DESIGN & FEATURES
Who’s got the brain, who’s got the looks, who needs you to make lots of money?
Presumably most of ProJect’s punters never listen to seven-inch pop singles
The parts of the turntable market each of these decks are aimed at is as clear as the difference between Ronnie Corbett, Ronnie Barker and John Cleese in that comedy sketch about the British class system from the 1960s.
The Audio-Technica AT-LP60XBT is the lumpen proletariat. It weighs about the same as a newspaper, feels extremely plasticky and looks like something from the Seventies. However, its ugliness is only skin deep. Unlike the other brands here, Audio-Technica is very clear that this is a Bluetooth record player, not a record player that happens to have had Bluetooth added to it. There’s a big Bluetooth pairing button and a flashing light that makes it fairly obvious what’s going on during the pairing process.
The only other output is a 3.5mm socket around the back, which can be switched between line and phono level output. Because why would you buy a wireless turntable and then wire it to something? Again like a deck from the Seventies, with this you just press a button and the arm clicks up and across and plays your record – just like that! When finished, it clicks back to base. A switch lets you choose between seven- and 12-inch disks. There’s also a button to choose the speed: 33 or 45 rpm.
No such luck with the middle-class Pro-Ject Essential III BT. Here you have to manually move the belt drive to
change speed – presumably most of Pro-Ject’s fusty punters never listen to seven-inch pop singles or 12-inch dance remixes and just keep it on 33rpm forever. Around the back there are not one but two pairs of RCA outputs – one line level and one phono, to plug into a turntable pre-amp or amplifier phono stage.
Again though, why would you pay extra for a Bluetooth output on your deck and then plug it in with a wire? The Pro-Ject is such a handsome thing compared to the Audio-Technica that this is all very forgiveable, though.
The Cambridge Audio Alva TT is definitely the wireless turntable for, if not ‘the 1%’ then certainly the top 20% or so. Its look is understatedly premium – rather austere, in fact – and it weighs about the same as a stately home. It has aptX HD instead of the more déclassé vanilla aptX.
Again there’s a line level output via what is, by all accounts, a very high quality Cambridge Audio phono stage, but again, why would you use it? Speed selection is via a button, but you will need to manually move and lower the needle into position. Or get your butler to do it.