Fluance RT85 Reference High Fidelity Vinyl Turntable Record Player with Ortofon 2M Blue Cartridge, Acrylic Platter, Speed Control Motor, High Mass MDF Wood Plinth, Vibration Isolation Feet - Walnut

I am really enjoying this turntable and listening to my record albums again.

This turntable is great. Great price, amazing sound and a quality platter that not many turntables come with these days. If you want sound not altered by anything digital this is the way to go. The big catch on this one, you will need to buy a pre amp as well. This turntable doesn’t come with one built in, for the sake of not altering the sound digitally. The Fluance one on Amazon works great, but it is definitely necessary.

Takes a bit of patience to put together. The white gloves are a nice touch to leave no greasy finger prints while assembling it. I had to take one off several times to make adjustments for weights, cartridge and balancing. Better with bare hand for accuracy. I love how accurate it tracks and it’s very smooth. Unlike any turntable I’ve owned. It’s definitely an investment for vinyl lovers. I traded up from an Audio Technica lp-160. The Ortofon cartridge has a nice, but exaggerated high and low end sound on my Polk speakers. I have 2 towers with built in subs, 2 extra A channel front speakers, large center speaker and rear center speaker, for an extra surround sound, 2 wall mounted rear speakers and 2 very small Energy effects channel speakers, in a small living room. It’s sound immersion to say the least. I like to switch to my Sure TypeIV cartridge for some playback. It’s a much lower volume cartridge, but cost twice as much as the Ortofon. I’m still just breaking the turntable in, but the sound it reproduces is pretty amazing. Definitely the best turntable under $500 on the market. You will not find a better price anywhere else. I looked for three months. It’s the same on eBay or Overstock.com or direct from Fluance. Highly recommended. P.S. the auto stop function does not work for me either. I was asked if it’s power rating: the web site says 100-240 volts. It should work anywhere in the world then. Hope that helps. An update! I like the cartridge it comes with, a huge bargain in the price of the turntable. I upgraded to the Ortofon 2M Bronze in July. It sounds even better now! It’s almost as expensive as the unit itself, but so worth it. BTW, you can’t just change out the stylus. Red&Blue only or Bronze&Black only. They have different engines in the cartridge to match the correct stylus. Thanks for looking. Further update. I bought the Ortofon 2M black stylus to go with the bronze. It’s a huge investment, cost double what the turntable does, but omg. The sound it produces is amazing. It takes a few months to break in, then wow! I bought it to play my quadrophonic albums. It has a shibata stylus that gets deep into the groves for amazing sound. I hear things that I had never experienced before. New instruments, and background vocals. It’s also very unforgiving on poor quality or worn vinyl. It exposes every flaw that is on the record. So mainly newer or Japanese pressings only. I can change out the black for the bronze in about a minute for poorer quality pressings. They both work on the same cartridge, which has a faster motor than the blue one does, which makes for superior sound. If you upgrade I recommend the PNP premounted cartridge. It’s lighter weight, just plugs in, no alignment worries for a few dollars more.

For the money and its looks this turntable knocks it out of the ballpark! I looked and studied this table for a year before I pulled the trigger and purchased it. My previous table is a Technics SL-1200 MK2 and it is in excellent condition. I mounted a Audiotechnica AT-120E on it, and after learning how to align the cartridge,adjust tracking weight and anti-skate along with the VTA and arm height I thought was sounding great! I thought of ordering the 2M Blue and putting it on the technics table for an upgrade. Once I received the Fluance table and set it up I was blown away by its sound! I was hearing things I hadnt heard before on my 1st table. The sound and seperation was truly amazing. It caused me to go on a vinyl spending spree that Im still on! My lps I purchased in the 70s and 80s sound amazing along with the newer 180 gram albums Im collecting. Just wish I purchased the table sooner!