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Featuring a Black Oak Base, Improved Isolation Feet, 1/2" Layer of Steel with Aluminum Top, Stainless Steel Record Center Weight and JMW-10 3D Tonearm with Micrometer VTA 'On-The-Fly' Adjustment and Stainless Steel 5/8" Base!
VPI have done it again! For their 30th anniversary, they created a new axiom in turntable form and functionality in the new VPI Classic Turntable. It combines timeless elegance with significant improvements in practical design, including a machined aluminum platter, Nordost Valhalla wiring, a solid-mounted AC synchronous motor, silent inverted bearing, and new Delrin Isolator Feet derived from the HRX!
Call for Special Package Pricing: 1-800-782-3472 or 1-765-608-5340.
A cartridge is not included with this turntable, but you can add any cartridge we sell! Call us today!
All cartridges available professionally installed and adjusted! Click Here for available cartridges!
"...I challenge anyone listening to this turntable to hear anything other than rock-solid images across the entire record surface." - Michael Fremer, Stereophile Magazine, October 2011, Vol. 34, No. 10, pg. 146
"Most significant, in terms of both decay and microdynamics, the Classic 3 played on the same field as the Continuum Caliburn ($149,995.00 with tonearm & stand) - and it costs $6000." - Michael Fremer, Stereophile Magazine, October 2011, Vol. 34, No. 10, pg. 146
"The Classic 3 is the fastest, most coherent-sounding VPI turntable I've ever heard. Its measured accuracy and consistency of speed were about as good as a belt-drive turntable can achieve, and its combination of a high-mass plinth, a superbly machined aluminum platter, a carefully damped and isolated motor, and the JMW-Classic - a fully realized version of VPI's JMW tonearm - make this remarkably compact, easy-to-set-up turntable one of today's great values in analog audio. I don't hear how you can go wrong buying one." - Michael Fremer, Stereophile Magazine, October 2011, Vol. 34, No. 10, pg. 151
"Sonically the character of the Classic 3... is fast, lucid, and responsive. Rhythmically the VPI has a charismatically upbeat, forward-leaning personality..." - Neil Gader, The Absolute Sound, October 2011, Issue 216, pg.47
"with the Classic 3, music simply locks in and asks you to enjoy the ride." - Neil Gader, The Absolute Sound, October 2011, Issue 216, pg.47
"The VPI Classic 3 is an exceptional effort by a company that knows the analog landscape like few others. With each spin it invites you to become reacquainted with every record in your collection. A class-leading product by any yardstick, and, simply put, a class act." - Neil Gader, The Absolute Sound, October 2011, Issue 216, pg.47
VPI Classic 3 Turntable/Arm (The Neo [=New] Classic)
" This is a new version of VPI's best-selling Classic arm/'table combo. ...it is nearly twice as expensive and worth it. Why? Because it is better than the Classic. I have to confess I hadn't taken its full measure until I began the analog listening session with the [Maggie 3.7 Speaker System] 3.7s. It was easy to see it is a better-built 'table, e.g. the superiority of its new isolation base that has four far-bigger, heavier feet upon which the 'table's platform rests. There was an evident sturdiness of construction unbeknownst to the original Classic. It is, as I've said before, much more beautiful to behold, looking like a "pro." A stainless-steel mounting plate has been added underneath the pickup arm for, the designer says, "greater mechanical rigidity." There is (maybe as a consequence of this) a reduction in noise. Is this, I asked myself, the reason there is greater purity and definition to the low frequencies, what seems like a new "edge definition" to individual bass notes? The arm itself has been damped internally with what I assume to be a viscous material and wrapped externally with a blue paper that looks like the useful kind I find at the hardware store. Also, like the internal damping, is the long awaited addition of Nordost wiring to the arm's innards, which I know audibly increases the definition of the cartridge's subtlest signals—in this case, the almost totally neutral Benz Micro LP S-MR. There are some things missing from older and other VPI designs — a characteristic and pervasive darkness (consonant with the music, though) and susceptibility to externally induced noise. The Neo version also sounds more stable, as if the speed control has been enhanced. The net effect of these changes is there is less detectable turntable between you and the music. The LPs now seem to float on a cushion of air. ...it took the increased resolution afforded by the Maggies to make clear all that the Neo Classic knew how to make clear. It is a work of art, Harry Weisfeld's best. Amen! Five Stars!" - Harry Pearson, The Absolute Sound, May/June 2011, Issue 213, pg. 118
Sure it looks great but what does it sound like? Clean, open, and powerful! A solid, laminated, non-resonating, one-piece chassis provides an extremely low degree of random motion between the motor, platter, and tonearm. As such, the VPI Classic Turntable is unequalled in speed stability. You'll believe you are listening to the original master tapes! It gives any turntable made, regardless of price, a serious run for the money.
As if that weren't enough, every VPI Classic 3 Turntable comes standard with the unipivot JMW-10 3D Tonearm featuring Micrometer VTA 'On-The-Fly' Adjustment and Stainless Steel 5/8" Base!
For maximum stability and damping, which always yield the truest possible analogue sound, the platter is made from 2" thick machined 6061 aluminum and is attached to a nonmagnetic 303 stainless steel damping plate. The entire piece weighs in at an impressive 20 pounds! Because the aluminum is grounded to the steel, there is virtually no static buildup or sonic degradation. What's in the grooves is what comes out of your speakers. The VPI Stainless Steel Record Center Weight is the perfect compliment to this immense platter!
Celebrate 30 years of superior turntable design with the VPI Classic Turntable, the simplest and best sounding VPI table to date!
"What I particularly liked about the 'table, aside from its excellent immunity from feedback, was its character, or rather lack of an easily identifiable one. Instead of the sound of older VPI tables, a dark (yin) character, we now have something approaching the completely neutral. I haven't yet been able to put my finger on its specific character, that is, if it has any. But it has allowed a kind of freedom in the sound of LPs being played back on it, one that closely resembles one aspect of the Clearaudio Statement." - Harry Pearson, TAS June/July 2009, Issue 193
"If ever there were a best buy in 'tables, this it it." - Harry Pearson, TAS June/July 2009, Issue 193
"VPI's best work is now a relatively simple and easy-to-set-up player that combines an excellent chassis, built-in motor, and tonearm. Outperforming many units at stratospheric prices, it puts a premium on reliability, rather than pushing the engineering envelope to weights, loads, and gimmicks that do not survive engagement with reality. Remarkably neutral with a wide range of cartridges, and even better with the SDS Speed Control and Outer Ring Clamp. The latter makes a major difference in getting the best out of used, badly stored, and lighter-weight LPs." - Anthony H. Cordesman, TAS 2010 Golden Ear Winner
Special Note: There has been a minor change that has been made with the Prime tone-arm. Going forward, the 3D arm will no-longer have a 3D printed finger lift but instead will include a removable metal finger lift. VPI has performed extensive listening tests and have found there to absolutely be no sonic difference.
VPI Classic Turntable Features:
• JMW-10 3D tonearm
• The platter is machined 6061 aluminum and stainless steel weighing 20 pounds with a precision inverted bearing. Run-out +/- .001” on 39” circumference!!!
• Platter bearing using Thompson Engineering precision shafting with 60 Rockwell hardened and polished ball running on a PEEK thrust disc. The side thrust is taken by graphite lubricated composite bronze bushings.
• The belt runs around the platter through the center of the bearing assembly for no teeter totter effects and no noise. • Speed stability on par with a master tape: Due to the rigid mounting of motor - platter - tonearm there isn't any random motion to cause speed instabilities.
• Feedback rejection that lets the Classic Turntable sit near four 15" subwoofers and having virtually no feedback
• 300 RPM precision low noise high torque 24 pole AC synchronous motor drives the platter with a pulley accurate to +/- .0005”
• Lack of random motion between the motor, platter, and tonearm giving the ultimate in low level resolution. Not only does this rigidity improve speed stability, it also allows the retrieval of low level information on par with the world's great turntables and very close to master tapes.
• Absolutely solid, non-resonating laminated one-piece chassis: This is not a wooden frame; it is a solid laminated 2.5" thick MDF block with a¾” sandwich of aluminum and steel attached to the top with silicone and long bolts through all the layers. The chassis weighs 30 pounds and is totally non-resonant.
• VPI stainless steel record center weight
Tonearm Specs:
• Pivot to spindle distance: 258mm
• Effective length: 273.42mm
• Overhang: 15.42mm
• Offset angle: 19.98 degrees
• Average RMS distortion: .311%
• Premium Discovery wire used internally and in junction box.
• High quality RCA outputs standard
• Unipivot design with zero friction and zero bearing chatter.
• Dropped counterweight for tracking force and azimuth adjustment and low center of gravity
• A large knurled VTA/SRA tower with a smooth precise feel makes it easy to set VTA/SRA during play. Allows changing of arm-tubes in seconds instead of hours for those with multiple cartridges.
• A secondary mounting has been placed between the arm rest and the arm lift to greatly improve the arm's rigidity literally making these the only arms that can do VTA adjustments while listening and then be locked as rigid as a solid mounted arm.
• RCA jack termination so you can use inter-connect of your choice.
• Adjustable anti-skate controlling device
Dimensions:
20 1/2" x 15 1/2" x 10"
Footprint: 19 1/4" x 14 1/4"
Diameter of single foot: 2 1/4" D
Platter Height: 2"
Platter Weight: 20 pounds
Total Weight: 65 pounds
Warranty: 3 Years
Special Note: The Classic Motor should be lubed once a year. How do you do this? Using a pointed dropper or needle dispenser, simply put a drop of oil below the motor pulley in the aluminum circle that is just below the motor pulley.
