FluanceRT81 Elite High Fidelity Vinyl Turntable Record Player with Audio Technica AT95E Cartridge, Belt Drive, Built-in Preamp, Adjustable Counterweight, High Mass MDF Wood Plinth - Piano Black

Firstly the plinth is solid and very heavy. The walnut finish is good and you can see each one will be individual. The platter is very nearly perfectly flat. I have never seen one totally flat but this is as good as I have seen. My eyes miss nothing unfortunately for me. The tone arm is quite light but that's no bad thing. Overall it is well put together and for the reasonable price, well finished. Sound wise it is just fine. There is a slight hum noise if you turn the volume up full with nothing playing but I was expecting that. It is presumably the built in pre amp and might not do it if you by pass the pre amp and use an external one. Otherwise I am delighted with the sound it produces with the built in pre amp. Tracking seems faultless. It was very easy to put together. It shows every speck of dust on the walnut surface but what could be done about that? Perhaps the white one would show less but probably wouldn't look as good. To clarify a couple of points. Some reviews say it has a plastic tonearm. It does not. The arm is aluminium painted black to match the aluminium platter. Likewise the speed knob is solid feeling metal. The whole thing is very solid and well made. The cartridge sounds excellent. Some reviewers have mentioned speed variations but I have detected none. It was between this and the Rega Planar 1 for me. The Rega has no pre amp so you would likely need to buy one and has, I believe a much lighter plastic plinth. It is also £50 more. It is doubtless an excellent machine but I am glad I chose the Fluance RT81. I heartily recommend it.

Fantastic turntable for the price quality build and perfect sound and easy to set up and looks amazing 5 stars love this turntable

I wanted a turntable to be able to listen to my teenage stash of LPs stored in the cellar. I fell for the looks. I was not looking for something high-end to start with and in this price range RT81 is a very good choice. Assembly was easy and useful, since I learned how to change a headshell, important for future upgrades. Soon enough I went for Nagaoka mp110 which came with a pre-mounted headshell and was extremely easy to install. Operation is straightforward. The tt has an auto-stop feature which is short of automatic but I don’t mind. The tt has an internal preamp but I rather use one on my integrated amp and there is a switch for choosing between internal and external. Soundwise, to my mind, the most significant difference in sound quality depends on quality of vinyl. There are records that are just poorely recorded or pressed, or both. On the other hand, on a good quality vinyl, the tt rocks. This counts both for the native AT95E cartrige and for Nagaoka mp110 that I use as standard. Curiously, my ears are not good enough to hear any difference between Tidal stream via Marantz NA6006 network player and the tt (when I compare a good quality vinyl and Master quality stream). CONCLUSION: the tt is aesthetically pleasing, easy to assemble and operate, upgradable, and produces more then satisfactory sound that also requires adequate amplifier and speakers to live up to its full potential. On the down side, aluminum platter displays some (very minimal) wobbling, something that other Fluance owners have objected to. This made me doubt whether a rt85 would make a better option and it probably would. However, when it comes to audiophile grade tts only sky is the limit and for an average ear it seems reasonable to opt for a tt which looks and sounds more then very well instead of paying a much higher price for a barely audible improvement of sound. [equipment used: Marantz PM-KI Ruby amplifier and KEF R7 speakers]

Firstly the item arrived quickly and was well packaged, first problem was the box indicated that it was a piano black unit, I ordered walnut, well I took the plunge and opened the box and found a walnut unit as ordered, nearly sent it back without opening the box.As for the turntable it goes together easy enough comes with the old version of the audio technica AT95E good all round cartridge but not as good as the VM95 E a good upgrade for the future.The on board pre amp and auto stop are nice inclusions and makes this pretty much a plug and play turntable.Sound quality on par with most entry level turntables at this price range. The audio technica lp120 usb X slightly more expensive but comes with more whilstes and flutes but is more DJ orientated.Summing up good turntable nice walnut finish at a good entry price.