Yesterday, I went to an AudioNerd meeting hosted by VPI at their lovely house that exists for the sole purpose of listening to various hifi systems. The only furniture are folding chairs and a couple very comfortable chairs for when Harry is there listening alone. And nice racks of a bazillion records.
Harry and Matt Weisfeld are two delightful, generous hosts. When I first got there, Harry was thrilled to show me his newest find in gatefold jacket sleeves—how’s that for down to earth? Then he showed me pictures of his Corvettes and DB9.
Before anyone arrived, Harry demoed a Sugar Cube. It’s amazing. I might buy one for my 60, 70 year old albums. Snap, crackle, pop–turn it on and pristine music. And in that 5 minute demo, I couldn’t hear it degrade SQ at all.
Here are a couple pictures taken after pizza and bourbon.
Was this in northern NJ? I’d love to go to one - or even host one in NYC.
It’s in Matawan, NJ.
There were a few guys there from NYC.
O.K., now I need to add this to my regular culinary routine.
Cheers!
SEE
Applications being accepted for night watchman?
I heard these speakers a number of times in Harry’s house when I’d go visit him. HW always had a way to make everything sound like music. I was so happy when Mat and Harry launched VPI House. The great stuff I heard there over the years.
I’ve had the original SugarCube SC2 for years and highly recommend them. Getting rid of clips and pops is absolute magic. I hear no degradation of the music at all.
Michael, Matt, & Mike | Fremer Visits The VPI House - YouTube
If one has the time to view and is so inclined…
Lot of Alta Audio talk as well
Best,
-JP
I also have an original Kickstarter era sugar cube. Takes the last remaining pops out of cleaned records and/or reduces the loudness of pops/clicks of unredeemable records to reduce their annoyance. The new ones have digital outputs for digitizing your records. I have no idea how the sound quality compares to the various programs that perform/permit noise reduction
some PSA gear there
At the beginning of the video (1:19) there is a shot of a prototype VPI stand-alone arm pod in red. I saw an announcement of the pod (can’t remember where) sometime ago. As I am in the market I wrote VPI and was told the project was on hold for the foreseeable future.
I am looking to add another arm to my Avenger and am not a fan of their current (clamp-on) arm mount so I want to find a stand-alone arm pod or have a more substantial arm mount machined
Any thoughts on stand-alone arm pods that won’t break the bank, say under 1K? Been looking at the TTW offerings, any others I should be looking at?
Best,
-JP
I’m not sure if TTW offers just arm pods but you can try. Their tables are very high quality and glad I snagged one while it was in production. I think the only one they make is the the high end $30K table with a 100 lb pure copper platter!
Yeah, nice turntables, they do make a couple pods
Who makes these? How do I find um online? You guys have piqued my interest.
Brand name is Sweet Vinyl Sugar Cube. Look at sweetvinyl dot com Not cheap, but very effective.
Ron, did they know that you’re a Linn guy? 
Funny—I got there 30 minutes before anyone else and I had Harry all to myself.
He asked and I told him that I’m very interested in his direct drive HW-40, but I have an LP-12.
His reply was “the LP-12 is one of the greats”. A gentleman.
But then he told me that the HW40 will “kick it’s ass”.
I came away really liking the guy.
Harry is one of the good ones. 
He’s an enthusiast and he’s not always leading with a sale.
I’m happy I have had the good fortune to call him a friend these last many years. Mat is also a good sort; unlike his father, though, he’s hard to pin down - literally! I swear there have been times when I thought I saw him in three different places at once! 