VPI

This year VPI has released new products at both the very affordable and no-holds-barred ends of the price range. They are offering their first complete turntable package, the Nomad, at $1000, a 3D printed tonearm, the JMW 3D, at $4000, and their new flagship turntable, the Classic Direct at $30,000 packaged with the JMW 3D.

The Nomad is the first, all-in-one, high-end, entry level turntable. Complete with a headphone amplifier, phonostage, and an Ortofon 2M Red cartridge pre-mounted on a 10-inch, gimbaled/yoke bearing tonearm, it is the perfect record playback solution. All you have to do is plug it into your system and start playing records. (The phono stage in this turntable cannot be bypassed, so it should never be plugged into the phono inputs of an audio system. Line inputs should be used.) Of course, the Nomad is built with all of the careful engineering and loving care that all VPI products are known for. It sounds great and will last for many years.

The Classic 3D tonearm looks like a traditional VPI Unipivot arm, except that it's made in a 3D printer. The tonearm material is a custom stereolithography resin (basically an epoxy), which forms a rigid, lightweight, structure with superb sonic isolation properties. This is because epoxy is non-crystalline which impedes the transfer of vibration. Thus, it's the perfect material for tonearm construction. The latest in SolidWorks Software and finite element analysis tools guide the printing process. The shape of the tonearm shaft also adds rigidity to the structure and further prevents the transmission of surface vibrations. The result is a low-resonance, lightweight tonearm. Finally, the entire assembly is printed as one piece with no joints that can flex and cause colorations. The resulting structure is extremely low in coloration, making it the perfect tonearm for extracting the most delicate information from your record grooves. This tonearm is backwards compatible and will fit on all past and current VPI Turntables. It is printed in both 10- and 12-inch versions.

For the first time, we now have a direct drive turntable that has solved the problems which degraded the sound in all previous direct drive designs. The Classic Direct is the newest turntable in the Classic line. The design takes advantage of 21st Century motor technology for accurate speed control using a servo-motor controller coupled with an active feedback loop that controls the motion of the platter. Some of the most important features are:

• Direct drive with no mechanical contact in the horizontal plane using the lowest noise drive and bearing design architecture possible
   
• A precision inverted bearing and PEEK bearing surface for minimum friction
   
• Servo-controlled with an active feedback loop that measures and controls the speed of the platter directly to yield the most consistent and accurate playback possible
   
• A high-mass, billet aluminum platter weighing 18 lbs
   
• Speed accuracy of 0.01%
   
• A proprietary, non-cogging drive system that uses the platter as the rotor and a printed circuit board as the stator
   
• A ˝" thick machined aluminum plate bonded to 2 inches of MDF that create a plinth which is so massive and well damped it virtually eliminates resonance
   
• An external, universal power supply to remove line noise generating components from within the turntable chassis
   
• Available as a complete package with the JMW 3D tonearm
   

We believe that this will be the turntable to beat for the foreseeable future!