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Audio-Technica AT-LPW50BTRW Turntable Bluetooth Manual Belt Drive Wood Base Rosewood

£124.995£249.99Clearance
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Whether that's a codec compatibility issue or something else, the fact remains that the Bluetooth implementation and pairing process in these wireless turntables (which aren't necessarily cheap) is a letdown. It needs to be better thought out and offer the same seamless standard that we get in current Bluetooth headphones and speakers. Otherwise, it's a real frustration in what should be a really easy playing process. As part of the next generation of turntables, Audio Technica has brought in an internal selectable phono stage (pre-amp) which allows you to plug the turntable into standard or turntable input on your amplifier.

There are technological and audio advancements being made in wireless headphones all the time; I'd love for Bluetooth turntables to be given the same level of care and thought. Gives us young 'uns more choice, I say. And if that's an entry point into better sound quality and even getting into 'proper' hi-fi – well, that's no bad thing at all. Audio Technica AT-LPW50BTRW turntable is a belt driven turntable that features a number of very high performance features and technology into a beautiful design that should sit well with any hi-fi system. High Performance Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge. The belt motor has a built-in speed sensor that aims to maintain perfectly accurate rotation speeds, and there’s adjustable anti-skate control on board too.

The Audio-Technica AT-VM95E delivered all the songs on ‘Harvest’ smoothly, fluidly and very musically, and you can’t really ask for much more than that. Flutter was measured separately for both speeds, again using both CCIR and DIN measurement techniques. At 33.33 rpm Newport Test Labs measured flutter at 0.05% (CCIR) and 0.045% (DIN). At 45 rpm, flutter was measured at 0.055% (CCIR) and 0.05% (DIN). You just need the right speaker, the right accessory, and a little know-how. Allow us to show you how... Which Sonos speakers support a record player?

The Era 300, Era 100 and Sonos Roam and Move speakers can also connect to a turntable over Bluetooth, providing the turntable has Bluetooth, of course. To pair, press and hold the speaker's Bluetooth button – when you hear a chime and the status light flashes blue, it's ready for pairing. Then press the pairing button on the Bluetooth turntable, such as on the Cambridge Audio Alva TT V2 or the Audio Technica AT-LPW50BTRW. When the LED on the turntable goes solid, you know it's paired. The great thing about this record player is that there are different ways to listen to your music. You can connect it via AUX or phono output if you want to use the turntable amplifier, a receiver amplifier, or a dedicated preamp, meaning it works with both new and vintage setups. The older members of team What Hi-Fi? are sometimes puzzled why the younger generations are so taken with vinyl, but it makes sense to me. When streaming from Spotify or Netflix from your smartphone or laptop has been the norm, vinyl records – and turntables – offer a wonderfully tactile, physical sense of ownership and connection to music that a digital stream simply doesn't. Being able to disconnect from the shiny screen of doom and instead interact with physical products also does wonders for your mental health.Connectivity is largely the same, with a selectable phono preamp and dual RCA output for wired connectivity, along with Bluetooth support. You’ll have to re-pair every time the connection is broken (for instance, when you pair the headphones with your smartphone again), but it is stable when it works. We can see many opting for this combination of the Audio Technica turntable and, say, the Sonos Era 100 (a single or stereo pair) as their main sound system. It’s convenient, attractive and takes up much less space (and costs less) than a full stereo hi-fi system. On this album van Veen stretches the concept of slowness to the extreme. One critic wrote of it that: “he creates an hallucinatory effect, a kind of minimal music avant la lettre.” The belt for the Audio-Technica AT-LPW50BT-RW turntable attaches to the drive motor’s pulley underneath the cast-aluminum platter. If you demand a more traditional approach, the wooden finish and fully manual operation of Audio-Technica's AT-LPW50BTRW might be more appealing.

Detacable RCA output cables allow you to plug into the system you choose or if you prefer the clean look of no wires, then you can harness the Bluetooth option on this turntable to join any active speaker of your choice. Beautiful Finish If you're connected over Bluetooth, the speaker should start playing automatically as the vinyl spins on the record. Make sure you've switch to the right output on the turntable (Audio Technica says to use the Line output on the AT-LPW50BTRW) when using Bluetooth.

Setup process

The built-in selectable phono preamp and detachable dual RCA output cable enable direct-wired connection to components with or without a dedicated phono input. And it sounds good, too. Bluetooth may not be the best-sounding connection, but we live our daily life with Bluetooth earbuds and speakers offering great sound and value for money, so why can't Bluetooth turntables sound good, too? The quality of the vinyl stream also depends on the quality of the speaker you choose, which gives you plenty of choice in just how good you can make the system sound. You can opt for a high-end Naim Mu-so Qb model or even an active stereo pair like the Triangle AIO Twin, but more affordable (and more convenient) options such as the Era 100 or Audio Pro C10 MkII would be perfect choices. We'd steer away from more budget speaker offerings from Ultimate Ears or JBL – they're decent, but your vinyl does deserve a better class of speaker quality. The red trace on Graph 4 shows channel separation vs. frequency and you can see that channel separation reaches a best result of 27dB at 1kHz (7dB better than specification), and maintains this level of performance out to around 6kHz before diminishing to around 20dB at 10kHz and down to 10dB at 20kHz. As mentioned in the introduction to this review, the Audio-Technica AT-LPW50PB has a phono pre-amplifier built in, the output of which is at the rear of the turntable.

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