Review Details
RT85 Reference High Fidelity Vinyl Turntable
Product Rating:
| Overall Performance |
Product Review (submitted on August 18, 2021):
Having owned the RT-85 for over a year now I thought it was time to finally do this review. Our RT-85 gets used four or five times a week for at least a couple of hours each use.
The Piano Black finish is what we dislike the most about the RT-85. It's not durable at all. Meaning, when you clear a record off and all the debris falls on the plinth, you have to do something to clean that debris off every once in a while. You can't use a soft swiffer or even use the softest micro fiber cloth on the RT-85 plinth because you will scratch the finish! For this reason the only thing you can safely use to clear off the plinth is a can of compressed air. The finish is so easily scratched we actually have couple scratches around the speed selector and have no clue how they even got there, had to be from just turning it on and off. So the slightest touch can actually scratch the piano black finish. We can't use the white gloves every time we play records! Thought those were just for the setup. Anyhow, if we had it to do all over again we certainly would never have chose the piano black.
The cue lever feels extremely cheap, this is my only other complaint about the RT-85. But I need to remember the extreme value of this turntable purchase, the Ortofon Blue is a $236 cartridge and the acrylic platter is a $120 upgrade. So in reality the RT-85 is a $143 turntable that comes with $356 worth of upgrades. When I remember this, I suppose the cheap feeling cue lever is not really something to complain about.
My 2 star deduction is solely based on what I feel is a very poor durability finish. We take pride in our HI-FI gear around here and want to keep our gear looking beautiful for as long as possible. With the RT-85's Piano Black finish and our regular use, I don't believe that will be possible. I'm considering disassembling the turntable and taking it somewhere to have it professionally vinyl wrapped. I can't think of any other solution to cover the poor durability finish.