Hi-Fi Sales in Cherry Hill, NJ Special Event featuring VPI and Audioquest

[MylesBAstor]

Mike Bettinger, VPI's new Director of Electrical Engineering describing the changes in the new ADS speed control (Analog Drive System) for VPI's belt drive turntables.





Mat and Harry Weisfeld describing VPI's latest products and turntable line.







The entry level VPI Avenger turntable ($9500) with 10.5 inch tonearm and Ortofon SPU cartridge ($1750).





Magnetic drive VPI Avenger turntable ($18-$30,000 depending upon options such as outboard flywheel, arms, etc.) with 12-inch VPI 3D unipivot arm and Lyra Atlas cartridge.


Ortofon's outstanding A95 moving coil cartridges ($6500) mounted in the 3D arm.

[MylesBAstor]

The king of the hill from VPI. The new, limited production, VPI Avenger Direct drive turntable ($40,000) with air suspension feet. New Fusion arm mounted on the back of the direct drive table.






Harry brought along the DSA phonostage, one of his favorite units featuring three analog inputs, for the event.



VPI's new ADS speed control.



Audioquest's hot new Niagra power line conditioner.

[MylesBAstor]

Report to come!

[ashandger]

Great, look forward to it. Wonder how the top Avenger with DD and air suspension feet compares with your Classic Direct? Did Harry say what the differences might be and how big are they...subtle or huge?

[Analog21]

Can't wait to hear your thoughts of the ADS and Ortofon Royal SPU. Will await your report

[lasercd]

I live about 2 miles away. Shame they didn't publicize the event. I would have attended.

[MylesBAstor]

It’s not quite true that Manhattanites don’t cross water. We [Manhattanites] are known to when circumstances dictate, rent a car in order to get to the mother of all record sales or exciting audio event. In this case, the occasion was the joint VPI-AudioQuest special event held this past Friday at Hi-Fi Sales in Cherry Hill, NJ. After all, how often does one have the opportunity to listen to and compare and contrast two of the best turntables in the world, in this case VPI’s new direct drive and magnetic drive turntables, outfitted with identical tonearms mounted with Ortofon’s spectacular sounding MC A95 cartridge? And it was worth every penny I gave to Avis to rent a car.

The afternoon into the early evening event began with Mat Weisfeld, President of VPI, discussing the company’s various new projects and products. (Mat and Garth from AudioQuest probably did four presentations during the event for all the attendees who dropped by.) At the top of the list was the introduction of VPI’s new affordable The Player turntable. The Player, a rebranded Nomad replacement, sports even better sound and comes with a hard rock, light tone maple plinth, an improved 9-inch arm and spindle bearing in addition to a removable and defeatable headphone amplifier. Mat expects to bring The Player (sans phonostage replete headphone amplifier) with the Aluminum platter option and Ortofon 2M Red cartridge in for $1000. Mat also shared that the Cliffwood line, a series of more affordable VPI products will be introduced at this year’s Capital AudioFest.

Next, Mat switched over to Mike Bettinger’s, VPI’s recently named Director of Electrical Engineering, newly developed replacement for the ageless SDS speed control. The new ADS (analog drive system) turntable speed controller doesn’t like I’ve heard for years, spew out digital garbage into the AC line affecting other components in the system like the older SDS! The new ADS speed controller comes with a far more robust power supply to drive the platter and greatly reduce the effects of stylus drag and speed variation issues. Best of all, the new ADS sounds better and is at a list price of $1000, $500 less than the current VPI SDS speed control.

Then for the piece-de-resistance and what many attendees were waiting for: a down and dirty, no holds barred, winner take all, shootout between the VPI Avenger Reference and the Direct Drive turntable. Is the Avenger Direct still the kind of the hill or how close had Harry Weisfeld been able to come to the sound of the direct drive table with his new magnetic drive option? The Avenger is currently VPI’s statement turntable though it’s hardly a Johnny come lately. The Avenger’s history traces back nowadays about 15 years ago to when Harry was experimenting with different turntable designs. At that time, Harry decided to table the triangular shaped, HRX looking table in favor of the Classic table line.

The VPI Avenger table line currently consists of three different models with each table easily accommodating three tonearms. The ability to hold three different arms—and even those with the phono cable exiting the bottom rather than the back of the arm—is a dream come true for reviewers and vinyl lovers (for instance those who listen to stereo and mono records).The entry level Avenger retails for $9500 and comes equipped with the Prime 10.5 3D printed unipivot arm, 300 rpm motor and Classic turntable bearing and feet. The Avenger can be upgraded to the full blown Avenger Reference magnetic drive replete with the VPI 12-3DR unipivot arm, ADS, ring clamp and other options ($18,000 to $30,000 depending upon options). The coup de grace and king of the hill (though the basic table can’t be updated to this model because of differences in the construction of the plinth) is the special order, $40,000 direct drive Avenger with heavier, stainless steel chassis to accommodate DD motor (the same one used in the Classic Direct), 12-inch 3D printed unipivot arm and special air suspension feet (according to Harry you can pound on the plinth while the album is playing and nothing happens). In addition, either the Avenger Reference or Direct Drive can be special ordered with either of (or updated to) two new arms from Harry Weisfeld. The first arm is the Lineage, a gimballed yoke design with removable arm wand (because HW likes changing cartridges) and the second arm is the Fusion, a true gimballed tonearm. Both arms feature ABEC 9 ball bearings and the Lineage according to Harry, “possesses a little better highs and the Fusion slightly better lows.” One thing was for sure in these listening sessions. If the Lineage was lacking in low end extension, it certainly wasn’t hugely apparent to the audience.

Now for the moment everyone was waiting for; or well, not quite. Despite the best of intentions, a hum with the AudioQuest phono cable and Direct Drive Avenger proved insurmountable and prevented a true listening comparison between the Avenger Reference and Direct Drive tables. In the end, the Avenger Reference used the AudioQuest phono cable while the Direct Drive Avenger used VPI’s own phono cable and became more a comparison between the Atlas and Ortofon cartridges with a small side order at the very end of the Ortofon SPU Royal N cartridge on the different tables than a direct or reliable comparison of the two tables. While I’m intimately familiar with the sound of the former two cartridges, the Ortofon Royal N was totally new to me. (see http://www.ortofon.com/spu-royal-n-p-461-n-1579). The Royal N is basically an Ortofon SPU (SPU = Stereo Pick-Up) 1) without the integrated headshell; and 2) with a Replicant stylus replacing the standard elliptical or spherical profile. Admittedly, the Royal N’s 3.5 g tracking force plus Replicant stylus shape certainly gave me pause. Everything better be perfectly aligned or one certainly risks at that tracking force damaging an album with mistracking. In contrast, a spherical or elliptical profile might cause less damage to the record when mistracking. (Just for comparison, the tracking abilities of the SPU Royal N vs the MC A95 are 70 and 90 uM, respectively, at 315 Hz.)

Now what follows is simply my impression of the system’s sound and far from a review. Or as we used to say in scientific research, one experiment is no experiment and audio is no different. One listen is no listen or “simply an initial reaction or impression,” Or more appropriately, “an idea or opinion of what someone or something is like.” But hardly anything resembling a real audio review or definitive conclusion.

Before getting to my listening impressions, however, a short list of the rest of the audio system this past Friday evening:

600 wpc into 8 ohm Bryston 7B SST2 Monoblock amplifiers ($10,500)
Bryston BP17 preamplifier ($3750)
DSA phonostage (One of Harry's favorite phonostages and perfect for this event with its three phono inputs!)
B&W’s newest 802 Diamond D3 speakers ($22,000/pr.)
Cabling was all Audioquest including a 12-foot pair of Oaks speaker cables ($4100 pair).

One more quick note. According to Hi-Fi Sales owner Patrick Malucci, the B&Ws with 400 of hours under their belt are only approximately half broken in. (Don’t you just hate the ever increasing break-in time for speakers nowadays?) Nevertheless, one thing was very apparent. The newly redesigned 802s might possibly be the best sounding 802s and lack that ever so typical B&W British sound. You know that polite, slightly muffled, ill-defined sound. The latest 802 demonstrated excellent soundstaging, transparency, low frequency extension and resolution. Qualities not necessarily associated with older B&W speakers.

Onto the music played that evening. Anyone who has seen Harry Weisfeld in action at any audio show knows he loves playing DJ and this day was certainly no exception. Harry started off a comparison of the two Avenger tables with the Lyra cartridge using the opening track from the Classic Records reissue of the now legendary Bob and Ray album followed by a 45 rpm test pressing from Chad Kassem of Acoustic Sounds of another legendary recording Getz/Gilberto. But first, a little about the overall sound of the two Avenger tables before getting to the individual tables’ sonic attributes. Both the Avenger Reference and Direct Drive tables have in common a very big and power powerful sound. Both tables possess—like great 15 ips reel-to-reel tapes—very wide dynamic range yet at the same time are very capable of retrieving the very subtlest low level information from the record grooves.

Now for the direct comparison. At the beginning of the Bob and Ray, there was far more separation and a greater sense of presence of the carriage with the magnetic rather than direct Direct Drive table. One also experienced a far more realistic reproduction of wine being poured into the glasses and low level information such as the tsetse fly flying around the mike with the Reference compared to the Direct Drive. On the other hand, the Direct Drive had much better grip on the music, a much cleaner low end and better focus. Again, these differences are probably more likely a function of the difference between phono cables than actually difference between the turntables.

At that point, Harry put on my copy of Dead Can Dance’s Into the Labyrinth, one of my favorite rock recordings and MOFI reissues. Here the Direct Drive proved superior in reproducing the lowest octaves on this album as well as the transparency and focus of instruments and vocals. There was a slight loss of the sense of space relative to the Avenger Reference but once again, I would like to hear this comparison done with identical phono cables. The take home message was, though, the importance of every part of the analog audio when dealing with such a low level audio signal and the AudioQuest phono cable definitely deserves further investigation.

Nor was there any lack of records that night. Other albums played included the direct-to-disc Laurindo Almeida (Crystal Clear), Gary Karr Kol Nidrei (Super Analogue), Peter, Paul and Mary In the Wind (a 2012 Clarity vinyl test pressing from ORG Music), Dean Martin Dream with Dean (Acoustic Sounds 45 rpm), the third and fourth Movements from Gunther Schuller’s Seven Themes on Studies of Paul Klee (original Mercury SR 90282), Flute de Pan Et Orgue (Disques Cellier), among others.

There was simply no contest, however, between the two tables when it came to playing back the Gary Karr recording Kol Nidrei. (Several of the Gary Karr recordings have been recently reissued and are definitely worth adding to the record collection!) Here, the direct drive, especially with the Lyra Atlas mounted in the 12-inch 3D arm, had far better control and definition of Karr’s bass as well as the sensation of the breadth of the recorded organ. It also appeared--whether it was warm up time or that the Direct Drive took longer to warm up--that the Direct Drive Avenger sounded better later in the evening. Now when it came to cartridges, there was no doubt that the Atlas outshown the MC A95. Granted the Atlas is roughly twice the price of the MC A95, but the Atlas proved better in practically every area (much what I hear in my system). More powerful, dynamic, solid, bigger, more resolving, better reproduction of ambient space and midrange as well as reproduction of the frequency extremes. Yet if you didn’t hear the Atlas, many audiophiles could quite easily live the Ortofon MC A95.

Last but not least, Garth Powell from AudioQuest and designer of the Niagara 7000 PLC gave a short introduction and extremely impressive demonstration of the importance of clean AC power. AC line contamination has been a topic near and dear to my heart ever since my review of the Tice Power Block back in the mid-90s for Sounds Like… magazine. There’s absolutely no question that one must pay attention to the electricity fed to one’s equipment and is necessary to hear all the system is capable of. As Garth pointed out, “it’s important to steer noise away from critical components in system and power supplies. The environment we live in, “Garth added, “is only becoming more and more polluted with EMI, RFI and noise from computers, cellphones, cell towers, satellite beaming down, etc. Our audio signal must be clean at microvolt levels where those music cues so valued by audiophiles including subtlety, low level nuance and harmonic structure are buried.” Furthermore, it’s extremely important that any power line conditioner be Garth mentioned, “be linear in its effect across the audio frequency spectrum or octave so one area doesn’t sound muffled in relationship to another octave.”

As they say, hearing is believing and there was absolutely no question that there was a dramatic improvement in the sound of the audio system when Garth plugged the whole system in the power line conditioner compared to all the components into the wall. Even just plugging just the front-end equipment into the power line conditioner also resulted in a sizeable improvement but not on the order of the whole system being hooked into the Niagara. Inserting the amplifiers, preamplifier and other front-end equipment in the the Audioquest Niagara take system resulted in what sounded like another octave of bass, more air on recordings and Karr’s bass being far tighter, defined and a greater sense of bowing of his instrument. In short, the system was almost boring and the pulse of the music lost when plugged into the wall compared to when connected to the Niagara power line conditioner.

Again, a big shout out to Patrick Malucci and Hi-Fi Sales store for hosting the event and Mat and Harry Weisfeld as well as Garth Powell from AudioQuest for taking the time from their busy schedules to put together this amazing listening event!

[Analog21]

There's a lot to write up! Just wondering if VPI gave a demonstration of how the ADS works. DO you need a strobe, etc to first set the 33 and 45 Speeds to sync with the ADS? Or is there a built in tachometer like the Phoenix Roadrunner for the their Eagle speed controller? Great write up, Myles!

[Mikebettinger]

[VPI]

Initially we gave a more involved demo on the ADS but for the most part the ADS is plug and play with buttons to switch your speed and knobs for fine adjustment if need be. Overall this was a great event and we were very happy to have Myles out there to join us! Initially this event was supposed to be a quick one showing the ADS but it quickly grew to involved the Avenger shoot out and then a last minute decision to have a sneak peak at the VPI Player. There will be a more informative post on the VPI blog later on about the Player. On one had it is the re-branding of the Nomad, on the other had it is also improved thanks to the work that Mike Bettinger has done on the circuitry and how we want to improve our entry level Made in America market.

[Rob]

could Mike Bettinger comment on how the ADS works? the field is getting crowded with alternatives like the Phoenix Eng Eagle/Roadrunner. the Walker and your own SDS among others.

[MylesBAstor]

I live about 2 miles away. Shame they didn't publicize the event. I would have attended.

I did post a notice about the event on the board on 5/18. That is when I learned about it. 😄

[Patrick Mattucci]

$4000 preamps, $2500 phono preamps, 3 $1800 cartridges, $1200 SUT's, $10,000 mono blocks, $20,000 turntables, $1200 speed controllers, $22,000 speakers, $4000 power delivery devices, $12,000 SACD players, $6000 Master Clocks, $2000 Hi-Rez Servers, all connected with $15,000 worth of interconnects and power cords...you know- Mid-Fi!

[MylesBAstor]

Thanks Patrick. The B&Ws sounded very nice. Wish we had time to listen to the KO2s that day too!

[lasercd]

Patrick my apologies about my flippant comment. I swim in different waters and while I live down the street from you I admit I have not been inside your store in many years. It seems like you are going more upscale which is certainly something our area can use. I'll try and poke my head in at some point.

Ken Golden

[Harry Weisfeld]

Nice report Myles, it was great having you there. We did as well as we could with such a complex system trying to get the noise out. As I told everyone and as you have heard I have no hum at all in any of my systems with any of my tables so it was an anomaly. The cable on the Reference was probably 5 time the price of the VPI cable on the Direct Drive but as I told everyone, listen for the stability, frequency response will be cable related stability is table related. Had a great time, and really really liked that Ortofon SPU new cartridge. Regards.

[MylesBAstor]

Nice report Myles, it was great having you there. We did as well as we could with such a complex system trying to get the noise out. As I told everyone and as you have heard I have no hum at all in any of my systems with any of my tables so it was an anomaly. The cable on the Reference was probably 5 time the price of the VPI cable on the Direct Drive but as I told everyone, listen for the stability, frequency response will be cable related stability is table related. Had a great time, and really really liked that Ortofon SPU new cartridge. Regards.

Thanks Harry. We all know that at demos what can go wrong will go wrong.

Yes that was what I meant by the grip on the music and also the speed relates to the low end. Sadly only had that short cut or two to hear the Ortofon at the end of the evening.

[Dre_J]

Thanks for sharing Myles. I enjoyed reading it.

Dre

[allenh]

Myles, thank you for the great writeup! It was rich w detail and comparisons. Not just the TTs in the spotlight, but the associated gear as well. Very well done!

wow, the Atlas is that much better than the A95, hunh? The A95 kills my older AT PC1 in the dynamics, speed, punch department. And the Atlas is even better than that, with a richer midrange. Nice!

[MylesBAstor]

Myles, thank you for the great writeup! It was rich w detail and comparisons. Not just the TTs in the spotlight, but the associated gear as well. Very well done!

wow, the Atlas is that much better than the A95, hunh? The A95 kills my older AT PC1 in the dynamics, speed, punch department. And the Atlas is even better than that, with a richer midrange. Nice!

I wasn't a huge PC1 fan. Too dark, slow and undynamic at least in my system.

[allenh]

I liked the PC1 when I heard it. But the A95 just punches its way to the top. Fun cart!