Review on 🎵 Fluance RT81 Elite High Fidelity Vinyl Turntable with AT95E Cartridge - Walnut by David Hayden

First off, let me say that I'm not new to the vinyl community. I've been collecting vinyl since the early 1960's. Of course I needed something to play vinyl on, so I've had several turntables over the years. Direct drive, belt drive and rim drive. Pioneer, Dual, Technics, Garrard and even Marantz abound. I still have a few of these but they're getting old. I will restore them when time and funds permit, but I recently set up a new system using an old Pioneer receiver connected to a pair of vintage Advent speakers which I recently restored. My Dual 1229 worked fine but I wanted to get a new turntable. So the search began. I was looking at some new offers and was about to order one of the new Audio Technica devices. Their cartridges have always served me well, so I might try one of their turntables. Then I discovered Fluance RT81. It seemed like a nice clean player to me. The specs were excellent and after reading many reviews and questions I ordered it. The box arrived two days later. The block was packed very well. Everything was there. I didn't expect less. After unpacking the device, I set it up by following the instructions in the user manual. I was able to set up the device myself by installing many players in the past. Assemble, balance, calibrate, whatever. All turntables are basically the same. That being said, I recommend following the step-by-step guide if you are new to vinyl spiders and turntables. One of the points I found odd was the recommendation to do a 24 hour flash. Never in my past have I had to perform this function. But I'm not a Fluance engineer so I followed this step as recommended. Just plug it into a power source and let the turntable spin for the recommended amount of time. The next day I was finally able to install the player alongside the host receiver. I checked the balance of the tonearm after leveling the platter and set the downforce with a digital scale. I've found the downforce gained by turning the balancer to be 2.25g, but that may be because for the money I may not have zeroed everything right. That's why I like to use digital tracking scales. This is a good option if you're interested: Neoteck Digital Turntable Stylus Force Scale Gauge 0.01g Blue LCD Backlight for Arm Cartridge $12.99. vinyl on one record. Led Zeppelin 1. After making sure my volume was low and the receiver set to the phono stage, I released my arm and lowered the needle into the pickup groove. Slowly turn up the volume. This player sounds great! Clear and precise. I'm not a sound engineer so I don't know the right terms to describe the overall sound quality of this unit and the cartridge that came with it. It just sounds great. I was particularly impressed by the guitar parts in Dazed & Confused. I've listened to both parts of this album and it seemed like I was hearing them for the first time. Then I settled on Lynyrd Skynyrd. Another one from the street. Sure, Advents sound great, but they can only play the sound sent to them by the source you're using. Result? I highly recommend this player! I gave every review five stars except for durability. Ask me about this review in a year or more, but I have no doubt that it will perform well for many years to come. Note. It is always highly recommended to check the alignment of the cartridges. I did this using a protractor to align the cartridges and found that the alignment wasn't working accurately. Also, I've read some reviews stating that some people had trouble changing the drive speed or were unable to set the correct drive speed. I'm not sure if that will show up in the future. But my cymbal speed is spot on for the money. I'm using a 60Hz flash wheel to test this. Now you can sit down and enjoy my new turntable.