VPI Direct Drive Turntable

Before VPI came out with the HW-19, they made bases for JVC and Denon direct drive motors. I'm not sure of the extent of his involvement, but I've read that he also repaired and did other contract or authorized work on DDs.

While most companies specialize, at least to some extent, in a particular segment of the market, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. Back in the day all the mass market players had flagship tables and some are of the most revered today. BTW, Sony made some great tables and their BSL (brushless/slotless) motors were in many of their mid priced tables.
The point is, other business models can work.

VPI is coming out with a new table, Voyager. $1K includes a cart, built-in phono stage, and a pr of Grado headphones.
I've read that they can hardly keep up with overseas orders for Traveler. This and Classic popularity gives them a solid foundation for introducing new expensive tables. It's not like they're coming out with a $150K table as their only product. If they only sold a few Classic Direct, I'd bet they'd be okay, but I'd also bet they sell quite a few more. When they come out with a new flagship it will probably look more like an HRX. I'd bet that it sells too.

HW says it is a $4000 part, is that really the price from ThinGap?

I recall reading on one of the audio web blogs that Mathew Weisfeld is taking on a higher profile VPI management role and Mr. W is giving MW breathing room. Wish I could recall where I read this.

I'm glad to read Dnath's post that the Traveler concept is taking root. I also recall that MW is the motivating force behind the Traveler. Kudos to MW.

The Weisfeld family has gone through some tough times. I wish them the best. And I celebrate their innovation and success.

Flieb,If I may add , In the early days of VPI, pre any table manufacturing I remember their bricks and metal platforms for resonate control being advertised ,the VPI bricks were designed to put on top of amplifiers , tuners , preamps ect.
Magazine reviews back then of direct drive tables would bolster the rating by a added star or scale only if the dd table under review was sitting on one of VPIs platform.
Mitch Cotter the man of resonate control for dd tables and probably the most successful back then with his B1 and B2.
On the west coast in California back in the 1980s I clearly remember listening to a shocking expensive table ,arm and mc cartridge sitting in a Mitch Cotter platform / plinth , Technics SP10 MK 3 and low and behold Halcro a Fidelity Research FR 66, obviously a west coast thing.

VPIs business model is repeat business by constant upgrade path, if anyone else does this in the table manufacturing business they copied VPI.
Keep them coming back for more stuff.

And finally for anyone here that have spent $30,000.00 or more on a single component,,,, "A" All I ask "hopefully " for it to live up to every expectation in the long run and "B" to be built to the very highest of standards through out...NO MDF with a plate of aluminum glued to it,...

In_shore, Who would argue with your points A and B? Not I. But I would argue that there is nothing at all wrong, a priori, with using MDF (or HDF?) in a sandwich with alu, in order to obtain a result that is superior to either material used alone. That's called synergy; it can be achieved in this case with the CLD effect. Adona make shelves using granite and MDF bonded together. I don't like either material alone, and I was initially put off by the idea of even using them together, but in fact Adona shelves actually perform very well. CLD in principle can work. Unless you know that alu/MDF sounds bad, I don't know how you can condemn it out of hand.