Some may remember that for our special Vinyl Week in April, I finally set aside two decades of hesitance and decided to try out a turntable at home.
This wasn't a straightforward experiment, though (as most who know me will tell you, nothing is ever straightforward with me), because my living room is really dedicated to home cinema rather than hi-fi.
Not traditional home cinema, either, but a fairly minimalist, lifestyle-first home cinema featuring Sony's HT-A9 wireless speaker system which, it transpired, has no physical audio inputs.
The solution, much to my concern, was a Bluetooth turntable – the very capable Pro-Ject T1 Evo BT. Why the concern? I simply assumed that the richly layered charm of analogue vinyl would somehow be lost in the calculated ones and zeros of wireless Bluetooth transmission.
It turns out I was wrong about that – at least in a broad, conceptual way. Bluetooth carries across the little pops and crackles that help make the vinyl listening experience unique, and none of the hardness I had expected was evident in the delivery.
There was a problem, though: my Sony system's lack of aptX support meant I was limited to a relatively low 327kbps Bluetooth bitrate.
Given that limitation and the general nature of the speaker system itself, the sound was surprisingly decent; but I was clearly leaving detail, dynamics and texture on the platter.
That simply wouldn't do, particularly as my family and I had been instantly bitten by the vinyl bug.
A capable, compact solution
Rather than return the turntable, then, it was time to source an alternative system to partner the Pro-Ject. I didn't want to replace the Sony HT-A9, which has served me well as a home cinema system, and I didn't want to move the turntable from its approved position at the back of our living room.
In other words, I was going to have to stick with Bluetooth, and whatever I added was going to have to be minimalist enough to fit in with my existing AV kit.
After much research, the solution I settled on was the five-star KEF Coda W speakers.
To my eyes, the angular Coda W aren't quite as pretty as KEF's smoothly sculpted LSX models, which have always appealed to me, but they prioritise Bluetooth over wi-fi streaming and have built-in aptX HD support. A perfect match, then, for the Pro-Ject turntable.
They are also quite a lot larger than the LSX II LT, producing a bigger sound that would potentially work well in my decently sized living room, while still being compact enough to fit into the nooks of my existing bookshelf-cum-TV-stand. No furniture upheaval required.
Sure enough, the unpacking and installation of the new Coda W speakers took all of five minutes, and connecting them to the turntable was simply a matter of putting the KEFs into Bluetooth pairing mode and switching the Pro-Ject on. Bingo-bango, I was ready to rock.
Analogue charm with wireless convenience
As a nascent vinyl collector, I had been listening to more or less the same few records since I first took the turntable home in April, so I was intimately familiar with how they sounded through my Sony speaker system. The upgrade provided by the KEFs was vast and instantly apparent.
Playing my much-spun copy of On Circles by Caspian, the huge improvement to dynamics was what struck me first. The Coda W are capable of creating a large, spacious sound, but within that, they deftly handle dynamic shifts both grand and small-scale.
Detail levels, too, were clearly massively improved, thanks to the combination of the revealing nature of the KEF speakers and the upgrade to aptX HD Bluetooth.
In fact, the sound-quality improvements were across the board, as you might expect with a switch from a lifestyle-oriented home cinema system to a pair of powered hi-fi speakers. Greater punch, rhythmic drive and tonal balance – it was all there, along with those subtle imperfections that for many people represent a big part of vinyl's character.
In other words, I'm hugely impressed – and surprised – by the performance that a minimalist, Bluetooth-based turntable system can clearly offer.
I'm not saying that going wired wouldn't be better – it no doubt would, and I may well look into a switch to cables in the near future. But I am saying that the need to go wireless and generally build a system around your lifestyle no longer precludes you from enjoying an excellent vinyl experience in the way that it would have done just a few short years ago.
Back then, a turntable system simply wasn't an option for me. Now, it is, and I’m loving how much less compromised it is than I was expecting.
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