - the Kuzma is 1/3 the price.

https://www.analogueseduction.net/user/products/large/kuzma-turntables-stabi-xl-dc.jpg

Nope....the color and busy look is not for me.....cancel the check

My understanding is that the Vanquish does not use a junction box, but instead has concealed wiring and a built-in phono stage. So you might want to check your facts on that.

Check your eyeballs. The second arm on the longshoreman's pier of an armboard as pictured clearly relies upon a junction box. 

No turntable is worth that much. None. Bragging rights for the weak and sensitive.

I took a gander at it yesterday at CAF.  Still can’t get past the pure obscenity of a $100k turntable.  

"The second arm on the longshoreman's pier of an armboard as pictured clearly relies upon a junction box. "

Putting the tone arm at the end of a "diving board" that can flex is never a good idea.  The primary dogleg arm board appears to add a lot more mass at the suspended portion, which can only make matters worse.   There is a thread on VPI's forum that attempts to address this oversight on their current tables (adding support at the base of the tone arm as well as at the end of the outrigger).  It's too bad this tweak showed up too late for them to incorporate in the new table:

http://www.vpiforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=13261#p56423


The Vanquish also sports the new 14" fatboy tone arm with no headshell offset.  HW maintains that the zero offset means no skating force and that the arm still has 2 null points.  Unless someone changed the laws of geometry, both of those assumptions are incorrect.  Not only will the arm exhibit dual skating forces (towards the spindle outside the single null and towards the record edge inside the single null), but the maximum tracking error and distortion will be higher than a 9" arm with proper offset.

As for the aesthetics, I'm with the rest of the commenters, IMO it looks ridiculous.  As far as the $120K price tag....the new HW40 with the same direct drive motor is $15K;  the magnetic platter interface was $6K;  voyager preamp was $2.5K.  That leaves over $95K for the stand and the added bling.  I guess there's one born every minute....

Looks like a candy apple Jukebox.

Another brilliant design from VPI.

Once again VPI has taken a possibly good motor and hopefully decent bearing, stuck something flat and black and round on it, and tarted it up with their iconic black acrylic and stainless steel layering they continue to call state of the art engineering, even after having made the same damn thing for going on like 30 years now.

If they can sell it then VPI truly is a marketing juggernaut. Like Rolex, maker of the world's finest $800 dive watch, which they somehow manage to sell for $8k, VPI is now the maker of the world's finest $10k turntable, which the question now is how many can they sell for $120k?

Well let's see... take the number with more money than you know what, multiply by the number of them who couldn't mount a cartridge to save their life, times the number eager to pay a couple grand to someone who can perform this simple task..... carry the one,.... wow, its a pretty big number!

Honestly hard to say which is worse- VPI shamelessly shilling the same old black and stainless schtick, or audiophiles lazily lapping it up. 

Austin Martin's version would get my $ first.

I hope it will find its happy owners. The equipment like that has no acoustic value in a sense of output audio quality for money, however if treated as industry art objects can be seen as attractive. Looks good, I can imagine sounds great, but costs absurdly. From the other hand life is short... EDITED: just wonder when they start to make the things from gold... yeah... it is good to know there is a place for price factor improvement :) 

Putting the tone arm at the end of a "diving board" that can flex is never a good idea. The primary dogleg arm board appears to add a lot more mass at the suspended portion, which can only make matters worse.

THIS......👍

It reminds me of a carnival ride.  

First of all it's a ClearAudio rip-off.

Second of all, it's market is probably close to 20 well-healed audiophiles that are willing to pay up for the brand.

Third, it makes little sense to most of us.

+1 slaw

Okay...the Vanquish looks much better here:

https://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=Awr9Hr7h375d8WwAUxOKnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTIzbGo4Z2s5BHNlY...

Looks like it doesn't have the latest arm.

No contrasting,trendy color anodizing or the ridiculous stand. Still have to resolve the silly blue light issue though... I would be one of those guys figuring out how to disconnect them. As mentioned earlier, put a linear tracker with integrated pump and retail the thing for under $10K. Now, let's talk.  

Yeah, I'm dreaming.

And it doesn't even have a self leveling pendulum :(

Like Rolex, maker of the world's finest $800 dive watch, which they somehow manage to sell for $8k,

I hope you know more about audio than about fine timepieces. Granted, 10K (the actual starting price of Rolex's after sales tax) is high, but the quality of materials, finish, and the built-in-house movement set them apart from all but their very finest competitors. No $800 divers watch with a mechanical movement is master chronometer certified. 
Your analogy breaks down in another key area-Rolexes, alone with PP and the AP Royal Oak, hold their value and even sell for more than original MSRP often. Try that with just about any piece of current production audio equipment known to mankind (note my emphasis on the words "current production" to exclude the likes of the Vendetta Research phono stage or the Thorens TD124, Garrard 301, etc). 

OK, I went to the CAF but I didn’t have time to go hunting for the Vanquish. I saw enough silly bling as it is. Spent most of my time buying LPs. The show is still running today, but I am going to stay home and hang out with our son who is visiting.
Good points from Phoenix. Do you know whether the tonearm with no headshell offset is underhung or overhung, with respect to the spindle? If underhung, there would be at best one point of tangency to the groove, and yes the direction of the skating force changes from inward to outward as the stylus passes through that one point of tangency. Maybe HW was taken in by the story written for the RS Labs RS-A1 tonearm, which is underhung with no headshell offset and claims no skating force, too. All that said, I own an RS-A1, and it sounds remarkably good, despite all the geometric "problems". So good that I have been tempted to buy a Viv Float tonearm, which has similar geometry and gets rave reviews, despite massive tracking angle error at the outermost and innermost grooves. If the VPI tonearm is OVERhung and has no headshell offset, all is lost. Such a design would never achieve tangency across the LP surface. I can’t imagine they would do that.

I don't work for VPI but I visited with them a few weeks back with my phono stage.  I will try an answer some of the questions above.

The TT as a stand alone lists for $15,000 but you can buy the entire systems shown in the article if you want to. The TT is better than the one they had manufactured that went for $30K.  So as a manufacturer that is a big improvement and benefits the consumer.

The DD motor has noise of 0.004, I believe measured a the headshell.  VPI has made TTs with belts but nothing as quite as this and the speed is super stable.

Matt showed me the design with the continuous wires.

I love how many people post and say this or that about the design without having the knowledge why VPI implements the design.  You can call them up and ask them.  Or better yet, go to VPI and see the actual manufacturing site in New Jersey.  Then you can see all of the people who build the TTs, see all of the investment in designs, trails and errors, why they do what they do, why the feel the current designs are better, etc.  This TT is half the price of the one they built for $30K!

Do you actually think these things are not tested, tested, and tested, and that they don't try to improve on what they manufacturer.  They have a two car garage filled top to bottom with rejects.

My suggestion is to go there and see the people who measure the noise, quality of the motors, how they build the different tone arms, wires, how they test the platters, etc.

VPI takes this very seriously and they strive to build the best TTs they can.  Needless to say, I was very impressed as a manufacturer on what they do and how they approach.

Happy Listening.
  

100k for a turntable is stunning. 100K would buy a rather nice collection of recordings. 

Bigkids says the table alone is only $15K, not $100K. The base price could represent a sort of bargain in the high end market. I agree with his basic premise that one should not go off with out knowing the whole story. However, the discussion of tonearms without headshell offset angle is accurate, regardless of what VPI may have done with their particular version. And I tried to convey that I think there is merit in an underhung tonearm with no head shell offset angle, based on my extensive listening to one example of that type and on rave reviews of another similar design.

Thank you for your comments bigkidz.

The DD motor has noise of 0.004, I believe measured a the headshell. VPI has made TTs with belts but nothing as quite as this and the speed is super stable.

I think you are referring to W&F; 0.004% is what HW has claimed in numerous videos, but their official specs have it at 0.008%. Both those numbers are dubious and need some explanation from VPI (i.e. what method they are using to measure it). HW says you can’t use a test record you have to use the software that is supplied by Elmo Motion Control who make the controller. I have the software, and the table measures much worse than 0.008%, more like 0.04~0.07%, which isn’t bad, but not much better than a well tuned BD table. Using a test record measures nearly the same. If you look at the output of the magnetic encoder ring they use for feedback, it looks even worse. The spec from the mfr of the ring encoder (RLS in Slovenia) is ~0.02% (system error=magnetic encoding error + sub-division error + eccentricity at 50µm), so even if the motor/controller were perfect, it’s difficult to see how W&F could drop below that.

As far as speed accuracy, the encoder they use produces 2560 pulses per rev;  the controller locks the speed to a count taken on 1 second intervals.  For 33.333 RPM, that equates to 1422.222 counts;  the controller can only work with integer counts, so they round it up to 1423 which yields a platter speed of 33.351.  Not bad, but not as good as I get with on a DIY belt drive using the RR tach and a Condor PSU (33.333 ±0.005 RPM).


I believe the reason people question the design choices and even the published specs for VPI products, is because in the past, they have made misleading or inaccurate statements, some of them so bad, they are outright laughable.



FYI, very little of the mfring is done by VPI. Most if not all of the machining is done by MDI mfring in Lakewood NJ; VPI assembles the components.

Hi phoenixengr.
i assume that they are using encoder interpolation to get the count up to 2560 P/R?
 Cheers 

And these are the guys who tried to tell people that anti skating was unnecessary starting the whole myth that anti skating made things sound worse. Thanx Phoenix for your input on this. Between no anti skating and floppy uni pivot arms VPI permanently damaged it's reputation with me at least. There are many great turntable manufactures out there that have pristine reputations and offer well thought out high performance tables that do not feel the need to waste money dressing up their tables like a tarte. 

When God invented records, did he ever envision it would cost this much to play them right?

Is that why he invented digital?

“When God invented records, did he ever envision it would cost this much to play them right? Is that why he invented digital?”

Trust me, a good digital (streaming) setup is not inexpensive either.

"FYI, very little of the mfring is done by VPI. Most if not all of the machining is done by MDI mfring in Lakewood NJ; VPI assembles the components."

Common in many industries, VPI's products possibly would have an even higher dealer cost if they weren't.

I'd like to see a DD mfgr have a real time display (tachometer) tastefully done integrated within the plinth along with my other tweaks.

I think the table itself is cool, a simple, elagant stand is all it needs. It would look fantastic on my $150 Sanus stand.

Hmmm my digital cost ~1/100th that and its pretty darn good.  I've heard many others similar that are also very good.   Good digital is not hard at all to get these days.  

My Linn vinyl rig cost even less when I bought it. 

Look a turntable like that is like owning a work of engineering  art that also happens to sound  good. Nothing wrong with that. 

Records have been mostly inherently flawed since day 1.   Getting them to play right is always a challenge. 

“Hmmm my digital cost ~1/100th that and its pretty darn good”

Yeah, I heard some folks swear by Google Chromecast as pretty darn good digital source for digital streaming 😉

"i assume that they are using encoder interpolation to get the count up to 2560 P/R?"

The encoder ring has 160 poles (80N/80S) spaced every 2mm. This would produce 80 PPR on its own. The pickup interpolates 8x (this is the source of the SDE or subdivision error spec) for 640 PPR. The pickup also synthesizes a quadrature output which doubles the resolution to 1280 PPR. The controller can create a count on both the positive and negative edges of both I & Q outputs so the effective resolution is 2560 PPR.  A count of 1423 for 33.333 RPM implies a resolution of ~0.07% (±1 count or 1/1423) and the software reports an error of 1 or 2 counts almost constantly.  The software can also measure the rate at which the pulses are incoming (W&F) and reports errors as high as ±10 counts although the test record method does not indicate speed fluctuations this high.  It would be helpful if VPI would give some guidance on how they measure a W&F spec 10x better than what is achievable given the hardware configuration.

Funny thing is if they used a slightly smaller encoder ring with 90 poles, it would produce integer results for 33.333/45/78 RPM at 1 sec readings (count=400/540/936).

Don’t know about Chromecast but trust me...I have 4 different digital sources of fairly modest cost by these standards and they all sound very good. 🖖

Phoenixengr

.”.. encoder with 90 poles... “
Or perhaps run with a higher interpolation multiplier?
cheers 

VPI is at the bottom of my list for turntables. After having met Matt at Axpona last year it would be lower if this were possible. 

"Or perhaps run with a higher interpolation multiplier?"

I played with the numbers;  I couldn't find a solution with the current encoder that didn't produce non-integer results, except with a timing window other than 1 second.

OK

Thanks for the explanation.
Interesting drive design choices 

Cheers 

>> VPI's new (turntable model of the month) (some other adjective) turntable is a STUNNER!

That's what is said about every new VPI model.  What are they up to now, 100 models since the 1980s?  How can every model be "new and improved"?

I used to own an Aires 1 deck.  Loved the table, hated the JMW 10 tonearm although the motor collar did chatter a bit.

Luckily @br3098, the Aries 1 motor collar is removable. And just about any 9 or 10" arm can be used in place of the JMW 10.