Since the dawn of the creation of the turntable DIY designers and engineers alike have continually experimented with its architecture. The pursuit of this labour spanning decades has given the world some pretty stunning results and we scoured the world to bring you a list of 10 masterfully crafted offerings.
Just a note before we begin — some of these turntables are difficult to obtain or unobtainable altogether. If you are hoping to purchase a deck you could check out our feature on record players that wont break your bank (or vinyl).
Enjoy!
The Shrine — Sigurd Larsen
The Shrine is a hub of drawers and doors accessible only with keys. Private items can safely be locked away in small spaces. For the very most personal items a secret room can be reached behind one of the drawers. The rooms have been scaled after typical accessories and gadgets. This way jewellery, makeup, records, headphones, an LP player, as well as private papers and your best whisky can inhabit the Shrine. It becomes your most private place in the house.
Reboot — Siddharth Vanchinathan.
The objective with the Reboot was to reimagine the layout and design of the modern record player with the end goal of doing more with less. The result, the beautifully minimal design seen alongside with all the features of all full fledged record player with 50% less footprint. A pre amp is also included inside so that the audio output can be directly plugged into a speaker.
The Nordic Concept Reference turntable —
A Better Life Audio Group
Based on previous experiences and long time planning, the use of the finest components and techniques and an out of the ordinary design, this little baby is the ultimate in analogue record playback. The design has Nordic roots and is purposely a giant step away from typical chrome and acrylic looks. It will attract notice for sure and as Better Life propose, “you will notice the subtle musical truth of your records”. The Nordic Concept will suit anyone who cares for untraditional design and technical solutions.
Silvian Audio Workshop
Silvan Audio Workshop specialises in high-quality, completely unique turntables crafted by a father and son team from natural hardwood, shaped and finished by hand. The heart of each turntable is components from the legendary English audio wizards at Rega, who have made their reputation as leaders in high end, elegant, incredible sounding audio gear. The glass platter shows off the beautiful wood, but it’s also heavy for speed stability and made for precision. The tonearm is a result of masterful engineering, designed to move your music all the way to your speakers just the way it was intended to be heard.
Davinici Audio Gabriel
Yep, that’s Switzerland for you. This incredible, almost heroic piece of design weighs a massive 165kg, with all four arm bases installed. Yep, four arms. Like we said, Switzerland. This thing is about as intricate as an Audemars Piguet watch, almost to the point of being totally excessive. After all, we reckon three arms is probably enough, no? You’ve got one for the stereo cartridge, and you want one for the mono cartridge, maybe another for a 78 cartridge, but then that fourth one? That’s anybody’s guess. Oh yeah, and it costs $79,000.
Transrotor Artus
Listing at a cool price of about $164,000 (in Canadian funds) The Artus FMD is one of the most expensive turntables that money can buy and is sure to become a status symbol of exorbitant riches among vinyl junkies turned multi millionaires the world over. The unit itself is as grandiose as its price, weighing in at a monstrous 485 lbs, and measuring four-feet-high high and five feet in circumference. Through the use of three separate motors, the platter does not come into direct contact with anything that may cause the slightest vibration, catering to even the most demanding audiophiles.
Debut Carbon DC — Project Audio
In line with turntables with a much higher price tag, the Debut Carbon has a carbon fibre tonearm and heavy platter to reduce resonance for smooth, clear music, and comes pre-fitted with the Ortofon OM10 cartridge to match.
Sony Flamingo PS-P5
Sold by Sony in 1983, the PS-P5 is a small, portable turntable which runs off regular batteries or an external power supply. It plays 7″ or 12″ records at 45 or 33.3 RPM and most impressively it will do so either laying down or standing up, due to its linear tracking, direct drive and record clamping system. It has dual headphone sockets so you can listen with a friend or plug it into an amplifier. A nifty swivelling foot arrangement stows in the base of the player. Upon rotating the rubber-covered chrome plated steel feet, they extend out of the front and rear, giving extra stability when standing upright.
Michell Transcriptor
This table was designed to vanquish tonearm friction, and it did. How? By fixing the tonearm to the lid and by making the platter itself move from right to left. Exactly. And Why Not? Never to be repeated, the Transcriber effectively took the rule book and threw it out of the window. With its jeweled 2″ wafer of an arm the Transcriber, surprisingly or not, plays superbly. Not many of these tables have survived the last 45 years or so but their owners love them — as they should. May they spin for a long time to come!
Beogram 4000 — Bang & Olufsen
Not just a matter here of style over technology, this innovative turntable embraced both stunning design quality with state-of-the-art materials and technology. A heavy platter driven by an electronically regulated servo motor linked together with two arms read the grooves of the record being played via tangential tracking. It also automatically sensed the size of the record being played and set the speed accordingly. Clever stuff indeed, especially for 1972..
