Turntable Reviews

Let’s head off at the pass what will surely be in the comments section under this review of a remarkably compact, full-featured, remote-controllable music playback system that includes in a single box, a high quality Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Esprit 3 speed turntable with dustcover, fitted with an Ortofon 2M “Silver” cartridge (incorrectly identified as OM2 on the Andover website—it’s similar to the Ortofon 2M Red but with fewer winds of the same silver-plated copper wire found in Ortofon’s 2M Bronze and 2M Black) that alone sells for $599 and includes an acrylic platter and 8.6” carbon fiber tonearm, an A/D converter, a 192/24 bit DAC, analog and digital inputs plus a subwoofer “out”, Bluetooth ( Qualcomm APT-X) streaming and built in amplification (2 x 70 Class D watts to woofers and 2 x 30 watts to tweeters) and of course multiple (6) high quality speakers (4 “long throw” aluminum diaphragm woofers and a pair of Air Motion Transformer tweeters originally invented by Dr. Oskar Heil that uses metal-etched folded polyethylene sheets to move air in process we won’t go into here!).

Audio Note have long been revered for their turntables, tube amps, DACs, and speakers, and our review subject today happens to be one of their current turntables, Namely, it’s their the TT-One Deluxe table, which has been paired here with the British company’s own AR One/II tonearm and IQ I MM cartridge for maximum Audio Note magnificence. Read Ken Micallef’s review to find out what the Audio Note TT-One Deluxe table is made of, and how it fared come listening/evaluation time. . .

As it did for so many other designers and manufacturers of specialty audio gear, the current occupation of Basis owner/designer A.J. Conti began as a hobby and personal quest. A longtime audiophile and home-based dealer of brands like Krell and Quicksilver, Conti decided to build his own "killer" turntable using a fluid-damped suspension.

Cambridge Audio’s $1699 Direct-Drive Alva (named after Thomas Alva Edison) is not the first “plug’n’play turntable, but it’s the first serious, well-engineered one that combines set up ease with high performance, both mechanical and sonic. An added attraction is high resolution Bluetooth SBC [lowest resolution 320 bit MP3]/apt X/apt X HD [up to 24 bit/48kHz Hi-res] functionality that allows wireless connectivity to a Bluetooth loudspeaker or headphones.

Part New Jersey diner, part Wurlitzer jukebox, with a snakelike tonearm that at certain angles looks vaguely lewd, this boxy, man-sized creation from Australia seems to have been built around its distinctive looks rather than for any functional purpose. Combine that with its sky-high price—itself almost obscene—and the result is apparently the sort of product that envious, cynical, self-loathing audiophiles love to hate, and reviewers love to write about.