The New Jersey-based company sells turntables, tonearms, cartridges, record clamps, plinths, record cleaning machines, and a phono preamp. But that's not all. The company offers VPI-branded. pillows, candles, mugs, stickers, T-shirts, and a tell-all company history, 40 Years on the Record.
And talk about turntables! From the entrylevel $1499 Cliffwood to the top-of-the-line $104,000 Vanquish (found under the website's "VPI Luxury" page, accompanied by the adage, "Settle for Nothing but Extravagant"), VPI is clearly and rightfully proud of its analog achievements.
Like many successful small businesses, VPI is a family affair. Cofounder and designer/engineer Harry Weisfeld designed the tables that established the company's reputation. Sheila, Harry's late wife and VPI cofounder, was an important presence; her expertise in audiology and speech-and-language pathology gave her a skill set unusual in the industry and made her a principal contributor to VPI's success. Harry and Sheila's son Mat Weisfeld is the current designer and CEO; his wife, Jane, is VPI's office manager. The 15 employees work at the company's Cliffwood, New Jersey, HQ to manufacture every VPI 'table from 95% North American-made components.
Harry Weisfeld is a longtime, fervent record collector. His analog dreams started with buying vinyl and shellac as far back as the 1950s. He still collects LPs (no "vinyls," please) and has a special fondness for Sonny Rollins's Way Out West, Jo Basile's Hit Broadway Musicals (Audio Fidelity AFSD-5972), Eydie Gormé's albums on the Coral label, and anything on Norman Granz's Pablo Records, home to natural-sounding '70s and '80s records by Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Pass, Sarah Vaughan, Milt Jackson, and Count Basie, to name a few.
This story is from the June 2023 edition of Stereophile.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the June 2023 edition of Stereophile.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Michael Des Barres and the Art of Aural Obsession
Listening to music inspires us to take action. Upon hearing an I.E.-Instant Earworm-we must then determine the best way we can go about listening to it again (and again) at our convenience.
PLANET OF SOUND
BLACK FRANCIS ON HARNESSING THAT MAGIC PIXIES DUST
T+A R 2500 R STREAMING RECEIVER PHONO MODULE
In my review of the T+A R 2500 R receiver (August 2024 issue), I covered many of its features and took as deep a dive as time and column inches allowed.
Audia Flight FLS10
The dogma of separates has long reigned supreme among audiophiles: If you're serious about sound quality, you're supposed to need a dedicated preamp and power amp.
Totem Acoustic Element Fire V2
Totem Acoustic was founded in 1987, in Montreal, Canada, by a former high school math teacher named Vince Bruzzese. The company's first product, the Model 1 loudspeaker,' impressed me so much I bought a pair.
MoFi Electronics MasterDeck
Get two mouthy jazz drummers in a room and watch the sparks fly. Talented turntable designer Allen Perkins, the brain behind Spiral Groove,2 Immedia's RPM turntables,³ and various SOTA models, is first and foremost a jazz drummer.
Soulution 727
AImost 14 years have passed since a review of a Soulution product appeared in the pages of Stereophile.\"
The Spin Doctor checks out the Kuzma Safir 9, a superarm from Slovenia.
The British audio scene from the late 1970s through the mid-1980s was pretty strange. Audio as a hobby was a big deal, with widespread appeal to a much younger crowd than today. Audiophiles were guided by a flurry of what my friends called \"hi-fi pornos,\" audio magazines that filled the racks at the newsagents.
Alex goes to Japan
Arriving in Japan from the United States is like being turned upside down. This condition lasts for much of the first week. When I visited in November, the time difference between Tokyo and New York was 14 hours. \"The floating world\" is a term for the pleasure-addled urban culture of Edo-period Japan, but it's also an apt description for the twilit and not-entirely-unpleasant weirdness of first arriving in Tokyo. Everything seems slightly unreal.
Wilson Audio Specialties The WATT/Puppy
Since the original WATT/Puppy concept kicked off in the late 1980s,' there has been a 40-year evolution leading to the latest version reviewed here.
