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 - Piano Black

Hard to beat for the price. Sounds like it should cost twice as much. Gorgeous table with equally gorgeous sound.

Sound quality is superb, well built and beautiful turntable. Proudly Canadian.

My nearly fifty year old Dual 1218 turntable was having serious problems that I couldnt fix, but I was skeptical about buying a new turntable having been told that they dont build them like they used to. It used to be that top quality turntables were all direct drive, while the cheapest were belt drive. But modern technology such as electronic speed control have changed everything. Anyways, the performance of this turntable with its Ortofon 2M Blue stylus is a vast improvement over my old Dual 1218 with its Acutex stylus. Its also nice that it is supplied with premium quality RCA cables. Im amazed with the sound clarity on all my records, each instrument sounds just right, the vocals are clear and the artists voices are true to what they sounded like when I heard them live, the channel separation is excellent and all the subtle background sounds can be heard as well. There is a downside to this sensitivity in that every little scratch and nick in my old worn records can be readily heard as snaps and pops. As to the speed, its spot on as verified with a strobe light and disc. The speed controller really does its job so theres no need for a manual pitch control like in the old days. The turntable runs completely silent with no mechanical or feedback noise, so you really cant tell its even turned on until the stylus contacts the record. The auto stop feature is great since it not only stops the turntable at the end of a record, but also only starts it when the tonearm is removed from its rest and placed over the record. Since it is connected to a switched power outlet at the rear of my receiver, I simply leave it turned on all the time with the speed set to 33.

Ditto

This is a great sounding turntable. I recently replaced my rega pl1 with this. And so far Im very impressed. Its got some weight to it and feels sturdy and well built but its not a plug and play. You need to know what youre doing when balancing the tone arm for the first time. Watch the tutorial videos on the fluance website first. After that shes all good. Happy spinning!

I am updating my original review. I have since listened to a lot more material and even got a second preamp with capacitance control to try to try to further improve the sound. The Fluance with the Ortofon blue is still bright sounding compared to both my Shure V15 Type IV and compared to CDs of the same albums. The bright sound does give you more presence, but it can be harsh on cymbals etc. The turn table itself is quite good - the issue for me is the Ortofon Blue. I am using Martin Logan ESL speakers in a small carpeted room. I have both a solid state amp (Sound Artist SA-200IA) and a tube amp (Willsenton R8) I switch between as well as several preamps, and I find the same results pretty consistently. I can adjust out the brightness with tone control on the SA-200IA (the R8 does not have tone control), but this is never necessary except when I use the FT85. Clearly many other people are OK with the tone but these are my observations for you to consider.

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The turntable is made made in Taiwan which I didn’t know when I bought it. I assume the cartridge made in China also. Sound distorted to the point can’t listen. Loud rumble from from turntable also poor shock dampening so when someone walks on the floor the turntable jumps all over. This replaced my $200 Sony which is far superior to this as super quiet, no distortion, no rumble, good shock dampening and sound better than live. I actually believe the cartridge is probably bad or needle bad due to poor quality control. I feed this to a tube pre amp and tube amp same as Sony but now replaced the fluance with my sony until I return the fluance or send the cartridge in for repair. I did t know that blue cartridge is only the middle of the ortofone line and several are higher end. When I bought the Sony I was stunned by the sound. I shouldn’t have bought the fluance.

This turntable is a great value if you look at the cartridge and acrylic platter included. I primarily elected to purchase this over a Pro-Ject or other competitor due to the included auto-stop feature in case I ever forget to stop the turntable or get busy doing other things. With that said, I tend to actively listen to my records with an IFI Zen Phono Pre-amp, Schiit Magni 3+ amp, and Sennheiser 6XX headphones. I dont have another higher value turntable to compare but the sound from this is an improvement over the JVC linear tracker I was using. I followed the setup instructions to set the tracking force and checked afterwards with a scale. The value was dead on at 1.80g.

Unboxed and setup was easy. The white gloves were a nice touch. I admit I struggled with the tonearm counterweight and needed to watch a Fluance video to set it properly. It was not overly clear, but all things being equal it was the first TT I have ever setup.