Stereophile has zero credibility anymore after what they did with Tyll Hertsens’ site. They didn’t have much credibility in recent years, but they lost the remaining they had. This is coming from someone who had a subscription to Stereophile for years.
Not much wrong with the VL12 for me personally other that the tonearm. So a better tonearm and perhaps a small digital read-out above the pitch control like the Reloop RP8000’s, and I’d be happy.