VPI Direct Drive Turntable

The Thingap motor seems to be a modern and novel version of a traditional "coreless" motor. Several vintage Japanese turntables (e.g, Kenwood, Victor, Pioneer Exclusive), as well as originally some of the older Dual turntables, use a version of the coreless motor, and so does the Brinkmann Bardo. It has been my experience that such turntables have a very pleasing sound that is devoid of the coloration that can be (but not always is) associated with cogging of a typical DD motor. This bodes well for the VPI. But can anyone see why the Thingap motor should cost $5000? Maybe forming that copper cylinder is tricky.

Also, a laminate of alu and MDF would perform quite a bit better than either material used by itself, due to the positive effects of CLD, so I would not damn the VPI for using "MDF", per se.

Further, if VPI uses the same motor as the Caliburn, it may be regarded as a stone, cold bargain, since we know that the Caliburn is $150,000. (Just sayin'.)

I agree with Stringreen that the market will decide if the price is right for the VPI Direct. Arguing about the price is fruitless. I applaud VPI for introducing a new drive system from their usual belters.

I know Mr. Weisfeld is a collector of vintage turntables including DD units and his favorite is the JVC TT-101 so it's not surprising that he chose a coreless motor. And I agree with Lewm that coreless motor DD tables have the most pleasing sound, at least to my ears. The ThinGap motor is a very unique approach to the coreless motor genre. The Caliburn uses it for their belt drive table but VPI found a way to apply it to their DD so that's exciting. I look forward to future reviews and if positive, I hope VPI can trickle it down to less expensive models in the future. It's about damn time people are paying attention to DD technology without playing with marketing terms, eg, "magnetic drive," "mag-drive," etc... Maybe even Art Dudley will change his mind one day. :)

Teres was once a belt-drive maker and is now focusing on DD so there must be something to it that lead to such development. Time will tell.

_______

VPI is like the Toyota of turntables, high quality, good performance and reasonably priced. There is a reason why Toyota developed the Lexus brand as they knew that the luxury hi-end market would not embrace a hi-end car made by a mid-line manufacture like Toyota.

I believe that VPI has made a marketing mistake in the branding of the Classic Direct. Do you think hi-end consumers want own a $90K Camry over a $90K Lexus LS460, even if they performed the same?

Brf, Not only do they perform the same (Camry vs Lexus with similar equipment choices), they ARE the same internally. Anyway, VPI is a successful company. Whether they made some unfortunate decisions in marketing their new DD remains to be seen. I doubt that the fate of the company rests on its success, which cannot be said for NVS, TechDas, Caliburn (already defunct, I hear), and some others.

Well, you can still get a Caliburn for half price on eBay.

I think Teres is no longer making their DD tables as they are not featured on their website anymore.

_______