APRIL 2020 T3 67Wireless turntables
e are in the midst of a
musical revolution, with
innovations in digital
music, streaming and
wireless connectivity dominating
the world of home audio over the
last decade.
However, many of us are looking
to the engineering of the past in our
quest to achieve audio nirvana,
hoping to find the perfect way to
combine modern convenience with
old-school cool. The answer?
Wireless turntables.
These incredible audio gadgets
give you all the palpable charm and
sonic fidelity of vinyl, without the
need for complicated setups and
annoying cables, using Bluetooth or
Wi-Fi to stream the music from your
record player to your speakers or
headphones wirelessly.
That means these days, you don’t
have to be an expert to indulge your
passion for vinyl, with super simple
setups making record players
accessible to everyone from
tech-savvy teens to those who
remember the first time turntables
came into vogue.
WHY VINYL?
Lovers of vinyl will often talk about
its ‘warm’ sound; music played from
a record often sounds richer, and
more immersive than digital MP3s
and even CDs.
This is because vinyl is a truly
lossless format – in other words, you
don’t miss out on the tiny details and
subtleties of the original recording,
which most digital music files can’t
fully convey. Lossy files like MP3 are
compressed, making it possible to
download them quickly, and store
lots of them on your laptop, mobile
phone or portable music player – but
for all that convenience, you lose a
great deal of the information stored
on the original recording.
As such, vinyl is a truer
representation of the exact
conditions in the recording studio,
and a better likeness of the artists’
true intentions – every scratch of the
guitar, every breath, and every
rhythmic nuance.
Of course, the record players of
old could never measure up to the
convenience of digital music
streaming, with all thosecomplicated setups and annoying
cables – that is, until Bluetooth
turntables came onto the scene.
These wireless record players cut
out the cords, transmitting your
tunes to your speakers or
headphones over Bluetooth – some
modern turntables are even capable
of broadcasting your music to your
speakers over your home’s Wi-Fi
network, offering an even better
quality wireless connection.HOW IT WORKS
So, how do turntables – Bluetooth or
otherwise – actually work? To the
modern music lover, turntables can
be something of an enigma: how can
such rich sound be conjured up by a
needle tracing a plastic disc?
All modern turntables are
descended from Thomas Edison’s
phonograph, a sound recording
machine the inventor devised in- This early sound recorder
featured a sheet of foil wrapped
around a hand-rotated wooden
cylinder; pressed against it was a
needle attached to a horn. As Edison
spoke into the horn, the resulting
W
Words: Olivia Tambini Photography: Neil GodwinThese hard-working wireless turntables aren’t the dusty old
record players you might remember from your parents’ attic –
and the right model can make your favourite vinyl truly sing
Wireless
turntables
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