As an audio technology tester, reviewer and journalist, a lot of my time is spent listening to the latest audio equipment – such as the best wireless speakers – in order to understand it and put it into context relative to the best price-comparable products of its type.
Of course, the ‘turntable revival’ has been underway for so long now that it’s hardly a ‘revival’ at all any more. Record players are just simply another source of audio content, and vinyl just another storage format. An expensive and delicate storage format, true – but one with such an experience factor that it’s worth paying for.
Like quite a few alternative sources, record players are available at a huge range of prices, from ‘medium-sized round of drinks’ to ‘medium-sized German sports car with many options boxes ticked’.
For the purposes of Luxury Month, given its name, I’ve focused on high-performing turntables that are truly high quality, luxurious and unavoidably expensive – but not so expensive that you’ll need to sell a kidney in order to acquire one.
Here’s why these three luxury records players strike a brilliant balance between ‘luxury’ and ‘performance’ brilliance.
3 Best Picks
Technics understands the power of its legacy – and it’s arguable that no audio product has greater resonance than the ‘SL’ range that has been going strong for over 50 years now. For the SL-1300G, the company has dispensed with some of the DJ-centric peripherals that has made its record players synonymous with a big night out – but it hasn’t scrimped where build quality or simple desirability are concerned. There’s no suggestion that sound quality is anything less than ‘stunning’, either.
Available from Peter Tyson
Vertere Audio has turntables in its line-up that cost ten times the money it’s asking for the DG X with Groover Runner X tonearm and Lite Sabre cartridge combination – but this package could nevertheless constitute the sweet-spot of the company’s entire range. Utterly single-minded in its engineering (look at that unusual flat, broad tonearm for starters), brilliantly bold in execution, and straightforwardly thrilling to listen to, the DG X could conceivably be the only record player you’ll ever need to own.
Available from Doug Brady Hi-Fi
In the world of luxury turntables, it’s not unheard-of for companies to get carried away where design is concerned to the detriment of performance. But that’s not the case with the EAT C-Dur Concrete. Yes, its concrete plinth is visually dramatic and sets this record player apart – but the EAT most certainly has it where it counts. Even the bits that aren’t made of concrete have a little pizzazz about them – which means this is just about the most ‘talking point’ turntable you could ever conceivably buy.
Available from Yorkshire AV
Technics v Vertere v EAT: Pricing
You didn’t expect an overtly luxurious record player to come cheap, did you? Just as well, because none of these three fine items can reasonably be described as ‘affordable’.
Still, at least the £4150 / $5400 / AU$8500 Vertere is asking for the DG X (plus Groove Runner X / Lite Sabre) is the actual price – it buys you a system that’s complete with (pre-fitted and pre-adjusted) cartridge, a power supply that was until recently a cost option, and a pair of very acceptable stereo RCA cables for connection to an amplifier.
That’s not the case with the Technics SL-1300G. At £2799 / $3299 / AU$4999 it’s a fair bit less expensive than the Vertere – but when you realise that you’ll need to buy an appropriate cartridge (and you can consider £500 or so the minimum outlay for something that will do some justice to the turntable and its tonearm) as well as similarly capable interconnects, the word ‘bargain’ has ceased to apply.
EAT doesn’t include a cartridge with the C-Dur Concrete, either. Unlike Technics, though, which just leaves you alone to make a decision, EAT strongly suggests its own ‘Jo No.8’ high-output moving coil cartridge. So £6499 / $7499 / AU$12,999 gets you the turntable and its tonearm, while the Jo No.8 cartridge will set you back another £1999 / $2499 / AU$3999.
Technics v Vertere v EAT: What’s unique?
(Image credit: EAT)
Each one of these turntables is pretty special, to be honest – but each is special in its own way, and they are quite distinct from each other.
Technics SL1300G
The Technics is, as we’ve all come to expect from the company’s ‘SL’ range of turntables over the years, built to survive a fairly big detonation. It weighs over 13kg, of which almost 4kg is its aluminium/brass/rubber platter.
The platter is on a bulk moulding compound chassis that’s topped with aluminium, and it’s turned by a ‘coreless’ direct drive motor that Technics suggests is immune to rotational instabilities – because smooth, accurate rotation means smooth, accurate sound.
It’s fitted with a lightweight aluminium pipe tonearm of the static-balance S-shape Technics has been perfecting for decades – high-precision bearing, gimbal suspension and multi-stage counterweight are among the technical highlights that let you know where your money’s gone.
Vertere DG-X
The Vertere isn’t as overtly bomb-proof as the Technics, but the standard of engineering is nevertheless impressive.
The precision of the turntable’s systems – its bearing, its motor arrangement – is unarguable, and the attention to detail extends even as far as the cork/neoprene/nitrile mat that sits on the aluminium platter. Vertere is adamant this mat will have beneficial effects on ultimate sound quality.
Yhe Groove Runner X tonearm is 240mm long and a slightly strange flat shape – it’s made from two bonded lengths of five-layer polymer in an effort to eliminate the resonance peaks tube arm designs can suffer from.
Attention to detail extends from its tri-point articulation and adjustable counterweight for help with cartridge-matching to a magnetic arm rest that means you don’t have to use a clip to make sure the tonearm is secure.
EAT C-Dur Concrete
In some ways it’s quite obvious what’s special about the EAT (which stands for European Audio Team) – the clue is the ‘concrete’ part in the name.
But it’s worth noting that EAT hasn’t gone to the trouble of casting a 32kg concrete plinth just to be contrary – the material is about as good as it gets when it comes to rejecting resonance and vibration.
It also allows EAT to specify an internally damped 5.2kg platter with a sub-platter that isolates it from the motor and takes the total weight over 6kg.
A Teflon plate mated with an inverted ceramic main bearing gives tremendous rotational stability by belt-drive standards.
The EAT is fitted with a long (254mm) carbon fibre / aluminium tonearm, arranged in a uni-pivot design to ensure the bearing (itself designed for maximum stability and minimum friction) is never overloaded.
Technics v Vertere v EAT: Which sounds best?
(Image credit: Technics)
‘Best’ is a tricky one here. It almost goes without saying that each of these record players sounds very, very good indeed – so asking which is ‘best’ is almost like asking whether apples or oranges or pears are ‘best’. They’re all great, but they taste quite different.
The Technics SL-1300G is a robust, entertaining listen that doesn’t scrimp on the details and expresses rhythms with the sort of certainty that makes every tune a dancefloor banger. It strikes a nice balance between ‘entertainment’ and ‘analysis’ and never strays too far over the line in either direction.
The Vertere has a similar knack of peering deep into a recording to extract every shred of information – but, crucially, it manages to be meticulous without being prissy about it. It creates a…