A Visit with VPI and Three Turntables

amirm

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Apr 2, 2010
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This last saturday we had a wonderful meeting of our Pacific Northwest Audiophile Society, listening to three different VPI turntables and setups. VPI president Mat Weisfeld was there. I took a lot of pictures and captures some of the music that was played. Alas, it is some 71 pictures and hard to lift them all manually to post here. So here is a sampling. For the rest you can click on this link.

















I put my impressions of sound in that thread but not being an LP guy, they are likely not worth the bits it took to put them on those pages. :) MikeL was in attendance so perhaps he can post more authoritative comments.

My special thanks go to the organizers of the meeting (especially Gary, Joe, Jerry and Rene). It was an incredible amount of work to put together such a 3-way comparison.
 

Bruce B

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Apr 25, 2010
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My special thanks go to the organizers of the meeting (especially Gary, Joe, Jerry and Rene). It was an incredible amount of work to put together such a 3-way comparison.



This was indeed a special event that took tremendous effort to put together.

But, I would hardly call this a comparison. All 3 of the phono pre's were different as well as the cables..... not to mention carts. and arms.... but a good show none the less!
 

amirm

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Apr 2, 2010
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This was indeed a special event that took tremendous effort to put together.

But, I would hardly call this a comparison. All 3 of the phono pre's were different as well as the cables..... not to mention carts. and arms.... but a good show none the less!

Hi Bruce. Yes, I mentioned that in my notes on ASR Forum. Would have been great to have a comparison of the tables alone.
 

Believe High Fidelity

[Industry Expert]
Nov 19, 2015
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Very Nice Amir! So not being an analog guy did you find the tables perform as well as or better than your digital setup? Any preferences in which setup was best?
 

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
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Seattle, WA
Hello Joshua. I listed the music and my impression of the fidelity and preferred turntable in the ASR Forum link. If I were to pick one table it was the Avenger. Not because it was better than the Vanquish but because to my ears it was much louder. That gave it more dynamics and detail. Gary explained that its cartridge had 4X the output of the one on Vanquish. He had compensated with the gain in the phono stage but it was still lower in level.

I must say, I acquired much appreciation for the huge challenge that turntables present. Between the tables, arms, cartridges and phono stage, there are infinite possibilities and clearly the combinations sound very different from each other. Some actually sounded good on one LP and vice versa!

As to digital, the only time I missed it was if the content was only available in LP. Or has better mastering than digital (the case with the content I have on tape). Outside of that I much prefer digital on common tracks between them.
 

Mike Lavigne

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 25, 2010
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Amir,

thanks for posting this, and later when I get a chance i'll look at your expanded info on the ASR forum.

it was more of a demonstration than comparison. and as you and Bruce mention, too many variables between the tt's to draw any conclusions. and I was sitting 6 rows back and could not hear very well. I was only there for the first session, but mostly during that session it was not clear from where I sat when they switched between the tt's. later they made it more clear.

as far as what I could hear when they did make clear which set-up I was listening to, it seemed that the Vanquish-Proteus set-up had clearly greater refinement, inner detail and ease.......more natural. Amir was sitting front row center, so he had the best seat to see what went on.

it was fun listening to Matt Weisfield tell the story of his family and VPI.

thanks to the club, Gary and Joe particularly, for putting on a good and fun show. sorry I had to leave at the break.
 

garylkoh

WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)
Sep 6, 2010
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It was certainly not meant to be an A/B/C comparison (until one of the club members insisted on quick 5 second switching between tables), and as I said in the introductory remarks, this was a "fashion show".

We provided 3 "analog systems" at 3 price points using available resources. The turntables all from VPI, and the cartridges all from Transfiguration. The closest "budget" phonostage that I felt to be as transparent as one of mine was the Heed Quasar. So, we borrowed one of those from the importers.
 

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