Turntables

A turntable has one job and it is mechanical. Turn a record at exactly the right speed, hold a cartridge steady over a groove that is moving, and keep the vibration of the motor and the room out of both. Everything else on the specification sheet is downstream of those three things.

What newcomers usually expect is that the sound comes from the turntable. Most of it does not. The cartridge and the stylus do the listening and the phono stage does the amplifying, and the deck's contribution is negative: it either adds noise, speed error and vibration, or it stays out of the way. A plain, well made deck with a good cartridge beats a showy one with a poor cartridge, reliably, and the budget should be split with that in mind.

Start with how much setting up you want to do. A deck sold with the cartridge already fitted and aligned, the counterweight preset and the belt on, is the difference between playing a record tonight and reading about protractors. That convenience costs a little flexibility later, and for a first deck it is usually the right trade.

The drive question comes next and it is smaller than the internet makes it. A belt isolates the platter from the motor's vibration and asks for a new belt every few years. Direct drive puts the platter on the motor, reaches speed immediately, and is designed to hold it against the drag of the stylus. Good examples of both exist at every price. Do not let the argument pick the deck.

The tonearm is the part to actually look at, because it is the one you cannot easily change and the one that has to suit your cartridges. Adjustable tracking force and anti-skate are not negotiable. Adjustable height matters if you expect to try cartridges of different body heights. A removable headshell turns a cartridge swap into a two minute job instead of an afternoon, which is worth a lot to anyone who intends to own more than one.

Then decide what should be built in. Many decks now include a phono stage, and some add a USB output or Bluetooth. A built-in phono stage is a convenience and a saving, and it is also the part you will bypass first if you get serious, so it should not be the reason one deck beats another.

Last, and most often skipped: budget for a decent cartridge, and for a level, solid, non resonant surface to stand the deck on. Both do more for the sound than the next step up in plinth finish.

Speed stability is what people are describing when they call a deck solid or vague, and it is measurable. Wow and flutter is the specification, and a test record with a phone app will show you yours in ten minutes. It is also the fault that arrives with age as a belt stretches or a bearing dries, and it is cheap to fix once you know it is there.

Isolation is the failure most often blamed on something else. If the speakers share a room with the deck, or the deck sits on a shelf fixed to a wall with a subwoofer underneath, acoustic feedback makes the bass sound bloated and woolly long before it becomes an audible howl. Move the deck before you change anything on it.

Dust covers are argued about and the argument is not close. A cover down while playing can colour the sound slightly. A stylus and a record collection living in dust costs far more than that. Use it, and if it bothers you, lift it off while you listen and put it back afterwards.

Money stops buying improvement later here than in converters, and it still stops. Past a point you are paying for machining, mass, plinth materials and bearings whose remaining errors sit below what the cartridge can resolve. The budget that produces the best sound for most people goes on a solid mid-priced deck, a better cartridge than it shipped with, and a careful setup.

The dullest item on this page is the most important. Level the deck with a spirit level, set the tracking force with a gauge rather than by the numbers printed on the dial, and check both again after a year.