Audiophile Grade Vinyl Player (Turntable) Buying Guide

Vinyl sounds great. On modern high end players they looks great too. Many families across the globe has good collection of records but players has been beyond repair. Here is an audiophile grade vinyl player buying guide. If the title making astonished – vinyl player manufacturing continued and modern vinyl players have Blutooth, USB, WiFi. We are not really getting back the original mechanical vinyl players with tubes. These players are more like any modern high end audio devices. There are ultrasonic vinyl disk cleaners too. Turntables can range from $50 up to $200,000 price range and it is obvious that a $50 turntable is just expected to do the job. More modern features will be added, more there will be sophiticated components, more the price tag will go high up.

Audiophile Grade Vinyl Player Buying Guide

There are many things to know about turntables. A smooth-tipped stylus is used to play the recorded groove whereas a chisel-like stylus is used to engrave the groove into the master record. There are two kind of reading system of the players. One is tonearm system which uses a pivoted lever, free to move in two axes with a counterbalance to maintain tracking pressure. In another system arm is not pivoted, instead carries the stylus along a radius of the disc. Such arms are known as linear tracking or tangential arms. Tonearm system is most common. Most systems today, when accept input from a turntable are configured for use only with magnetic cartridges. Manufacturers of high-end systems usually have in-built moving coil amplifier circuitry, or outboard head-amplifiers supporting either moving magnet or moving coil cartridges. The vinyl/turntable can be driven either by belt system or directly driven by motor. Each of the systems alone and or in combination has advantages and disadvantages. Vinyls have RPMs such as 33⅓, 45, 78.

Image credit : https://searchturntables.com/

So a rough checklist can be :

Playback Speed : Ideally an new player should support three speeds – 33⅓, 45, 78.

Direct Drive versus Belt Drive : A belt does the separation of motor noise. The belt also acts as a dampener reducing noise and vibrations. But belt is eventually can wear out or rarely slip off. A direct drive turntable has consistent rotational speed and can spin the platter backwards and forwards with great accuracy.

Manual versus Automatic : Manual or automatic is matter of placement of the tonearm. Automatic models move and place the tonearm itself.

Stylus and cartridge : Quality of stylus and cartridge is big matter. Also availabillity of repairing, parts, upgrade are important points to consider.

Design : Classic transparent lid design protects the parts from gathering dust. We noticed that some of the players lack mat.

VICTROLA VSC-550BT-BK costs only $60 but not closest to just bad or audiophile at that price. Rega RP3, AMG Viella V12, Clearaudio Concept are within $2000 budget turntables which are direct drive and supports 3 speeds :