Angelos Agathangelou - Music Lover:
Synopsis - My full journey version is below, but for those who wish to avoid the dramatics here is a synopsis of my thoughts about Audio Technica's new flagship turntable AT-LP8X, or 8X.
There is an interesting un-narrated youtube video of a head to head sound check between the 8X and the well respected Technics SL1200G that shows there's not a wide gulf between these two decks.
I decided to take a chance and see if the 8X could scale to be an acceptable deck for my high standard cost no object background.
On the same principal as many have followed for the SL1200G as a starter with a decent secondary upgrade budget in order to capitalise on a perceived high quality core I bought the 8X and proceeded to make certain choice upgrades within what I perceive to be reasonable constraints with the hope she would scale to meet my high standards.
I disposed of the supplied power cable, tonearm cable, stylus and matt and having decided to keep my upgrades to parts of Japanese design and within a total budget not exceeding double the price of the 8X in total I proceeded.
First I upgraded the supplied stylus to the top of the same line AT-VMN95SH.
This sounded horrible during run in, but after around 20 hours I found
it a great improvement on the naked elliptical in the line having not
bothered to hear the originally supplied lowest in the range stylus.
The detail retrieval is good and there is a nice overall balance.
Second I added a home made power cable using Furutech FI-11 N1(R) IEC, Furutech FI-E46 NCF Schuko & Oyaide 2.1 mains cable. I plugged this into my Furutech power distribution block and v the supplied power cable directly into the mains this had the effect of immediately bringing the sound much more into focus and now there was greater body. The effect was not subtle and very positive.
As I was awaiting the arrival of a new tonearm cable I then tried the Oyaide BR-12 matt. I wasn't immediately convinced about this upgrade, but it didn't feel negative. It seemed to somehow magnify the effects of the power cable and I did wonder if that could be too much of a good thing.
Finally the Oyaide PA-2075 RR V2 tonearm cable arrived and knowing cables I gave it an hour, or so to settle in and left the room before returning to put on Herbie Hancock's 'Head Hunters' album.
This was the final piece of the jigsaw and it proved to me that the X8 is a keeper capable of satisfying even the most spoiled among us with cost no object A system turntables composed of individual parts costing multiples of the price of this entire experiment.
With the starter pack peripherals disposed of decent upgrades result in an excellent turntable that exudes quality.
The semi automatic features work flawlessly to auto-stop the deck at the end of the record and the simple and intuitive start and lift buttons do not feel cheap and again work flawlessly. The tonearm can be controlled fully manually if desired.
I recommend the 8X as a destination turntable for most and a backup for any. She's an excellent girl.
IMO it is unfortunate that there are so few if any truly high end turntables with such unobtrusive useful semi automatic features. Well done Audio Technica and thank you.
I do believe that the 8X can scale up further and I will be testing higher end cartridges in the future, Nagaoka MP-500 and Audio Technica AT-ART9XA, to play that hunch.
The 8X does not appeal to me in the slightest in standard form and I'm compelled to think that is the whole point of her. With the well chosen upgrades her good quality core deserves and even within only double the asking price in total, I give her a very strong 8/10 and I'm a tough marker, so that's high praise. I expect her to exceed this score with the right cartridge upgrade as this sleeper clearly demands to be awakened.
***
Fuck, FUCK, FUUUUUCK! I was called away to Europe on an impromptu business trip and in my haste forgot my Lenco L85 spinning for days. She was still spinning when I returned, but after I turned her off, dead. It's not the end of the world, that old girl is built like a tank and one day I'll find the time to take her apart and fix her, but this year I'm just too busy.
A few years ago I built a PTP version of my old L75 and that rocks harder than any other deck I've heard, but I've been there, done that and she lives in my Cyprus residence and I need a bottom bitch in Britain right now. Daddy's gotta have his bottom bitch!Thing about the Goldring Lenco L85 is she has a mechanical auto-stop and to be frank a man needs auto-stop in his life if he's really into vinyl.
You want to chill at the end of a hard day and listen to music, you're not going to be quite so chilled if you're staying awake to turn off the deck at the end of the album and falling asleep with your record player still spinning through the night is irksome. Having said that the L85's auto-stop sounds like a silenced rifle shot and in real life silencers don't sound as quiet as they make them out to in the movies. That's a downside to the L85's late night chilling capabilities, but as long as silly bugger doesn't leave her spinning with the tonearm raised while he swans off to mumbo jumbo land on a business trip, "Doh!" at least he can usually leave the room when a record's playing safe in the knowledge that she'll eventually stop and lift the needle off the record.
"Fuck, FUCK, FUUUUUCK!"
Beelzeboss
The other thing is, when you're used to a decent quality golden age turntable like the L85, the crap that passes for reviewers choices today feel like what they are, disposable.
I've tried every Rega all the way to the 10 and they all feel disposable IMO. Clearly I've been spoiled. The levers for raising and lowering the tonearms feel cheep, weedy and you're forced to interact with the tonearms which are quite bendy. ...OK, I confess, Of the arms I have used at one time or another on my PTP Super Lenco, one has been a Rega 3000 and it did sound OK, but of course the lifter thingy broke in no time flat! They just don't make them like they used to.
So these were my thoughts as I hunted for a stopgap turntable, for right now, that wasn't as meh as the usual shower and on a budget, because I just don't spend that much time in Britain these days. Yes, I said Britain, because being an anarchist [a few grades higher than a republican] I refuse to be called anyone's subject, least of all a subject of king sausage fingers the fornicator. ;-)
I think my next PTP Super Lenco type project might be a fully automatic I'll develop personally based around the Technics SP10 Reference when I semi retire in a couple of years.
Anyway, at one point in my search I came across the Audio Technica AT-LP8X. Looked about for reviews, ...no love at all for the deck. A bunch of obviously paid reviews by shop guys not even bothering to give the girl a real go, but all the while I'm getting a feeling.
I've used an AT cart, or two in my time and I have to say in my experience they tend to punch above their price class and here we have AT's top of the line deck, absolutely no frills, seemingly not even making an effort, but selling for $1000?
Well, I won't have to shiver with disgust at one of those weedy tonearm leavers, this girl doesn't even have one. She doesn't feel plasticky like the usual shower, she's a fair weight, has a damped platter, mmm. Seems like all the money's gone into a fairly decent core.
Crutchfield... Through the sea of drab nothing reviews I come across a pile of user reviews. Now that's more like it. What you say, a major upgrade over the Pro-Ject Debut Carbon you had that reviewers cream their jeans over? OK now you've peaked my interest.
I'm perceiving a sort of snobbery against the semi auto aspect of this deck, ...perhaps that's at the heart of the lack of love. For one reason or another my research so far is making me feel that this girl might be a real sleeper.
Remember that review of the SL1200G where the reviewer came to the conclusion that, what we have here is a starter pack, the bare bones of a really good high quality deck, but you have to factor in a second budget to take her all the way home. ...I was starting to get that vibe with the LP8X.
For goodness' sake, they're giving you a no frills $1000 deck with a more or less $30 stylus, HELLO!
They're including a surprisingly fair looking phono cable, a pound shop power cable and a cartridge with a $30 stylus for which you can swap in easy as plugging into a wall power socket a circa $200 stylus... These clever buggers are actually egging us on.
I tell myself I'm going to go with my gut and take a punt. OK let's think this game through and though in some circles it may be frowned upon to discuss monetary values, as our American cousins say, let's talk turkey, because in the end that's what it comes down to.
In the UK the price is fixed at £860, in the US it's $1,000, let's double that and call it a circa $/€/£2,000 limit, in other words in audiophile terms a pittance. Let's think of the AT-LP8X in the same terms as that other bloke, or was it blokes, or even an entire spawned industry, suggested we think about the Technics SL1200G.
Out goes the pound store power cable. A while back I made some Oyaide 2.1 power cables with quality Furutech IEC and Schuko plugs of different flavours, gold, silver, rhodium, let's try some of those here and see what shakes loose. OK that's power sorted and into my Furutech power distributer, good, good, all good.
Alright now for that nice ish, but we have to question it supplied tonearm interconnect with ground cable. Why am I suddenly thinking Oyaide again, Oyaide? Now I remember, there's supposed to be a fairly decent £250-ish Oyaide tonearm cable, Oyaide PA-2075, I've heard good things about that and it's within budget, that's the ticket.
So we've more or less spent £300 on a decent power cable and the same again on a decent tonearm cable and so far we're turning Japanese. ...I like it firm and fruity, let's stay on this path.
OK now let's take the bait that the bods at Audio Technica put out for us and grab that top of this particular line Audio Technica VMN95SH stylus to replace that pound store affair they hooked us with. What, only £140 on Amazon? This is seriously budget audio.
It occurs to me that with the AT deck selling for £859 and AT's top stylus in the range of the cart they give us with this deck coming in at £141 on Amazon, this adds up to precisely £1000. Coincidence?
But we're mad music lovers and that just ain't good enough, we want to attempt to suck out every ounce of music goodness, so let's tally up our next level bonkers audiophile extravagances:
AT-LP8X - £860
Oyaide/Furutech Power cable - £360
Oyaide Tonearm Cable PA-2075 - £240
AT-VMN95SH - £140
Wow, only £1600, we're way under budget. Lol.
Let's muck around and try out a change in turntable mat. What can we get for £150?
Oyaide BR-12 - £90
It's alive! We've created a ménage à trois Audio Technica/Oyaide/Furutech turning Japanese love-child.
So in the end we've come in at near, but under double the price of the LP8X.This is now a decent US$2000 semi automatic deck made up 100% of quality components only.
When you take the bait and bin the supplied mat, tonearm cable and pound store power cable and stylus, you're actually left with a decent quality starting point. There's nothing that you touch of what's left that feels remotely low rent and let's face facts, one of the inescapable aspects of vinyl spinning is that it's a very hands on experience, even when semi automatic and going from your German built car, to your Chinese built iPhone, to some kind of cheap plastic car boot sale reject that constitutes so many new £1,000-£5,000 turntables these days just doesn't feel right. That's why the SL1200G is such a treat.
I've heard people who haven't even touched the AT-LP8X criticise it's "cheap looking controls." I can tell you that with all the disposable starter pack stuff removed, what Audio Technica have given you is a very well considered, high quality base on which to build and what's left doesn't feel cheap at all, very much like the deck Technics have supplied at nearly 5 times the price, but we all know that high price is partly due to the cachet of their brand. Similarly, because of the ethos of Audio Technica, you can say the reverse of their deck, so once we've checked that reality and throw the law of diminishing returns into the equation, the difference is no where near nearly 5 times. The difference is mainly due to a somewhat higher mass and on the principal of much higher v deliberately lower torque, so to some extent also much to do with personal preferences.
This was confirmed to me while scouring the net for the word that I never could find about the AT-LP8X when I did come across an action that spoke louder than words. One clever chappie videoed an un-narrated sound check between the AT-LP8X and the SL1200G both using the AT's supplied pound store stylus. Check it out, ...there is very little between the two decks in that test.
OK, now let's have a listen. ...She's quiet, very quiet. Out comes the stock stylus immediately and in goes AT's naked elliptical affair I have hanging around, at around £90 for the stylus. I'd say for 95% of people who aren't as obsessive as balls deep music loving nutters like ourselves, they would no doubt be very happy at this point, even before we upgrade the cables and mat, so there's your £950 solution. A well run in VMN95EN is definitely the sweet spot of the stock cart's stylus line up if start up costs are an issue for you, but in fact the longer life expectancy of the more expensive microlinear and shibata styli don't make them less economical in the long run. The VMN95EN is forgiving enough with setup and to play everything very nicely where the other two do require a little more attention and are somewhat more ruthless with what you feed them.
Stepping up to the shibata, the name of which for some reason made my daughter crave a sandwich, aka the VMN95SH was another story. ...I find it very annoying that we have to run things in. Cars, cables, styli. IMO they should all come run in. Anyway the £140 shibata stylus definitely needs running in, because it clearly extracts far more from the groove, but whatever harmonics it's producing before it finally hits it's stride are unpleasant. This one is best left alone for at least 5 albums before you pump up the volume.
After about 20 hours run in then you start to get the point and I have to say that for such an inexpensive bit of kit it is a very nice point indeed. Contrary to the frightful run in noises, it becomes quite as pleasant as the naked elliptical, but now you get 2, perhaps 3 levels up information retrieval and far higher levels of euphoria with it.
OK, so in goes my personally built Oyaide 2.1/Furutech power cable between the deck and into my Furutech power distributer. ...What was more confused has now come into focus and there's more body, I immediately like the effect.
Next, let's try the Oyaide BR-12 mat in place of the fairly decent rubber original. Another level more body and is that better bass and warmth?
Now for the Oyaide PA-2075 RR V2 tonearm cable. I walk away to give it an album to settle in a little and when I return on goes Herbie Hancock's 'Head Hunters'. OM-Fing-G! Kinda grabs you by the boo boo! I sit there nodding, feet tapping, body twerking involuntarily to the groove.
At this point even a seasoned music nutter like me has to be splitting a fairly fine hair not to just sit back and enjoy. There's a good level of detail retrieval, but the highs don't hurt, there's body, it's juicy, it's eargasmically tingly. As captain slow might say, you've got the fizz.
I don't do jargon if I can help it, but suffice it to say there's enough of the audiophile expectations met at this point, that I suggest to any interested parties they must give this girl an audition.
***
Nearly forgot to mention the important semi auto features. Just like any new vehicle it takes a day or two to get into the very simple controls of this turntable, but it's all very intuitive, there are only three buttons, one to enable, or disable the semi auto features and start and lift which are similarly self explanetory.
First, there's the switch at the back to disable the automatic features in case you'd prefer to do everything manually. Not quite sure why I'd ever use this. The main feature IMO is that if you leave the semi auto switch on, the 8X will do its own thing and lift the arm at the end of each side and unlike my venerable old Lenco L85's mechanical gunshot auto-stop, the 8X electronic method is completely silent if just as reliably executed.
At first it was disconcerting without the slightly annoying, yet reassuring sound of the L85 to indicate that the procedure had taken place and I found myself looking away from whatever I was doing at the time to check that the 8X had in fact done its auto-stop duty. I soon came to trust her. She lifts her arm within a few seconds of reaching the end of the record and the plater comes to an electronically breaked stop within about one revolution and the whole process is silent and for me, a little smugness inducing.
If you decide to fully utilise the TTs robotic features then you simply press start to get the platter spinning, position the cartridge over the beginning of the record as usual and press the lift button, after which the robotic aid gently lowers the tonearm. It's a nice action and if you've had a few too many coffees, you can trust the 8X to do the smooth job your trembling hand might not be able to manage, just like any good manual lever would.
The semi auto robotic features of this deck feel very unobtrusive, they are simply there at your demand and so far they have been flawlessly reliable. I say that because of the rather more hit and miss reports I've read regarding some Technics TTs with auto stop features. There has been nothing hit and miss about the 8X.
***
Head Hunters
Dag-nam-it I was right! Spoiled, that's what I am, spoiled! Frankly the sound from the base unit with the naked elliptical AT95 stylus might do it as I said for 95% of people, but I have to say I was still worried at that point how this deck might, or more importantly might not scale to meet the high demands of a spoiled music lover like myself.
I'm not some paid reviewer who was sent this deck along with a wad of cash for a glowing review, I paid for this girl in cold hard cash, I took a punt, I played a hunch that she was a sleeper and truth be told it wasn't until all the upgrades went in that I had my eureka moment. Thank goodness!
What must have been a 5/10 in my terms with the stock stylus [that I'm too much of a snob to even bother to listen too] and cables has become a very solid 8 on a relatively stingy budget and I haven't even tried any cartridges above £200 yet!
What surprises me most is that I'm suddenly thinking through one of those, if I were stranded on a desert island hypotheticals and no, I wouldn't feel hard done by if this was what I had to see me out.
Furthermore the context is a modest pair of decades old Spendor S100 speakers connected with a budget set of Nordost Red Dawn speaker cables to a similarly aged Marantz PM14 MK2 KI signature amplifier using its internal phono preamp!
I'm gobsmacked!
Now that I have seen how beautifully Audio Technica's flagship TT can scale, it's quite clear to me that this is not the end of the journey for this deck. Sadly I busted my delicate Nagaoka MP-500 stylus that I used to use with my L85, on a friend's heavy tonearm recently, but with this light tonearm I think it's time to get that old girl out again and after my new stylus arrives from Japan and is run in we'll see what the story is there when my new Nippon bottom bitch tastes a $1000 cart.
After all this is still my B system and I don't spend as much time as I used to in Britain these days. ...You know, I think daddy's going to miss this bottom bitch. My fancy shmancy Cyprus deck doesn't have auto-stop!
...I'm used to an A system deck that isn't phased by any other deck that I've ever heard at any price and now I have a UK deck that's a fraction of the cost of that deck's current cartridge, yet I'm a very happy bunny. I've been rocking about, tapping my toes, closing my eyes to take in some sublime sounds and I've got my auto-stop back that even puts movie silencers to shame.
That'll do my Nippon Angel isles bottom bitch, that'll do...
Dave Brubeck - Golden Brown
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