The Classic 3 isn’t just a ’table/arm combo but arrives as a bundle complete with VPI’s Periphery Ring Clamp (PRC) and HR-X Center Weight. The only thing faster would be a removable armwand, which VPI makes optionally available for all of its tonearms. Just pull the cable plug from the socket, slip off the anti-skating thread, and the entire tonearm/counterweight lifts off. (VPI includes the Shure gauge for good measure.) The floating unipivot design also makes the tonearm a dream for users who are inclined to make cartridge-swapping a way of life. While there is no built-in tracking force gauge, any number of aftermarket devices can do this trick. Overhang and rake are manually set by shifting the cartridge in the headshell. The tonearm is the Classic 3-a unipivot design that’s been rigorously updated with a new stainless-steel arm tube, bearing assembly, mounting base, and Nordost Valhalla wiring straight through from the headshell to the Swiss-made LEMOs that plug into the terminal block. The platter is 18 pounds of machined 6061-T aluminum on an inverted bearing and stainless-steel damping plate. The hefty footers have been redesigned for better balance and isolation. The result is not merely damping via mass but a sandwich of dissimilar materials, helping to eliminate resonances. The subplate is in turn bonded to two inches of MDF. The fixed (unsuspended) plinth is 1/2″-thick machined aluminum bonded to a 1/8″ steel subplate. An old school, Lucite-free spinner.įittingly, the VPI Classic 3 takes the proven platform of Harry Weisfeld’s original Classic and Classic 2 efforts and essentially upgrades and hot rods the living hell out of them. By my admittedly curmudgeonly standards, the $6000 VPI Classic 3 is well named-classic all the way. Many turntables today resemble an icy edifice reminiscent of Superman’s Fortress of Solitude still others have a gimmicky comic-book sense of the surreal, as if some designer had channeled his inner Salvador Dali. By that I mean, a single chassis design (with a pianoblack base while I’m at it) and parts enclosed and internalized, rather than externals popping up on outboard pods, pillars, and modules. I know I’m going to be chided for what I’m about to say but I love a turntable that looks like a turntable in the classic sense.