The Alva TT is a sturdy, beautifully made audiophile-grade direct-drive turntable with enough going on in terms of tone-arm, moving-magnet cartridge and integrated phono stage alone to justify its price.
Well, Cambridge is here to demonstrate what can be achieved when you attempt to rewrite that particular rule. The words ‘audiophile’ and ‘wireless’ are seldom seen in the same sentence together, unless the words ‘cannot be’ are included too.Īudiophilia has always included a hair-shirt element, a strong suggestion of ‘no pain, no gain’. So finally we can welcome the music centre to the 21st century. Safe to say Juke Box E sounds best when playing some vinyl – Pro-Ject has plenty of experience where these things are concerned, and Juke Box E has detail, dynamism and warmth to spare.īut it’s almost as adept with Bluetooth streaming too, and has enough in the way of insight and drive to make even tiny 128kbps Spotify files sound big and bold. Just strap on some speakers and you’re good to go – all you need now are some records, and/or a music streaming app installed on your phone. But it also has 25 watts of amplification built in, as well as Bluetooth connectivity (it’s a receiver, unlike the other three transmitters in this group) and an analogue input for hard-wiring an additional source. In some ways Pro-Ject’s Juke Box E is an exercise in revisiting the nostalgia of the music centre and luring in the vinyl revivalists at the same time, but – Pro-Ject being Pro-Ject – there’s a little bit more to it than that.
This is by no means the worst entry-level turntable we’ve heard, but sadly it doesn’t quite reach the standard of many previous Audio-Technica attempts.Every childhood home had a music centre in it – usually one the child in question wasn’t allowed to touch. If you were buying it based on price and features alone, it would be good value for money, but the AT-LP60XBT just falls short of our being able to recommend it to those semi-serious about their vinyl. Three stars may appear harsh for a budget product offering so much in the way of functionality. Value for money deteriorates further if it requires a separate component to get it working at a more respectable standard. The built in phono stage might shoulder a fair amount of the blame – it seems less of an issue when we use our Bluetooth headphones or a wireless speaker – but that is one of this deck’s main selling points. Often the percussion gets lost towards the back of a mix, which also leads to a loss of drive and rhythmic intensity. It is as if there is finite space in which a piece can work, and as more elements are squashed in, it becomes more a block of sound than something where lines are audibly picked out. It isn’t particularly insightful when playing more intimate acoustic tracks or sparse ambient productions, but has real trouble when arrangements are decidedly denser. The most limiting aspect of the AT-LP60XBT’s presentation, though, is its level of detail. That temptation to sound overly warm is nicely eschewed. It doesn’t dig exceptionally far into bass frequencies, but it is far from lacking, and there is no coarseness to the treble as is often the way with budget components.
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