Akai ATT10U

The ATT10U is a USB turntable from Akai that packs plenty of functionality in a well-constructed, modern-looking case. It might not look like it suits your classic A/V rack but it still does the job of playing back vinyl smoothly and capably.

The styling will most likely be divisive — rounded edges and lashings of polished metal make the ATT10U seem like the centrepiece of a disc jockey’s disc-spinning setup rather than anything suited to a serious home audio rack. Still, it’s exceptionally well constructed. The feet of the unit are wide and flat — a boon for record playback — while the body and tone-arm are constructed of solid, heavy materials.

The tone-arm has a nifty anti-skating control mechanism to minimise the amount of force pulling the arm towards the centre of the record. This results in the cleanest possible sound, balanced between both stereo channels. This works especially well if you’re a fan of manually spinning records, as there’s no chance of damaging the tone-arm from scratching.

The USB output works well, installing drivers with a minimum of fuss. The system comes bundled with the freeware audio recording application Audacity, which allows for a lot of functionality in copying records to a PC. The advantage of Audacity over Sony’s Sound Forge software (bundled with the PSLX300USB) is the ability to save files in a wide variety of formats, ranging from MP3 to WAV to FLAC for lossless audio enthusiasts.

The turntable has selectable settings for 33 1/3, 45 and 78 RPM discs, so you’ll be able to play anything from older vinyls to new LPs. With the combination of USB and analog outputs it’s versatile enough to be used in all situations and the fantastic build quality means it’ll spin your records consistently for a long time to come.