Just as every athlete guilty of using steroids will deny, deny, deny, so that there is no way of telling them from the clean athletes, so will a manufacturer deny, deny, deny using parts from China, whether they are or not. So nobody on this forum, including me, having been involved with manufacturing in industry for 30 years, has any idea whether what VPI says is true or not.
If the quality and finish levels were absolute top notch, insanely good like Boulder, then we could say they were probably done in USA as opposed to China. Obviously, that's not the case.
I can tell you with certainty there are manufacturers at higher quality and prestige levels than VPI that indeed use off-shore suppliers for the bulk of their parts yet claim everything is made in USA. I know some well. I hate to say this but in the end, does it matter? There are plenty of poor tolerance things, including turntables, made exclusively in the USA.
In the end, maybe the importance is more of a philosophical thing, and a concern for country thing, not wanting to keep exporting jobs.
