Turntable Reviews

Setup
The VPI Forever Model One arrived complete. Its manual detailed essentials: chassis, clamp, gauge/rod, motor assembly/cover, finger lift, flash drive, belt, power cord, jig, platter, tonearm, and isolation feet. If my experience of other VPI turntables is any guide, the Forever Model One should be straightforward to assemble. By the time this review is published, setup videos should be available.

VPI supplied their Goldy MC cartridge and a pair of VPI-branded, Nordost-made DIN-to-RCA interconnects for use in this review. Neither is included in the purchase price.

Listening
To assess the Forever One, I listened to The Great Jazz Trio's ReVisited (LP, Eastworld EWJ-90002), Jerome Sabbagh's Vintage (LP, Sunnyside SSC 1698), Art Pepper's Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section (LP, Craft Recordings CR00491), and Frank Sinatra's Come Dance with Me! (LP, Capitol Records W 1069), plus vinyl from my latest find, UK keyboardist Greg Foat.

With a perpetual twilight ambiance, Greg Foat's The Glass Frog (LP, Blue Crystal Records BCRLP 07) elegantly weaves lush EDM synth textures with subtle jazz improvisations. This creates a bridge that could make jazz accessible to a younger generation while honoring its improvisational core. Imagine Sade crafting adventurous soundscapes for jazz aficionados; Foat's work resonates similarly.

With the VPI Goldy
The F1/Goldy pairing played music with the unmistakable VPI signature: an unwavering rhythmic pulse, a wide soundstage, a gracefully unhurried pace, and palpable pleasure in playback. Its performance reminded me of The Who's Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy: It delivered music with purpose and directness, focusing on fun and forward flow.

While the F1/Goldy's soundstage was consistently broad and deep, its focus was the midrange, with airy treble. The bass, though full, was not exceptionally extended. (Was it the cartridge, the 'table, or both?)

Listening to Sinatra's "Come Dance with Me" from the album of the same name made me feel like I was at the recording console, not in a listening room 66 years later. Sinatra's heavily reverberant vocals flowed from a large stage, sounding rather hi-fi and unnatural, just as it does on this quirky 1959 recording.

Jerome Sabbagh's Vintage fared better, with a juicier, fuller low end and truer, more certain tonality. Art Pepper's "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To," from Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section, was pleasant and propulsive, with a touch of brightness on top—a constant with the F1/Goldy pairing.

Cartridge comparisons
Exchanging the VPI Goldy for MoFi Electronics' UltraGold MC cart realized considerable improvement in every sonic parameter. Through the F1/UltraGold pairing, LPs acquired fresh lucid-ity, expressed through more instrumental and ambient detail. Instruments emerged with noticeable definition, creating a more vivid, dimensional soundfield. Crucially, the F1 retained rhythmic integrity, conveying tempo and momentum with agile forward flow. Nuance, subtlety, refinement, texture, and what I call "the interior life of a record" emerged more completely. This was a game-changing cartridge upgrade, the Forever One realizing the cartridge's full potential.

When I mounted the VPI Shyla MC cartridge ($2000 compared to the Goldy's $1200), the F1 seemed to shapeshift, the sound precisely reflecting the sonic characteristics of each cartridge upgrade. Now the soundstage was fully fleshed out—and vast: top to bottom, back to front, side to side. The Shyla also improved micro- and macrodynamics, sounding closer to a live event. On Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section, Art's playing, Philly Joe Jones's blazing swing, and Paul Chambers's deep, resonant bass now swaggered and swung. More than just hear, I could feel the music. With the Forever One/Shyla combination, music playback was large-scale and moving.

Phono stage comparisons
All the listening described up to now utilized the PrimaLuna EVO 100 phono stage, a great all-rounder that allows on-the-fly loading and gain adjustments. The other phono stages I have on hand—the Allnic H-5500, the Tavish Audio Design Adagio, and the Manley Chinook—are very different beasts.

The Allnic H-5500: An all-tube unit in an all-aluminum frame, the H-5500 uses Permalloy transformer cores, four NOS E180CC twin triodes, one 7233 voltage regulator tube, and no negative feedback. The Forever One took to the Allnic like my ear-brain takes to a Prestige record by Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. The combination portrayed music with more body and liquidity, though images were smaller than through the PrimaLuna and the soundstage shrunk a little. The channels integrated better, with more treble sparkle. The sound was more intimate, palpable, and immediate. The Forever One and the Allnic H-5500 are a solid match.

The Tavish Audio Design Adagio: I recently heard that the two-box Tavish Adagio is two months backordered. There's a reason it's so popular. The Adagio uses three 5751 tubes, two EF86/6267 tubes, and one 12AU7A tube. Its moving coil input is transformer-balanced using a stock Jensen JT-44K-DX. Art Pepper, Paul Chambers, Red Garland, and Philly Joe Jones now filled my room. Dynamics were superb, center fill was complete, and the top end was wide open, resulting in sounds ranging from sparkling to peaky-hot. The Forever One + Adagio's music sounded alive, robust, and immediate.

The Manley Chinook: With nearly endless loading options and a tube complement of two 6922s (gain) and two 6922s (output), the Chinook has been a Stereophile Class A Recommended Component for years. Though darker toned and less resolving than the Adagio, the Chinook, paired with the Forever One, swaggered across my room with the most natural, artifact-free sound I'd heard yet. Coherent and smooth, with bold images, the Chinook matched the Tavish for glorious tone and dynamic charge. Once again, the Forever One proved a synergistic partner, producing excellent results.

Conclusion
A well-built, heavy-duty turntable founded on Harry Weisfeld's new suspension system and joined to an all-new aluminum tonearm, the Forever Model One turntable prioritizes playing music. Like all VPI 'tables I've heard, it boogies well, swings hard, and seems replenished with every new spin. Designed for upgrades and highly sensitive to ancillary components, the F1 offers muscle-car performance with speedster handling. Recommended.