VPI Avenger Turntable

The three-legged layout of the Avenger, with the outboard location of its support towers solves the problem. With each tower topped off with a stainless steel cylinder, the armboards simply clamp around the top of the most convenient leg, while the ability to rotate the standard armboard allows the user to adjust arm mounting height and P2S dimensions to accommodate any design from 9” to 14”. With three legs that means you can mount three tonearms (although you might have to juggle their order around the platter to accommodate different effective lengths) while the symmetrical layout of he chassis means that it can be orientated and the motor placed for maximum convenience – a consideration that might not seem important until you remember that the pivot point of any tonearm mounted on this deck is a moveable feast. Being able to rotate things so that your main arm falls neatly to hand is not to be sniffed at – although it does raise one significant flag. If the TNT was demanding when it came to lateral space, the potential front to back depth of the Avenger means that if you aren’t careful its rear leg might end up in a different time zone! With a possible maximum depth of 46cm there are a lot of racks that will struggle to accommodate it. Twisting the deck slightly will reduce that dimension, but it will also affect the location of the tonearm(s), so it’s worth figuring out where or what you are going to place the deck on before you get it home…

Despite the fact that I use the JMW tonearm on the Avenger (the 3D printed 12” version) those extra arm-mounts are too good an opportunity to miss. I’ve run the Kuzma 4Point and 313 with considerable success but ultimately, I settled on the Timestep T612 as the perfect partner – both sonically and temperamentally. With its curved titanium arm-tube, detachable headshell and 12” effective length, this is an arm that harks back to the likes of the Fidelity Research tonearms and the FR-66S in particular. Okay, the titanium tube brings a slightly different (and arguably more linear) character to the arm, as well as a lower effective mass, but the easy musical flow, dynamic range, presence and spatial coherence that characterised the FR arms is all present and correct. As befits a modern update, it offers greater resolution and extension at the top end, but its easy-going musicality and detachable headshell are right up VPI founder Harry Weisfeld’s alley. It makes for a handsome, high-value combination – and that’s up his alley too.

As I already mentioned, the Avenger sits at the base of a modular product line that ultimately tops out with the stacked-up, limited edition, multi-level, direct-drive Vantage. Owners can upgrade via rim-drive and magnetically de-coupled platter options, additional plinth levels and more sophisticated feet – all with minimal redundancy. At VPI, the notion of a long (and adaptable/upgradable) product life is taken seriously and the Avenger is no exception to that rule. That brings a lot of added value to a VPI purchase, but the value doesn’t stop there. At £11,000 including the JMW 3D12 tonearm and weighing in at a shade under 31kg, that’s an awful lot of turntable for the money – physically and sonically. In material terms it doesn’t use a single piece of compressed wood dust, while traditional production methods involving acrylic, aluminium and steel alloys mix it with 3D printed components.

That sense of mechanical integrity and solid engineering carries over into the Avenger’s musical presentation. When I reviewed the original TNT I described it as “meaty, beaty, big and bouncy” a phrase that encapsulated its sheer presence and musical enthusiasm, impressive dynamic range and acoustic scale. In a world inhabited by lightweight suspended decks, with their limited bandwidth and dynamics, shrunken sound stages and two dimensional imaging, the big VPI wasn’t so much a breath of fresh air as a tornado of musical intent, momentum and entertainment. Just like an overly energetic St Bernard puppy, the boundless energy of those early decks could occasionally lead them into trouble, but over the years that unruly streak has been trained out of the breed, each subsequent model better behaved and more refined than the last. The Avenger retains that crucial grasp of musical substance and projection, dimensionality and scale, easy dynamics and musical momentum, but keeps it all on a tighter rein. Along with greater resolution and a calmer stability, that planted quality brings a convincing sense of musical, dynamic and spatial coherence. All grown up and articulate, the Avenger is the most accomplished TNT by far.

You don’t need a crystal ball to anticipate the power and aplomb with which the Avenger delivers multi-facetted orchestral masterworks, from Danil Trifonov’s recent Rachmaninov, in which he off-sets Nézet-Séguin’s precision with playing that’s vivacious and stentorian by turns, to Previn’s Swan Lake, where even the most familiar passages are invested with a crisp and purposeful fascination. But it’s in the realm of smaller, more intimate works that this ‘table really gets to strut its stuff. Voices have always been central to the VPI’s performance envelope and the Avenger maintains and even extends that tradition, bringing a natural presence, intimacy and expressive intensity to vocals. When Vampire Weekend play ‘Oxford Comma’ you are left in no doubt as to Ezra Koenig’s utter contempt for the grammatical carbuncle (although somewhat ironically, it’s the Brit’s that get the blame, when we abandoned the absurdity years ago!).