Retirement seems to suit VPI‘s Harry Weisfeld to a “T.”
Actually, lets have some fun, and say it suits Harry to a “TT.”
It seems the scion of the venerable turntable manufacturer out of New Jersey has been busier than ever with more announcements about new designs, collaborations, and design/production partnerships being announced in late 2016, and early 2017 then I can ever remember (Shinola Runwell, Mark Levinson 515 to name two). With the new flagship VPI Industries Titan being shown off late in 2016 at TAVES in Toronto, the company has set the bar high indeed, and seems to be targeting a class of ‘tables not previously in their sights.
Weighing in at $40,000 USD this ‘table features a double-stacked Avenger Reference chassis, a machined four-inch, 40lbs platter that is driven in a master/slave configuration by a magnetic sub-platter incorporating the previously-released Dual Motor Rim Drive. This combination is now referred to as the Magneto Rim Drive, and when paired with the new high-current Analog Drive System (ADS) power supply, it could possess the most accurate timing of any VPI turntable.
Building on the legacy of the Avenger turntable, the Titan is designed to handle up to three tonearms of any make or length. Utilizing a machined acrylic/aluminum/acrylic sandwich-design chassis on top of VPI’s pneumatic air-suspension isolation footers, the Titan is set to be the most stable, and isolation-oriented turntable in the VPI quiver of decks.
A further new design feature on the Titan is the implementation of analog-based oscillators to generate low-distortion analog sine waves for its 33/45-rpm motor assembly. According to VPI, using a regenerated AC-sine wave virtually eliminates any power line-associated noise from entering the electronic signal path. This, VPI states, provides “pure, smooth AC power to the turntable motor.”
Another point to take into consideration for current or future VPI Avenger owners is that their ‘tables can be upgraded to Titan-level designation should they feel the need to upgrade.
–Rafe Arnott
