Outstanding Fluance RT-85 Turntable!
The Fluance RT-85 is one of those turntables that, with a bigger, better, known name, would have cost me twice or even 3 times as much. It comes with an Ortofon 2M blue cartridge (that alone would set you back $260/$280) and I bought mine in piano black.
The turntable has a great suspension system, excellent tone arm layout, which includes; anti-skate, stylus pressure adjustment, and a pre-mounted Ortofon to a removable head shell.
I’m an ‘old school’ audiophile and the majority of my system is analog. I use a tube phono-preamp, which I prefer. This turntable does not come with a preamp built-in so unless you have a moving magnet phono preamp built into your integrated amplifier or receiver, you will need a phono preamp for your system (tube or otherwise).
My “centerpiece”, if you will, is McIntosh MC 2105 power amp. I also have an ADC sound shaper 3, which is pre-amplified, three reel-to-reel tape decks, and my speaker systems comprised mostly of Klipsch. The weakest link in my system was my old, 40-year-old, turntable.
I vacillated between buying a well-kept mid-80s to mid-90s turntable like the Yamaha PF 800, which I used to own back in 1990. There were also several nice, used, Thorens models out there but in the end, I went with a brand-new Fluance RT-85.
As I mentioned earlier, a new Ortofon 2M blue cartridge is expensive and if I bought a used table (somewhere between $400 and $600), after I did the math, I would’ve spent twice as much on a used table as I spent for this Fluance RT-85.
The RT 85 comes with an acrylic platter, which doesn’t need a platter mat, bubble level, dust cover and hinges, (the dust cover is designed to be easily removable when playing LPs), and a very good 3-foot, acoustic suspension/isolation system.
Though I’m very familiar with the set up procedure of turntables, I followed the manual that came with it and went to the Fluance website to watch their turntable set up video.
I recommend this to anyone because it makes for a good refresher course. Fluance has been in business 20 years and makes a number of audio products that appear to be pretty good.
If the rest of their products are anywhere as good as the RT 85 turntable then I think they’ll be in business for a long time to come. I strongly recommend this turntable because based on the research I did for turntables that lasted about 3 weeks, the Fluance RT-85 is equivalent to any new, $1200 turntable that may have a bigger name.
It is truly one of the best buys I’ve had in a long time.
Rich
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