Dear Myles,
Thank you for commenting. Your points are all fair enough!
I have found that engineers (like politicians) have design (policy) preferences. This may be my personal preference but I want a product designed by an engineer who believes in the superiority of his design over competing designs. I think it is puzzling that Harry has been all over the place with his designs over the years.
If VPI's business model is to offer options to customers, then why hasn’t VPI continued to offer older designs so that customers can pick their design preference and sonic flavor preference? I think the answer is because Harry thinks each change of drive type, motor, pulley, plinth, platter, material, belt, etc., is an improvement. (Otherwise one might suspect Harry is just trying to sell his latest (and, presumably, greatest) design over and over to the same hapless customers who thought they had already bought an expression of Harry’s best ideas. (No, I do not believe this is what is behind all of the design changes. I truly believe the explanation is simply that Harry is an enthusiastic tinkerer.))
In my experience an engineer plans a design and takes views on a wide variety of variables to execute that design and to create a product. I am not an engineer. I want a turntable engineer to figure all this stuff out (drive system, suspension design, plinth design and material, vibration and resonance control, platter design and material, type of motor, type of electrical drive system of the motor, tonearm attachment structure, tonearm cable relief, etc.). That is his job -- to make the best turntable he can (sometimes to a price point). That is not my job. I am relying upon him to make the best product he can so I can bask in the maximum emotional involvement flowing from the music recreated by his product.
I do not want a engineer who cannot make up his mind as to what he believes is theoretically and then practically the best design. I want an engineer who knows his stuff and comes to definitive (if subject to change) conclusions about what is best. A.J. is very certain about why, from an engineering point of view, vacuum hold-down is the best engineering solution. Touraj is equally certain why, from an engineering point of view, vacuum hold-down and clamping are bad engineering solutions. (The disagreement is fine, even invigorating. My point is that I want an engineer whose design embodies the courage of his convictions.)
I just think it is odd that Harry is a bit of a design schizophrenic. It makes sense to me that an engineer changes his mind over time as he experiments and makes new discoveries with designs and materials and manufacturing techniques and technologies. It makes sense to me that a product evolves over time. You can see in the Basis Inspiration ideas embodied in the Debut. You can see in the Vertere RG-1 ideas embodied in Roxsan turntables. Design improvement and evolution make sense to me.
Some of Harry’s designs have evolved over time (one pulley to three pulleys and then back to one pulley), but Harry often starts each time with a clean slate. I am not an engineer, but I do not understand the apparent lack of a coherent, internally-consistent engineering philosophy which drives the VPI designs.
I do credit Harry with building products which allow customers to buy the basic table and upgrade over time. But he has tended to give existing customers fast-moving targets! : )
(PS: I am not intending to single out for praise or derision or promotion Basis Audio and Vertere. I just happen to have the greatest familiarity with the thinking behind their respective designs, so I used them in my examples.)
