Features

With the vinyl resurgence, we live in a golden age of well-made turntables, many of them at prices affordable to one and all. From Rega to Pro-Ject, Thorens to AMG, Acoustic Signature to VPI Industries, J. Sikora to Clearaudio, E.A.T. to Michell, and many, many others in between and beyond, modern turntables come at every price point, using materials as common as MDF and glass to brass, aluminum, carbon fiber, copper, glass, and even gold.

Naturally, some basic questions remain — such as, what are the elements that make for great turntables, and what separates tables of lower value from higher value models? We’re glad you asked.

The performance of a turntable is influenced by several critical factors. Cheap models with plastic tonearms and non-replaceable cartridges often struggle to control vibrations, introducing distortions and potentially damaging records. And, as Rega founder Roy Gandy observed in his 2016 company history A Vibration Measuring Machine, a turntable is fundamentally a vibration-control device. Its primary function is to isolate and manage vibrations, both those generated internally and those transmitted from the environment. The quality of a turntable is determined by its ability to minimize these vibrations, thereby allowing the music signals etched into a vinyl record to be reproduced accurately and without distortion.

High-quality turntables, on the other hand, excel in areas such as motor-speed accuracy, tonearm/cartridge/stylus tracking precision, vibration damping, and material selection. These factors collectively determine a table’s ability to reproduce music faithfully and without distortion.

A turntable is an electro-mechanical device. When you consider the practically infinitesimal information engraved into a vinyl disc, and the processes required to excavate and amplify that tiny signal — far smaller in volume than that of a CD/digital player or a phone — it’s really quite remarkable when you consider the brain power that has been applied to turntable technology.

In the halcyon days of the 1950s through the ’70s, when radio stations across the globe hummed with the playback of leviathan turntables from the likes of EMT, Thorens, AR, Fairchild, Denon, and Garrard, a new age of audio fidelity dawned. These behemoths, with their unwavering precision and relentless work ethic, were the linchpins of a sonic revolution.

There is still a market for these golden machines. My own Thorens TD 124 turntable, which was made in 1957 and is currently outfitted with a Korf TA-SF9R tonearm and Denon/OJAS DL-103o cartridge, is a major piece of hi-fi profundity. Turn over this heavy-duty, belt-idler wheel-driven beast, and its undercarriage resembles — no surprise — a Swiss timepiece. The durability of the TD 124 and its ability to play with life-like dynamics and pacing is practically unparalleled, even among modern turntables.

Naturally, the Thorens TD 124 has all the ingredients that make for a great turntable, including a strong motor that remains unchanged in my model since it was built, giving playback the consistency required to replicate live music. Its heavy steel platter with excellent damping characteristics is driven by a combination rubber belt/idler wheel propulsion that creates excellent pacing, rhythm and timing, or PRAT. A sturdy metal frame, typically set into an aftermarket wooden plinth, offers a stable base.

Early Thorens tables originally came with Ortofon arms, but my model came with its original Thorens arm, which was limited in the array of carts it could handle. The Korf arm (and, before it, one from Jelco) — handles a wide variety of carts, comes with a detachable, SME-type headshell, and it offers vertical tracking angle (VTA) and azimuth adjustment. This Thorens also features a strobe with light and speed adjustment via a large metal switch for choosing between 33⅓, 45, and 78rpm playback. (Now, you don’t need a strobe and motor adjustment for speed stability — but, hey, it helps.)

Let’s recap. Basically, a turntable should provide a stable platform for platter and stylus to maintain its momentum, suppress any unwanted vibration created by the stylus/record interface, and isolate the platter and arm from environmental vibration and motor noise. Cheaper tables don’t allow for speed adjustment, and they also often fail to offer adjustment for VTA, azimuth, or even leveling feet — so, if you want those feature on your table, you will have to pony up more cash.

So, with all of this in mind, let’s delve a bit further into what makes for a great turntable by looking at some real-world examples. The following tables used to illustrate these important features and choices at a variety of price points — from an entry-level low end of $650 on up to a champagne-aspiration level of $30,000 — are all ones we’ve reviewed and vetted. We hope you’ll find this to be a baseline primer for what to look for when you’re shopping for a new turntable, regardless of cost.

Between $500 and $900
Inexpensive tables are absolutely worth a look. For example, the recently reviewed Pro-Ject T2 Super Phono turntable ($649) boasts a sleek, lightweight design featuring a 10mm thick, 1.7kg tempered-glass platter. Additional highlights include a spring-based anti-skating mechanism, nickel-plated counterweight, and electronic speed control for both 33⅓ and 45rpm. The T2 follows the Rega approach of using a lightweight design to free vibration, rather than suppress it.

The T2 table also sports a familiar-looking Pro-Ject tonearm and ¾-inch CNC-machined plinth, all contained in a slightly oversized overall footprint. That, along with Pro-Ject’s vaunted trickle-down technology, separates this model from the typical new-turntable-purchase contenders in this under-$1K price range.

The T2 Super Phono table, which weighs 12lb, is designed and manufactured with an eye to eliminating “resonant hollow” spaces, the idea being to eradicate internal standing waves, disrupt resonances, and generally provide a better launch pad for the booty of your vinyl habit. Eliminate — or at least disrupt — noise/resonances, and you’ve gone a long way in actually hearing what is buried deep in the grooves of your records.

The Pro-Ject T2 table is free of plastic, and it boasts a heavy-ish glass platter, good for resonance control and maintaining constant speed. Not surprisingly, at this price point, VTA and azimuth adjustment is nonexistent. However, the T2 offers a sturdy plastic subplatter that sits atop a 0.001mm main bearing extending to a steel axle with a brass bushing. This, along with its solid tonearm, precisely machined plinth, and defeatable onboard phono preamp, makes the T2 Super Phono perhaps the table to beat in its entry-level, sub-$1K price range.

Right at $1,000
Jumping up to the $1,000 range, Italy’s Gold Note joins the stakes with their formidable T5 turntable. As some might see it, the T5 isn’t cheap, per se — but it’s my belief that, if you’re serious about your music, $1K is a reasonable fee for this level of build quality, smart design, and rock-solid performance that a table like the T5 offers, one that also happens to share trickle-down tech from Gold Note’s excellent Mediterraneo X.

Made entirely by hand in Italy, the Gold Note T5 employs a 15mm thick platter made of clear glass, which “provides the right density and structure to extract fine details from the groove while minimizing noise,” according to the company’s site — which continues by adding, “The platter is matched with an inverted bearing, an elegant solution to increase the stability of the platter while also ensuring frictionless rotation.”

The Gold Note T5 table’s black lacquered plinth is 23mm thick and made of lacquered HDF (high-density fiberboard), which is an inert undeformable material shaped and cut in strategic areas around the motor and the platter spindle to avoid the propagation of vibrations. The T5’s motor is 12V, 24-stepped synchronous, as customized for Gold Note by Mechtex. The counterweight is made of black painted brass, while the headshell is 3D-printed of a hardened, synthesized photo-polymer.

The T5 includes the B-5.2 static balance tonearm that employs four custom-made micro ball-bearings, a 1mm thick aluminum 6000 alloy arm wand, and AWG36 Hyper Litz, shielded, 99.9999% OFC continuous copper wiring from the headshell to the connecting RCAs cable — a very rare choice for a turntable in this price range. VTA is adjustable via a grubscrew on the assembly shaft. Azimuth is also adjustable via two grubscrews set at the junction of the tonearm and headshell. Anti-skating is the familiar nylon filament and aluminum ball arrangement. The bulk of the tonearm assembly is aluminum as well. Clearly, for the $1K price point, Gold Note has stepped up their game with the T5, which boasts a number of features you should consider at the literal grand-dollar level.

Right at $2,500
At $2,500, the Technics SL-1200GR2 direct-drive turntable is a major contender is this price range, and it features a direct-drive motor, 9in static S-shaped gimbal tonearm, stroboscope, target (stylus) light, diecast aluminum platter, four insulator feet, and slider pitch control.

Advances with the Malaysian-built GR2 series include, according to Technics’ official press release, “a revolutionary new drive control method for smooth, accurate rotational stability, and a new power supply for an exceptionally low noise floor.” The GR2’s multi-stage silent power supply combines, as stated on the Technics site, a “low-noise, high-speed power supply working at over 100kHz, and a noise-canceling circuit inherited from our reference class turntable SL-1000R, cancelling remaining noise by injecting the reversed-phase current of the actual noise. By this method, a very low noise floor is achieved, enabling exceptional signal-to-noise ratio, improving the overall signal performance.”

The GR2 table offers a wealth of trickle-down technologies, not only from more recent tables of theirs but some running back to the 1970s. The GR2 includes a silver or black two-layer plinth made of aluminum diecast and BMC (Bulk Molding Compound), standard S-shaped aluminum tonearm, platter made of aluminum and damped with rubber on its underside, and large insulator feet. It’s a solid machine that makes quite the statement at the $2.5K entry fee. What’s not to love?

Between $2,500 and $3,000
Legacy brand Michell are known for their GyroDec, a table that offered a number of unique technologies. Michell’s belt-driven TecnoDec Reference turntable ($2,698) streamlines those technologies into one lightweight, spry offering that includes an outboard motor to keep its vibration away from the platter, adjustable feet, and included Michell T3 tonearm, a reworked Rega 330.

According to Michell’s site, “The TecnoDec is our entry-level turntable, and it shares many features developed for its bigger brother the GyroDec, such as a vibration dampening, impedance matched platter, inverted oil circulating main bearing, and a free-standing motor unit. The TecnoDec is an unsuspended turntable that utilizes technologies and materials only found in much more expensive turntables, to perform well above its price point.”

The TecnoDec table includes Sorbothane feet inserts in three pod-like aluminum footers that, Michell claims, “isolate the turntable from the supporting surface.” The TecnoDec is a non-suspended table, meaning there’s nothing to cushion the spinning platter from the rest of the table, so it requires a good isolation platform.

Furthermore, the TecnoDec has something called an “impedance-matched” platter made of Delrin, a very popular platter material often found in turntables priced $20K and above. It’s used for its similarities to vinyl, and a vibration-dampening characteristic that produces a very neutral sound characteristic.

Its motor is machined out of solid aluminum and is completely separate from the turntable, meaning it doesn’t touch the table in any way. This stops any noise or vibrations created when the motor is running, getting through to the sensitive parts of the turntable.

Finally, Michell played it smart here by using a legacy, proven arm design from Rega. The TecnoDec table’s general design is again, based on the Rega approach of “light and easy does it, every time,” to misquote Frank Sinatra. At a price point of just a hair under $2.7K, the Michell TecnoDec offers options typically found in more expensive tables.

Right at $3,000
Rising up the food chain, the Thorens belt-driven TD 1500 turntable seemingly replicates the TD 160 model many of us had growing up with its suspended design, fat selector switch, silver and black color scheme, and decidedly old school, Ortofon-looking tonearm — all of which comes in at a hot $2,999.

The TD 1500 table also features an included Ortofon 2M Bronze cartridge, Sanko Silent DC motor, 1.4kg aluminum platter, single-ended (RCA) and balanced (XLR) outputs, and a Ruby bearing for its anti-skate nylon string “for lowest friction,” according to the Thorens site.

The TD 1500’s plinth is made of MDF topped with aluminum, its platter is diecast aluminum topped with a thick rubber mat, and the armboard a multiplex layer with an acrylic top plate. The suspended board is made from Alucobond, a double-layer, aluminum material with POM in the middle.

The TP 150 tonearm is made entirely of aluminum, as are the table’s three non-adjustable footers. The TP 150 arm was designed by Helmut Thiele, and it includes a detachable headshell (SME connector), and the aforementioned Ruby bearing for the anti-skating weight. A two-piece aluminum counterweight allows for a range of cartridges from 5 to 30g — bring on the Ortofon SPU! Anti-skating is determined by a sliding weight in the armbase, controlled by moving the weight on a nylon thread guided over the Ruby bearing. Azimuth is adjusted by loosening the cover of the armbase and turning the tonearm in the correct direction to establish accurate azimuth. VTA involves turning a small screw in the side of the armbase.

Clearly, Thorens upped the ante for the TD 1500 table’s $3K price point. As you can see, more expensive turntables like this one feature greater investment in R&D, and they come with onboard tools that address most every possible setup parameter, as well as greater quality parts and components.

Between $5,000 and $9,500
Acoustic Signature’s Maximus NEO turntable ($4,995) is often sold with the TA-1000 NEO tonearm ($2,495) and the Maximus MCX3 moving coil cartridge ($1,695). High cotton indeed, as they say down south. The approximately $9,200 buy-in fee gets you some serous German craft, some of the finest in the business.

Handmade in Germany, the Maximus NEO — successor to the manufacturer’s still popular Maximus turntable — features an AC motor with external super-stable multi-voltage power supply and integrated digital motor controller, as well as Acoustic Signature’s AVC (Automatic Vibration Control) technology along with an ultraprecise, extremely rigid and robust DTD (Dura Turn Diamond) bearing with diamond-coated spindle, a resonance-reducing aluminum alloy chassis, an aluminum platter, gel-damped adjustable feet, and a five-year warranty (with registration).

Acoustic Signature tables, from their top-of-the-line $200K Invictus NEO down to the lower-tier Maximus NEO, are overbuilt, beautifully designed, feature innovative technology, and are destined for heirloom status. As with most serious hi-fi manufacturers, products in this price range often benefit from trickle-down technology, and the Maximus NEO gives you a taste of the company’s top-tier goods via the aforementioned Dura Turn diamond bearing, automatic vibration control, and constraint layer damping feature set. At the $5-$9.5K entry window, the NEO table offers every possible adjustment parameter, premium parts, a Brutalist design esthetic, and a history of premium German manufacturing knowhow.

Between $10,000 and $15,000
When I reviewed the Thorens TD 124 DD turntable ($11,499) for our sister site Stereophile, I was admittedly wary of its direct-drive motor, and whether it could possibly match the exceptional rhythm and pacing of my original belt and idler wheel-driven TD 124. That said, the 37.5lb TD 124 DD includes a 3.5kg, 5/8in tall, diecast aluminum platter, replacing the original’s iron main platter. The newer 124 also adds an external power supply, which goes a long way to make a turntable dead quiet by excluding electronics from the plinth. The TD 124 DD uses a “12-pole [. . .] direct drive motor,” as per Thorens press materials. That direct-drive motor replaces the original’s most distinctive feature — a drive mechanism that utilized both a belt and an idler wheel.

The TD 124 DD’s four aluminum leveling dials and 45rpm adaptor replicate the original, as do its illuminated strobe gauge and spirit level. The chunky aluminum switch that operated both power on/off and multiple speeds on the original machine now offers only 33⅓ and 45rpm. A second aluminum switch operates the nearly silent electronic cueing device, much like the mechanical switches on the armboards of early Thorens TP 14 and BTD-12S tonearms, but now with electrons. The table also included the TP 124 tonearm, which consists of an internally damped aluminum armtube with a heavy brass counterweight.

If you’re wondering how so much could be put into a turntable at this level, I can only quote my review, which stated that, “The designers’ most heretical move — replacing the original 124’s peculiar drive system, which resulted in a turntable with fluidity and, well, drive — with direct drive has achieved an even more propulsive sound, with a somewhat larger soundstage and better dynamics.” In other words, you’re going to get a lot of bang here for your $10-$15K parlay.

At the Champagne Level of $30,000
The Clearaudio Reference Jubilee turntable ($30,000) is the second-best turntable I’ve ever reviewed. (Which one’s the best? Theorize below in the Comments section.) It seemed to free music of all styles to dance and sing, jump, and howl, not to mention boogie and barnstorm, entirely free of earthly constraints. I no longer thought about frequencies, soundstage, low-end grunt or high-end extension, or other table-reviewer’s words like transparent, holographic, gritty, 3D, or the like. It played music like the real event — like a living, breathing performance.

The Reference Jubilee table excels in all areas of construction, materials, design, and execution. Clearaudio doesn’t use a massive steel platter in the Reference Jubilee to suppress vibration — they use a stainless steel, flywheel subplatter. Clearaudio uses POM or Delrin in the main platter, a material that has good resonance control and very low Q Factor — as in, not much ringing.

Limited to 250 units worldwide, the 48lb Reference Jubilee is shaped like a boomerang and features a Panzerholz plinth, a patented Ceramic Magnetic Bearing (CMB) that “produces the effect of the turntable platter effectively floating on an air cushion” (according to Clearaudio), Optical Speed Control (OSC), Innovative Motor Suspension (IMS), a new motor, and an updated Jubilee MC cartridge (albeit not included at the Reference Jubilee’s $30K cost).

The Reference Jubilee’s upper bearing housing has a sintered bronze bushing fitted precisely to the ceramic axle. It supports the 1.97in high, 11.2lb POM platter and the 0.59in-high, 18.7lb metal subplatter. The 9in Clearaudio Universal tonearm has been updated with Clearaudio Silver internal wire and a DIN connector. The tonearm tube is carbon fiber, while the bearing housing, engraved counterweight assembly/scale, armrest platform, four supplied counterweights, and motor cover are aluminum. The tonearm’s threaded shaft is steel.

As you can see, this table is a fine example of practically a cost-no-object design that evaluates every parament of playback and addresses it with brilliant design, premium parts, a legacy background, and a novel wholeness rarely seen in any turntable.

I concluded my review with the following: “The purchase may impoverish you, ruin your marriage, make your children stop talking to you, and cause your dog to disown you. But every time you spin a record on the Clearaudio Reference Jubilee, your joy will be complete. I promise.” If you’ve got $30K to spend on a turntable, this is how to do it.

What’s in a Turntable: Conclusions
As in all things in this American life, you get what you pay for. But with dedicated turntable manufacturers considering customers of all types, interests, and wallets, you should be able to find a truly great turntable that fits your current needs, handles your upgrade aspirations, and/or addresses all the essential parameters of solid design and performance for practically any price. Happy hunting, and happier spinning!!

Author bio: Former musician, former artist, and former legal wastrel Ken Micallef has written numerous hi-fi equipment reviews for Stereophile and Analog Planet, and his byline has also appeared within Mojo, Electronic Musician, and The Grammys. You can also find him at YouTube (Ken Micallef Jazz Vinyl Audiophile).