Review Details

RT85 Reference High Fidelity Vinyl Turntable

Product Rating:

Product Review (submitted on March 21, 2021):

So I started my vinyl hobby by stealing my mom's Crosley 5-in-1 record player and taking it to college with me. That was a year and a half ago. After getting acquainted with the Crosley, I started buying some of my favorite albums on vinyl. The first record I bought was Business As Usual by Men At Work. I played that record hundreds of times, much to the annoyance of my two roommates. Eventually I became dissatisfied with the built-in speakers and the tinny quality the Crosley would produce. Sometimes it was playing brand-new records and it would "skip" which is apparently a common issue among the brand. I would send records back to where they came from or frame them instead of listening to them.I dove into my vinyl research. I had no idea where to begin. When I started, I was only doing my research on turntables. I didn't know I would end up buying 3 more external parts to complete my setup. But after months of thorough research, I finally decided on this turntable. I had decided on an Audio-Technica at first, but the more research I did the more I realized that was a very "basic b*tch" turntable, as they say. Well, after reading the Amazon reviews on this Fluance turntable, I knew that this was the right one for me. Auto-stop was the biggest reason that I found this turntable to begin with, and I'm so glad I did. But I haven't even used the auto-stop function yet...My setup: Fluance RT-85 turntable, Schiit Mani Preamp, Denon AVR-S540BT receiver, and Klipsch RP-150M bookshelf speakers.Some things I learned as a first-timer:1. It's really not as hard as it seems to get everything set up.2. Get a shelf or shelves with enough surface area for the receiver, preamp, and turntable.3. Get speaker stands.4. Make sure you have the cables you need. You're most likely gonna need to buy your own speaker wires, RCA cables, and ground wires. I had to run to Lowe's and buy a pair of RCA cables last minute! These companies are sending you a product but only telling you what cables you need. Including them is for amateurs I guess.5. But seriously, setting up the turntable took less time than organizing my record collection. This table is REALLY easy to set up.6. Balancing the tonearm is not as hard as it looks. Just make sure you're turning the whole counterweight and not just the dial when it tells you to... save yourself an hour of troubleshooting. ;)7. Clean your records before you play them, and use an anti-static brush every time you put one on the turntable, unless you like the sound of popcorn in your speakers.Overall, I came here to say that the sound quality is AMAZING... I can't possibly put into words how much of an upgrade this is over the ol' Crosley. Before, my new records sounded dated right out of the box, like I was listening to audio recorded on a flip phone. I thought it was a charming part of the vinyl experience. But listening to my Fluance, I will never, ever give up the clear, crisp, sweet sound of a good vinyl setup. I just put on an album I've listened to at least a thousand times in my car and I immediately heard a guitar plucking that I've never picked up on before. It's like I'm in the studio with the band playing in front of me, and it's beautiful. This is the way music is meant to be enjoyed. It's so good, it makes me emotional. I don't know if I'll ever get over the way this sounds until I've listened to my whole collection 3 times over. So I'm off to do that now...