VPI Turntables At Capital Audiofest 2022

As with Capital Audiofest 2019, VPI Turntables were ubiquitous at the 2022 show, with many dealers and manufacturers choosing to set up their systems with a VPI analog front-end. VPI themselves hosted several rooms, (Jefferson, Adams, Frederick, Truman, & 625) their main room for music headed up by the VPI Avenger direct drive turntable, VPI’s own phonostage, Audio Research Corp electronics, and a beautiful pair of Tannoy speakers. Their primary display room housed pretty much every turntable from their extensive range, a good collection of Harry’s own hand-picked vinyl on sale (mostly classical), various T-shirts and other VPI paraphernalia.

Here’s a short video tour of the two rooms, catch Dean Martin in the first segment!!

Starting out in the Tannoy speaker room, I can honestly say that I’ve never heard the human voice reproduced by an audio system to this level before. Dean Martin (love him or hate him 🙂 sounded absolutely sublime via the Avenger turntable and through the ARC amps into the large Tannoys –

I returned to this room several times during the show, just to hang out and listen to tunes. It was one of the very best-sounding rooms in my opinion. I didn’t get to hear a broad enough cross-section of different types of music to say that it was the best-sounding room at the show.

In case womenfolk worry about their menfolk’s activities when they’re away from home attending Capital Audiofest, there’s really no need. Most of what we do focuses around drinking and sleeping. Here’s a community sleeping room provided kindly by the show organizers. Music Hall’s Roy Hall has it down. He can actually sleep and drink while standing up. Quite the achievement.

VPI’s Harry Weisfeld brought along his personal pair of speakers to front the system in their main room – the excellent Pure Audio Project Quintet15 with Voxative driver. I’ve a more detailed look at Pure Audio Project Speakers Here

This was a busy room with people milling around buying used records, looking at the many turntables on display, etc, so I didn’t really get to hear much music through the PAP speakers. There was also what appeared to be a technical glitch, with a persistent ‘popping’ sound coming through the speakers (not a pop/click from the vinyl surface), so while I was around it wasn’t an entirely enjoyable experience, but I heard enough to recognize the quality of the Quintet15 / Voxative.