Turntables

The turntable's job is to spin a record at a constant speed, in a stable plane, without transmitting any of the mechanical noise that surrounds it into the cartridge. Every design choice in the category — bearing, platter material, plinth construction, suspension, motor placement, tonearm geometry — is a different answer to that problem. The good designs answer it convincingly enough that the differences between them become a matter of presentation rather than competence.

Alma carries analog from $899 through statement-tier. Technics's SL-50C and SL-G700M2 are the modern Japanese gateway and reference — the SL-50C is the most affordable serious analog source we carry, and the open door to the category. Thorens's heritage German-Swiss lineup spans the entry-to-mid tier with the TD-1601 and TD-1600. Thales from Winterthur, Switzerland builds the TTT-Compact battery-powered iron-free turntables and tangential-headshell tonearms that one reviewer described as the best-made products he'd seen in three decades. Reed from Lithuania makes the 3P and 5T statement tonearms with adjustable geometries. Nagra rounds out the lineup with the Reference Turntable for the statement-tier buyer. Setup, alignment, and cartridge matching are handled on delivery — analog rewards the time we put in at install.