We all like turntables! One moment they’re history, the next moment they’re hot. It really doesn’t matter if you play with an old, revised Thorens which you took out of the attic or the next Clearaudio Reference model. It’s the love for vinyl that keeps us going. I came across a blog post from son Mat, son of Harry Weisfeld of VPI Industries. In fact he tells a similar story, about how passion can drive someone.
VPI Industries HR-X with two arms
“Exciting day, it was 4 years ago today that I (Mat) ended up staying late with my dad (Harry) to work on an HR-X. This was an important day for VPI and our future. What had happened was that we were at the New York Show and a customer had heard Peter Ledermann’s HR-X that had two arms on it. It was a complete DIY job and the customer wanted to get an HR-X with a second arm mounted like his. At the time I really didn’t know enough so my answer was, “Yes we can do that!”. I later learned that there wasn’t an intuitive mounting system at the time for the HR-X for a second arm. However the dealer and customer were now counting on us to deliver! The production floor tried to make the table with the two arms and after a lot of time working on the HR-X it was considered to be functional with a second arm.
The day ended and Harry came in to check it out. He wasn’t satisfied with the job and took the whole turntable apart. Mind you at this stage my mom’s death was recent, I had no clue what I was doing yet, dad had every desire to sell VPI, and no desire to work on turntables again. For the next 4-5 hours he worked, cursed, and crafted a turntable for the first time since mom had gotten sick. This was exactly what dad needed to get him back to being HW and exactly what I needed to witness how much care and pride should be put into every VPI table!”
Check out the VPI Industries blog.
