Thank you Patliean1 for all the troubleshooting and your detailed assessment.

We have been working on resolving the headset play issue some customers with the separate bar/stem combo have experienced and are happy to announce that the issue has been resolved by increasing the thickness of the C shaped bearing press by 0.5mm.

All shipments since April have been sent with the new bearing press and we have also sent it to existing customers that have been affected and it has resolved their issues.


Interesting.  I received a VB-R-177 ordered in May with the old-style C-ring (thinner, with the prongs) and have not been shipped a replacement ring.  I will email you.
The C-ring supplied has the headset play issue described by others here. The problem is two things:

1.  The prongs on the C-ring prevent compression of the system
2.  The half-round form of the C-ring allows play.  It should be a 270 degree sector minimum.

Also the headset supplied had only one 52mm bearing plus compression ring and a smaller bearing with compression ring and circular dustcap.
I have ordered an FSA ACR to compare.