Recommendations for a tonearm upgrade on a VPI Classic 4 turntable

look for REED 
reed 3p for example, available in  9.5″ 10.5″ 12″ with different armwands

stereo5

... The arm was too fiddly! ... That unipivot arm is not for me ...

It’s just a personal thing, but I find unipivot arms to be kind of creepy. I’ve never met one that I liked. It just seems to me that a pickup arm should be rigid and not floppy and wiggly.

I know that it’s all in my head, because I’ve heard VPI unipivot arms sound absolutely fantastic, and in more than one system. But they are just not for me.

I had the same azimuth problem with a JMW arm.  It needed  adjustment every few weeks.  In the end it turned out to be the teardrop cw was the culprit.  I moved to an Espressimo Audio half moon and could go 4 - 5 months.  Still too fiddly though.   Also, weep, warp and wobble are not uncommon with the 3D.  

When I ordered my Classic 4, I had a new SME 312s sent to VPI to have it installed. The arm sounds excellent but after having lived with it for three years, I have the following minor criticisms:
1) VTA adjustment is imprecise and not doable on the fly.
2) I found azimuth adjustment very difficult to get right. When you tighten the head shell screw, it can twist a tiny amount, which is enough to have to readjust.
3) The arm rest height adjustment requires a tiny Allen wrench, supplied, but it is difficult to contact the hidden screw. I think the screw head is now stripped.

But sonically its probably hard to beat. I find the damping paddle to be very beneficial. I filled the trough up to the top, which has greatly improved imaging and smoothness.

whitestix:

Wow, that story about your cat makes me very depressed. I think if a cat jumped on my turntable and fragged my Dynavector that I would be having roast cat for dinner.  Probably a good thing that don't have cats.  I do have a 10 year old kid, and when he was 7, he and a friend somehow managed to knock over one of my PSB towers.  It fell towards my previous turntable, but hit the corner of the rack and was diverted.  Aside from a sizable dent in the side of the PSB, nothing was damaged. Otherwise, I think I might have had roast kid for dinner that night. Actually, the looks on those boys' faces when I came into the room was almost worth the dent in my PSB.  Eyes as big as onions!  I've never seen two kids that scared!

stereo5:

I think that "creepy" is a pretty good descriptor.  I would also add "stressful".  I've never gotten used to how that unipivot bounces around. I know that they can sound great, but they are not for me.

stringreen and gpgrblu:

Thank you for the suggestion of the Counter Intuitive.  I think if I had seen this a year ago I would have bought it on the spot.  The fact that there is a market for a device like this reinforces my view that unipivots like this one are really hard for some of us to get used to.

Thank you one and all for your very helpful responses.  I bit the bullet and purchased the gimbaled Fatboy yesterday, but it won't arrive until sometime next week.  Normally I would have wanted it to arrive before the weekend, but nowadays it doesn't really matter because my wife and I are working from home and home schooling our 10 year old (for those of you reading this in the future, we are in week 6 of the coronavirus crisis). Basically, everyday is a weekend day if I want it to be, and weekends can become work days if they need to be.  I can barely remember what day it is any more!

Cheers everyone!
TMQ