Audio-Technica AT-LPW50PB Manual Belt Drive Turntable - Piano Black

Product Information

On this album van Veen stretches the concept of slowness to the extreme. One critic wrote of it that: “he creates an hallucinatory effect, a kind of minimal music avant la lettre.” There’s a commitment to good materials, smart additional features and flexibility for adding other audio components of your choice that makes for a turntable that will grow along with your love of vinyl. Those looking to make the next step on their vinyl adventure should definitely stop off here.

The Audio-Technica AT-VM95E delivered all the songs on ‘Harvest’ smoothly, fluidly and very musically, and you can’t really ask for much more than that. The platter is a lightweight cast aluminum construction with a fixed radius for the flat belt and rib-like bracing towards the center to prevent platter resonance. The flat belt is already stretched and can be grabbed with a red ribbon from the top through the side hole. You put the platter on the platter bearing and pull the belt carefully over the pulley – done. The AT-LPW50PB is equipped with a built-in selectable phono preamp and a detachable dual RCA output cable to enable direct connection to components with or without a dedicated phono input. FEATURES The AT-LPW50BT-RW turntable made the album sound even better when it had a wired connection to a component system. I tested it with both the built-in phono preamp and through my own NAD phono stage. The dedicated NAD unit sounded better with slightly more detail, but not by as much of a margin as I expected. Should you buy the Audio-Technica AT-LPW50BT-RW turntable? priate force and resolution such that we could follow subtle instrumental strands even during the most climactic moments. The stereo image delivered was so precise it was easy to identify the position of instruments anywhere across the soundstage. ConclusionThe AT-LPW50PB is the top model among the belt-driven budget players, but has to find itself well behind the more elaborate mid-range player AT-LP7 in the hierarchy. This one also has belt drive, but at double price. This is a manual belt-drive design with a speed-change control at the bottom left of the top of the plinth. Regardless of whether it’s playing at 33.3 or 45rpm, the Audio-Technica’s sensor-monitored drive motor is designed to deliver precise rotational stability and consistency. The belt turns a pro-standard anti-resonance aluminium platter. The tonearm is a straight-line carbon-fibre statically-bal­anced type with spring- applied anti-skating. Related: Best turntables Audio-Technica AT-LPW50PB build & features – Connections give it flexibility for hooking up other sources

We put on the current Woodkid album S16: The Audio-Technica AT-LPW50PB presents the lush string arrangements in a wide and powerful way in an impressively large space. That should correspond to the intention of the producer, who not without reason put the orchestra in London’s Abbey Road Studios recorded. Their huge Studio 1 is famous for its rich, wide sound. And Audio-Technica reproduces this very well.With a phono pre-amp built-in, the AT-LPW50PB connects to almost any hi-fi or speaker system. The phono pre-amp boosts the signal to line level, meaning you can connect it to any device with an AUX input. If you’d rather use your amp’s phono pre-amp, then simply switch off the turntable’s one. The high dynamics of the album, which, in addition to acoustic orchestra and vocals typical of Woodkids, also offer a wealth of electronic sounds, do not cause any stress for the inexpensive player. This confident impression is repeated in other records from current and ancient production. With the LPW50PB you can also venture into “difficult” material and don’t have to be afraid of dynamically mixed vinyl discs. As mentioned in the introduction to this review, the Audio-Technica AT-LPW50PB has a phono pre-amplifier built in, the output of which is at the rear of the turntable. There is more information to be had too. Switching the phono stage off and moving to the iFi Zen Phono (to say nothing of the Cyrus), drops the noise floor further and reveals more information and better tonal realism at the same time. Judged by the competition, the internal phono stage that Audio Technica has fitted to the LP5X is perfectly satisfactory but - like the competition - there’s more to be had out of it. At first, I heard a faint noise between the belt and the pulley or between the belt and the plate. After an hour of running in, nothing could be heard, not even after longer stopping times.The drive system simply requires a short break-in period, which is not unusual. Audio Technica AT-LPW50PB Review – Phono Preamp and Tonearm