VPI new turntable- Prime 21

I’m not a fan of the drive mechanism. Having to move the belt to change the speed means belt contamination from your fingers and varying belt tension because it goes on different size pulleys, so it can never be just the right tension, which really matters if you want rock solid speed accuracy. Also there’s no speed feedback which really matters as the motor, belt, bearing and lubrication temperature changes. I suffered with this inferior design on my VPI Classic 4 for several years before I decided to upgrade the motor to the Sota Total Eclipse, including the Condor power supply and RoadRunner controller. For $4500 I think you should be getting a more sophisticated design. You could upgrade to the HRX pulley and SDS or ADS, but you still don’t get feedback to keep the speed precisely set.

I got the 21+ but am running a Soundsmith Zephyr on it. Parks Budgie pre with good NOS tubes. Sounds excellent, and still breaking it in…

Tablejockey no. My company is a Grado dealer, so I picked the sonata 3. Anybody have any opinions about a phono stage? I have a Hegel h590 but no phono section. Looking forward to it. The cart is an AT designed specially for VPI. 

"I just received a prime 21 but haven’t opened the box yet."

dherring- did you get the Shyla MC too? I understand its an AT ART9. You have a winner.

I just received a prime 21 but haven’t opened the box yet. I haven’t owned a vpi in a while, but this thing weighs a ton!

The Mark Levinson tt was offered with a gimbaled tonearm. I had assumed that their target audience would be older and therefore be more satisfied with gimbaled.

Most of their tt's could be ordered with a gimbaled if requested from my understanding.

The Prime 21 has a limited release in the UK with a North American release 2021. 

October and November releases? In the Auto works that makes them 21’s 

Just an updated Prime to be release in 2021, thus the “21”.

The Prime 21 is due out in October and the Prime 21+ in November, so really 2020 models, but close enough I guess to 2021 for the nomenclature.

Agree about the new arm. Never really liked the unipivot. Just a personal preference.

Looks like they just ditched the uni pivot for the gimbal arm. Based on the articles, it’s just the MK II version. Plinth improvements and other minor things.

Not exciting enough for me to upgrade from my ageing, Classic. If I could just find a HW40 DD for $5K.....yeah, I’m dreaming.

God save the Queen. It has a gimbal bearing arm! A major step in the right direction for VPI. Now, if it's suspension feet are engineer properly it could be quite a table for the money. Still have to engineer a dust cover around it. 

Just an updated Prime to be release in 2021, thus the “21”. 

OK Thanks for the clarification, very similar to the regular prime.

Here are much better pictures:

https://www.stereonet.co.uk/news/vpi-prime-21-turntables-announced

It's not a multi-layer plinth, must have been the reflection...

Not sure, but the picture I have seen looks like a reflection of the platter and plinth?  If not, the bottom base is really strange.

http://www.hifiplus.com/articles/vpi-announces-new-prime-21-turntables/