If it was a budget thing then that’s fine with me. You know the sort of thing “I spent thousands on the turntable and they can’t even put a speed changer on it?” But I’m prepared to run with the designers on this one.

Some people will have an issue with this. The 300 RPM, 24 pole, AC synchronous motor is installed in a separate aluminium and steel machined assembly while the inverted bearing features a hardened stainless steel shaft, 60 Rockwell chrome hardened ball, spinning in a phosphor bronze bushing and sits on a PEEK thrust disc. Changing the speed is done by moving the belt from one pulley groove to the next. Called 3DS, this unipivot includes high quality Nordost Reference wiring. The JMW-10-3DR arm is 3D printed in design. I was also impressed with the weight of the motor (you can see the theme of this review, can’t you?) that combines aluminium and steel – again perfect for damping and a reduction in vibration. The plate helps damping, as you might expect as do the feet with their shiny chrome covers on the top of the chassis. Looking at the sturdy base – that looks more like a workbench than a turntable chassis – I noticed the aluminium plate that ran through the centre of two layers of vinyl-wrapped MDF. Tipping the scales at 36.75kg, the Prime Signature is a mass-based design and no mistake. It’s a measure of the care afforded to the platter but it’s also partly because I think VPI is using old original ‘Prime’ boxes during shipping and because the platter (amongst other items) is now thicker than their earlier Prime counterparts, the platter won’t fit in the one box anymore.Īpart from that, I noticed the weight. Well, I say box because my first of two immediate impressions were not only that the Signature arrives in two boxes but that VPI has decided to put the aluminium platter in one of them, on its own. The two initial impressions I had of the Prime Signature turntable didn’t reflect in any way its sonic abilities and both were lodged even before I opened the box. Moving beyond the original Prime design, Paul Rigby reviews the sturdy Prime Signature turntable from VPI

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