VPI Press Conference, Part 1

[MylesBAstor]

Lot's of news to share about some new VPI products as well as pictures. Thought, though, I'd start out with a little fun. Does anyone know this celebrity rockstar/audiophile seen visiting the VPI House today? Right side (top picture); front center, intently listening (bottom picture).



'

[astrotoy]

Is it Ringo?

[MylesBAstor]

Fast forward about 20 years.

[MylesBAstor]

Tape head alert!

Some non-VPI gear seen today!

[MylesBAstor]

In case you are wondering, the box to the left of the Sony deck is the machine's power supply. This was Nick Doshi's machine and Jonathan Horwich's tech Soren, since the Sony decks are known to overhead, moved the PS outboard.

[MylesBAstor]

And I couldn't help but think of our own DavidK when I saw this Avenger table being setup and readied for shipping.

[Analog21]

Is that a VPI arm or another manufacturer?

[MylesBAstor]

Sme 3012r.

[JCOConnell]

I'm still confused, whats the difference between the avenger and the vanquish?

I'm vaguely recalling the Vanquish is an "HW Workshop" effort where it is custom built / made to order, circa ~$40k+ ??
The Avenger is a production product with different drive options in the current line-up ?? Beyond that It is hard for me to keep the various product details sorted.

[MylesBAstor]

Yes, the Vanquish is made to order. I think Harry makes two a month.

VPI's Avenger line--and Mark is covering the three models in PF--consists of three models and they can be upgraded. Avenger (belt drive), Avenger Plus (rim driver) and Avenger Reference (magnetic drive plus belt or rim drive). There are also some differences when it comes to the feet and length of arm wand. I think the first two come with 10.5 inch arm while the Reference comes with 12-inch arm.

[Elberoth]

Lot's of news to share about some new VPI products as well as pictures. Thought, though, I'd start out with a little fun. Does anyone know this celebrity rockstar/audiophile seen visiting the VPI House today? Right side (top picture); front center, intently listening (bottom picture).

Chris Barron, best known as the lead singer of the band Spin Doctors.

Will I get a cookie ?

[MylesBAstor]

Pot brownies ok?

[lasercd]

Chris Barron, best known as the lead singer of the band Spin Doctors.

Will I get a cookie ?

Myles obviously has a pretty broad definition of "rock star".

[Johnny Vinyl]

Haha! Now that's funny!

[lasercd]

Based on the attendance it looks like CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post, and Politico were banned from this press conference.

[1morerecord2clean]

Now that's funny!

[Johnny Vinyl]

I refrained at first, but this is funnier.

[MylesBAstor]

No invitations were withheld.

[cpp]

Myles obviously has a pretty broad definition of "rock star".

And here he is a long time ago

[jonathanb]

Myles, don't hint and run. Spill the beans: what was yesterday's VPI news?

[MylesBAstor]

I will today. Left at 7:30 am to get the train down to Matawan and didn't get back until 8:30 last night. Long day and I was exhausted.

[lasercd]

Alert the media. I understand to combat this important roll out Clearaudio has scheduled a press conference. John Popper will be attending.

[Dave Clark]

Write this up for pf?

[MylesBAstor]

Yes.

[MylesBAstor]

VPI Press Open House

Mat kicked off the morning’s festivities with a brief synopsis of what’s been happening at VPI Industries in the five years since his mom’s passing, his dads’ retiring from the business and his assuming the company’s helm. This transition was bound to happen sooner or later as those grandfathers of the high-end audio industry such as VPI (2018 marks VPI’s 40^th anniversary and Mat promised some surprises to commemorate that achievement), Wilson Audio, Magnepan, ARC, cj, Grado, etc. have or are making the transition to the next generation of entrepreneurs. Make no mistake. It wasn’t always smooth sailing for Mat. Sometimes it was in fact a down right painful learning experience. But Mat persevered and in this time successfully revamped and streamlined VPI’s production and manufacturing process, rebranded the turntable product line, oversaw the launch of VPI’s Reference line of turntables and now popular Cyclone record cleaning machine and revised the popular Scout table. Some of these changes were introduced to simplify the product line and avoid customer confusion. Others to buy in larger quantity and hold costs down. Yet others to improve product quality and consistency and taking advantage of export certifications for overseas sales.

In this time VPI has also doubled the size of their staff, tripled their floor space and added the “VPI” house (see part 2 of report). Out of all the changes, however, it was bringing engineer Mike Bettinger on board that’s arguably had the biggest impact. Mike has among other things significantly contributed to VPI’s research process, improving turntable Q/C and consistency, redesigning the rapidly aging SDS turntable power supply as well as designing the soon to be released $2000 VPI budget and $6000 Aurora phonostages.

VPI’s turntable line (price also includes arm) now currently consists of:

The Player ($1500)
The Scout 2017 ($2200)
Prime ($4000) and Prime Signature
Avenger (Avenger, Avenger Plus and Avenger Reference going from around $9000 to $20,000)

New product and Accessory Announcements

Scout 2017: Price: $2200 with Ortofon 2M included. Hard to believe but VPI’s Scout has been in production now for 15 years. The Scout now features an all Al platter since the market wasn’t interested in MDF platter. The new Scout adopts the curves of the Prime and features a thicker chassis, new Delrin feet and same motor found in the Prime.

Prime Signature: Arms now comes standard with Nordost internal wiring in 10.5-inch 3D arm, latest 3D arm finish, stainless steel corner posts and a new angled arm lift made in the US.

Turntables made in cooperation with other companies

Shinola Runwell turntable: This table fills the slot held by the now discontinued Classic table. Take home message: Shinola tables reaches a totally different market than VPI.

Mark Levinson turntable: First shown in January at CES and designed and manufactured by VPI for Mark Levinson. The $10,000 Mark Levinson table comes with a new Harry Weisfeld designed, 3D printed, gymballed arm and outboard motor unit replete with built-in Mike Bettinger designed power supply.

VPI Phonostage: Not a whole lot of details yet but the phonostage is essentially a phono section plus passive attenuator. The unit’s overall gain is around 68 dB and can directly feed an amplifier. VPI’s new phonostage is slated for release in two versions: a budget model retailing for $2000 and the Aurora that is targeted to retail for $6000.

3D Arm Dual pivot adaptor kit

After much trial and error and a few false starts, VPI has developed a new kit to convert current 3D arms in the field into dual pivot arms without any fuss or muss. All a 3D arm owner needs is a screwdriver to successfully complete the conversion. First a thin aluminum plate is placed and secured on the armboard area where the unipivot resides. Next, the dual pivot adaptor is placed over the ring beneath the pivot and tightened down. Then the user just uses a small screwdriver to lower the pivot until it reaches the VPI supplied plate. At this point, the owner just adjusts for correct azimuth using the contact between the dual pivot and metal plate attachment. So an added bonus is that the 3D tonearm’s VTF and azimuth are set separately. Hallelujah and praise the Lord! Personally—and I don’t know about you-- I hate tonearms that require using the counterweight to set VTF and azimuth. Yes using even in the case of VPI the Soundsmith Counter Intuitive. Is it worth the price? Time will tell. Price: $150.

Down the road

Look for some cosmetic, if not some minor functional changes to VPI’s long standing record cleaning machines that have been the benchmark since the ‘80s. Most of these changes are envisioned in relationship to the streamlining of the manufacturing process.

Q4 may also see VPI releasing a stripped down version of The Player (table and arm san electronics) targeted to retail for $1000. No official name yet for the table.

[MylesBAstor]

Part 1: Factory Tour

Mat welcoming a bunch of sleepy press to VPI's renovated and reorganized digs! Luckily plenty of coffee, bagels and DD doughnuts.



And explaining and showing off the new turntable line.

[MylesBAstor]

Some of VPI's new products:

Scout 2017



Mark Levinson turntable



Separate motor with built in power supply that nestles into the turntable plinth


New Feet for Avenger line.