Install
Contents
So installing and adjusting a turntable can be quite a chore. We feel that turntables in this price range should relieve the owner in this regard. Rather than a construction kit with 30 steps and many chances for mistakes, we prefer plug and play. Record players with a built-in phono preamplifier are therefore present in this category rather than a record player where you still have to find, buy and tune a phono pre-amp.
The setup
We connect the six friendly priced turntables to the Alpha reference system.
- TAD Evolution 2 loudspeakers
- Pass Labs XP-12 and X150.8
- Sonnet Pasithea
- Mutec MC3+ reclocker with AAI pucks
- Alpha Audio PC with Jcat USB and Ethernet cards
- Pura Audio Dodo PSU (5V) for the JCat cards
- Grimm TPM cabling
- Driade Flow cabling (speaker / interlinks)
- Isotek filters(Titan / Aquarius)
- YETI Power cables
- Driade Flow Reference 808
- Van den Hul Nova speaker cable
- Primare R35 phono stage
The phono preamp is the Primare R35, our reference. Reference record player is the STD 305D with SME 3009 tonearm and ADC TRXII cartridge. Is that fair, you may ask. Connecting a 200 euro turntable to an audio system that costs roughly 20 times as much? The answer is yes. We know the Alpha reference system well and can therefore observe the differences.
We listen to the six turntables with the same tracks each time; Jazzmatazz by Guru, an album from 1993 and one of the first to combine jazz with rap and hip-hop. Analog recorded at New York’s D&D Studios. We also play Unfinished Sympathy by Massive Attack, a 1991 recording. Recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London.