Review Details

RT83 Reference High Fidelity Vinyl Turntable

Product Rating:

Product Review (submitted on August 11, 2020):

Upgrade from Sony Direct Drive due to not much choices in P-mount cartridges.

Set up is straight forward, but I use a digital stylus scale to set the tracking weight accurately.

Noticed the rotation is not consistent. I recorded the same album twice with Audacity, and the duration can differ up to 2 seconds for each side. However it is not noticeable aurally. Using an RPM app shows the wow-flutter up to 0.4% (!). Recording with Sony direct-drive (with Quartz lock) do not have this speed drift problem.

The output level of 2M red is also a bit high compared with my old Grado Black. It drives my Hagerman Bugle-2 phono preamp to clipping at 40dB gain. Have to re-configure via resistor change to 38dB gain.

This higher level output may be why many people find the turntable/cartridge dynamic sounding. It is also a bit on the bright side and sounded dry with classical music. Surface noise is also quite high at around -50dB, worse than Grado cartridge. Quite noticeable with headphone at louder volume. But you have to put your ear near to speaker to hear it.

That's probably the reason Fluance PA10 preamp is set at 38dB gain. However 2M red may have problem with other preamps in the similar price range such as Pro-ject phono box MM (40dB).

Overall, it is value for money and good for listening to rock genre music with deep bass via speaker.