Victrola Stream Carbon review: Play your vinyl on Sonos speakers

Price tag When Reviewed

$699.99

Finest Price ranges Now: Victrola Stream Carbon

$699.99

Sonos pioneered the wi-fi house streaming revolution and they’ve retained improving their speakers above the yrs,

Victrola has partnered with Sonos to include wireless vinyl playback to your Sonos community with the Stream Carbon turntable, an exceptional turntable created to do the job especially with the Sonos ecosystem. Users can also hook up the turntable to any other audio procedure via the traditional wired RCA connectors.

That comfort arrives at a price. Victrola is very well regarded for its high-quality, entry-degree report gamers, turntables, and wireless speakers. They make fantastic goods, but the enterprise has hardly ever just before unveiled nearly anything as costly as the Stream Carbon turntable.

The Victrola Stream Carbon turntable sounds great and operates flawlessly with Sonos, but there are some purchasers who will working experience a bit of sticker shock with this gadget. Is this turntable well worth the expense?

James Barber/Foundry

Location up the Victrola Stream Carbon

The Victrola Stream Carbon turntable will come with easy-to-adhere to illustrated directions. Pull the belt in excess of the pulley, screw on the headshell, slide the counterweight to the appropriate groove on the tonearm and established the anti-skate gauge prior to putting in the Victrola Stream app from the iOS or Google Participate in app keep.

Items should be basic from there. Incorporate the Victrola Stream Carbon in the app, join to your Wi-Fi community, and then pick out your primary Sonos speaker or speaker group. Convert on autoplay to make sure the turntable gets the default resource when you’re enjoying vinyl and you should really be done with the app for good.

My practical experience wasn’t as seamless as that, but I’m nonetheless satisfied with how it all performed out. My Sonos A single speaker was due for a firmware update and did not show up in the application. Just after the firmware update didn’t fix the issue, I drive stop the two the Victrola Stream and Sonos applications, restarted my cellular phone, and tried out yet again.

James Barber/Foundry

That’s not just precise. I attempted numerous combinations of pressure quitting the applications and restarting the telephone prior to hoping all a few at at the time, but none of the steps labored. I was stumped.

The excellent information is that Victrola had a toll-cost-free number on its web-site that was answered by a human being who walked me through various achievable methods till we did a tough reset of the turntable by pressing down the quantity knob for 15 seconds. I then included the Stream Carbon all over again in the application and the Sonos speaker confirmed up.

The application itself could use a little bit extra polish, but the encounter of talking to a human to repair a specialized concern much more than designed up for any concerns I experienced with setup.

James Barber/Foundry

What’s it like to use the Victrola Stream Carbon?

After you’re hooked up, operation is basic. The turntable commences spinning when you move the tonearm from its rest and connects to your Sonos as you’re decreasing the stylus on to the vinyl. Once the aspect has concluded playing, the turntable immediately stops, so there’s no speeding throughout the place to hold the stylus from slamming into the edge of the runout groove.

The turntable comes with an Ortofon 2M Crimson relocating magnet cartridge, a unit that is an exceptional benefit at $99 and one that delivers the heat and dynamic sound that vinyl listeners cherish. You can participate in data at possibly 33 or 45 RPM just after selecting your speed with a knob that sits up coming to the 7-inch adapter at the again of the plinth.

The Victrola Stream Carbon turntable actions 4.37 x 16.93 x 13.58 inches (HxWxD) and weighs just about 13 kilos. It has a brushed chrome front panel and a grey metallic plinth layout factors that evoke the famous Sony aesthetic of the 1980s and 90s. The total device feels exceptionally very well designed, with none of the plastic elements that make so quite a few other turntables look cheap.

James Barber/Foundry

The turntable comes with a single of Victrola’s unusual dustcovers that sit flat on the platter and set a hood more than the tonearm when it’s not in use. It is a thriller why the firm does not make use of a far more conventional hinged cover that would secure the overall surface area and be available to use all through file playback.

The very good news for listeners is that the Stream Carbon Wi-fi turntable uses Wi-Fi as a substitute of Bluetooth to link with your Sonos speakers. That will yield a higher-good quality sign, until you have a spotty house community. If you’ve received a spotty dwelling community, however, you are presently getting issues with Sonos prior to you acquired this turntable. And if which is the circumstance, you possibly use ethernet cables to tie almost everything to your router, and the Stream Carbon has the RJ45 port to make that occur.

I examined the turntable with a brand-new, 180-gram pressing of the 2016 remaster of David Bowie’s 1972 LP The Rise and Drop of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. I’m normally one to insist on unique pressings anytime achievable, but this new heavyweight edition seems orders of magnitude superior than the flimsy RCA Dynaflex I acquired back in the day.

The final results weren’t a surprise. The Ortofon cartridge sent its typical stellar outcomes and songs like “Starman” and “Suffragette City” revealed all the element you’d hope from a turntable that is built be a resolved step up from entry-level products.

James Barber/Foundry

Even a lot more attention-grabbing is the 25th anniversary reissue of Girls Versus Boys’ 1996 LP House of GVSB. Producer Ted Niceley did an wonderful work of capturing the band’s twin bass guitar assault and the new vinyl remaster by Bob Weston captures extra reduced-stop than the unique pressings did. There’s a whole lot additional bass than you’d believe possible coming by means of the Sonos.

There are a couple of caveats. I liked the wireless tests and set up the turntable on a small table following to my desk. The motor on the Stream Carbon Wi-fi was a bit louder than I’d count on from a turntable at this cost, and the sound was clear in the silence among songs and even in some quieter parts of the music. When I was throughout the area, having said that, the sound was not visible.

If you are applying Sonos speakers, you’ve currently dedicated to the company’s electronic sign processing scheme. If you really like the sound of your Sonos streaming music, you’re going to be really content with the sound of your vinyl when using this turntable with your Sonos speakers.

Should really you buy the Victrola Stream Carbon Wi-fi?

There is no question that what’s on give in this article is a hassle-free and seamless person practical experience for Sonos buyers. Sonos speakers are quite very good, but they really do not always provide the complete ideal audio excellent at their value issue. What you get from Sonos is a polished consumer encounter that emphasizes the general working experience far more than the facts and specs that audiophiles like.

The Victrola Stream Carbon turntable is specially developed for folks who really like their Sonos setup and want to increase vinyl to their house audio mix. Victrola gave the turntable a slick, 80s industrial layout and provided an outstanding Ortofon cartridge. Could you invest in a higher-end turntable at this price? Surely, but that turntable would not function with Sonos out of the box. If you’re a Sonos lover, this is surely the simplest way to combine vinyl into your daily life.