Does this do-it-all deck have what it takes to wow new and returning vinyl fans? Ed Selley takes it for a spin to find out
The rise and market share of music being purchased on vinyl appears to be pretty unstoppable. At a time when there’s an abundance of some of the most capable digital media players available at terrestrial price points, it barely seems credible that new users are buying into a product that offers the bulkiness, fragility and potential expense of vinyl, but here we are.
Taking advantage of the growing interest in vinyl from newcomers and returning fans alike, the range of entry-level turntables has seen a considerable increase over the last few years. One of the defining features of numerous budget turntables, though (and indeed the great majority of premium models too), is that the majority are belt driven. The arguments in favour of belt-drive decks seems to have been made with sufficient force that rival direct-drive models have almost completely fallen by the wayside, all of which makes the Audio-Technica AT-LP5 something to really take notice of. This is a direct-drive turntable, and it costs just £330.
This reasonable price tag doesn’t tell the whole story either, as the AT-LP5 package comes with a tonearm, cartridge and built-in phono stage that can easily be bypassed if required. And if that’s not enough, it also has a USB-B digital output connection to allow you to rip vinyl and store it as a digital file on a hard drive, and comes supplied with the Audacity computer software to help you carry this out successfully.
Surprisingly for a turntable at this end of the market it doesn’t appear that component parts have simply been lifted from Audio-Technica’s existing catalogue. The J-shaped arm doesn’t have its own model number but clearly borrows technology and ideas from when A-T was building tonearms for use on other turntable models and even uses a detachable headshell to make cartridge swapping easy. The cartridge is bespoke to the AT-LP5, although it has a more recognisable origin. The AT95Ex is a hot-rodded version of the longstanding budget favourite with a revised stylus and some other detail tweaks to improve performance. It comes in a deep red housing, which is rather easier on the eye than its pea green ancestor and is pre-mounted in an AT-HS10 lightweight headshell for easy set up.
The deck itself uses a DC-powered direct-drive motor partnered to a weighty aluminium platter. The chassis has been designed in such a way to minimise resonance and ensure that the deck isn’t susceptible to rumble – the arch enemy of designs of this nature. The platter is topped with a thick and weighty rubber mat. As you might expect from a direct drive, acceleration is impressive and the platter quickly gets up to speed within a single rotation.
Okay its not the prettiest deck at this price point – far from it some may say – but there is a sense of purpose to the AT-LP5 that gives it a level of charm. It feels faintly retro with the J-shaped arm and borrows some of the styling cues of older direct-drive designs. The plinth casework is plastic and doesn’t feel as substantial as some of its belt-driven price rivals, but it’s remarkably solid and well thought out. The only black mark in day-to-day usage and practicality terms is that there’s no dust cover supplied as standard, but one can be purchased for £24 and it comes with hinges to mount it to the plinth.
More positively, there is a very real sense – thanks to features like the detachable headshell and non captive cabling – that the AT-LP5 has upgrade potential, and it would be interesting to see just how far the performance of its tonearm could be taken with a different cartridge or headshell.
There are some genuinely useful design details, too. The feet that are fitted to the plinth would shamemany rival decks at £1,000, and the decision to equip the AT-LP5 with a three-pin IEC mains connection means that it doesn’t seem to require any form of earth grounding to be employed, which is useful when you make use of the internal phono stage into an amp that doesn’t have this connection already fitted. Setup is utterly painless, requiring you only to set the plinth on a level surface drop the platter and mat onto the spindle and attach the headshell and the counterweight.
Sound quality
Having done so, the sound that the AT-LP5 produces is subtly different to its rivals. The vast majority of affordable belt-drive turntables on sale today are commendably pitch stable, but the A-T takes this idea and runs with it. The opening piano notes of Marvin Gaye’s Inner City Blues are rock solid and this little detail has a surprising effect on the realism of the track. There is also no sign of any of the gremlins that can so often bedevil direct-drive turntable designs. The Audio-Technica is entirely free of rumble or any other form of noise, and music rises out of a silent and utterly unobtrusive background. It achieves a pleasing three-dimensional performance too, with Talk Talk’s Happiness Is Easy opening out and creating a believable relationship between voices and instruments.
Compared with the more costly Rega RP3, the Audio-Technica never seems quite as spacious or effortless, but neither does it feel unnecessarily constrained. It is happiest with a rhythm to get behind and there is a propulsive force to the way it makes music that is different to most rivals. The bass response is usefully deep and has a detail and definition that can often elude some affordable rival turntables. Leftfield’s positively enormous sounding Bad Radio is delivered with much of the fury and drive intact and there is genuine impact to the bottom end.
It’s fractionally less assured in the upper registers, but the AT95Ex cartridge sounds rather more grown up and refined than its stock cousin, although the AT-LP5 still hardens up a little at higher frequencies and at higher volumes. The effect is rarely so severe that it makes me want to stop listening or even turn the volume down by any measurable amount, but the package will respond well to a little care and attention to partnering with other components.
This requirement shouldn’t automatically mean that you look to switch the phono stage out of the system, though. The unit built into the AT-LP5 is extremely good and stands happy comparison with budget options available at the sort of price points you might be looking at. When you do remove it from the signal path – something that Audio-Technica claims is done by physically bypassing it rather than powering parts of it down – the audio signal still manages to possess a slight brightness, suggesting that the AT95Ex cartridge is the reason rather than any of the on-board electronics.
As a device for ripping your vinyl to music files on a hard drive, the AT-LP5’s rapid start and stop characteristics – along with the easy to cue arm – make it a better partner for this sort of digitalisation work than some rivals. The bundled Audacity software will only encode at CD resolution (16-bit/44.1kHz) rather than hi-res, but a test of a vinyl track ripped to a Windows 7 laptop suggests that playback results are very favourable. Like many vinyl ripping systems, the process is a little fiddly and nowhere near as straightforward as physically playing the record but none of these issues are the fault of the AT-LP5, and this value-added functionality is likely to give the deck even greater appeal.
Conclusion
Any minor quibbles about the AT-LP5 should not detract from what is a very fine package indeed. What stands out most is that it is not a by-the-numbers response from a company that wants to be in on the action in what has become a competitive product category. The AT-LP5 looks and feels different to its price rivals and comes across as a much clearer extension of Audio-Technica’s philosophy. It manages to sound wonderfully composed and brings the delights of direct drive at an impressively low price and so has become one of our favourite decks under £500.
A starter deck that delivers excellent performance at a competitive price.
FEATURES
● 33 & 45rpm
● J-shaped arm with detachable headshell fitted with AT95Ex cartridge
● Selectable MM phono stage
WEIGHT 7.4kg
DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 450 x 157 x 352mm