Likewise, a built-in phono-line preamp lets you connect up to a home stereo or powered speakers (that wouldn’t have a phono stage of their own) as soon as you plug the turntable in, letting you get to your tunes straight away. The red trace on Graph 4 shows channel separation vs. frequency and you can see that channel separation reaches a best result of 27dB at 1kHz (7dB better than specification), and maintains this level of performance out to around 6kHz before diminishing to around 20dB at 10kHz and down to 10dB at 20kHz.

With a phono pre-amp built-in, the AT-LPW50PB connects to almost any hi-fi or speaker system. The phono pre-amp boosts the signal to line level, meaning you can connect it to any device with an AUX input. If you’d rather use your amp’s phono pre-amp, then simply switch off the turntable’s one. The AT-LPW50PB is equipped with a built-in selectable phono preamp and a detachable dual RCA output cable to enable direct connection to components with or without a dedicated phono input. FEATURES Admittedly there’s not a lot Audio-Technica can do about the overall look of a record player, and sure enough the AT-LPW50PB is the predictable ‘rectangle with a circle on it’ under a clear Perspex dust cover. Audio Technica AT-LPW50PB has built-in RIAA, but may always be bypassed if using external RIAA or RIAA integrated in amplifier.The AT-LPW50BT-RW turntable made the album sound even better when it had a wired connection to a component system. I tested it with both the built-in phono preamp and through my own NAD phono stage. The dedicated NAD unit sounded better with slightly more detail, but not by as much of a margin as I expected. Should you buy the Audio-Technica AT-LPW50BT-RW turntable? The AT-LPW50PB has two speeds on tap — 33 1/3 and 45 rpm — selected via the rotary switch at the front left of the plinth. Although the switch has a central ‘Off

The tonearm is a straight-line carbon-fibre statically-bal­anced type with spring- applied anti-skating. At first, I heard a faint noise between the belt and the pulley or between the belt and the plate. After an hour of running in, nothing could be heard, not even after longer stopping times.The drive system simply requires a short break-in period, which is not unusual. Audio Technica AT-LPW50PB Review – Phono Preamp and Tonearm The first common denominator is that these models all have belt drive, a propulsion concept that is heavily challenged by a new wave of direct-drive turntables, including other budget models from Audio Technica. However, on these models, AT has satisfied those who still prefer belt drive, and there are som o these around. Newport Test Labs measured the voltage at the line output of the AT-LPW50PB as 157mV for a 1kHz test signal at a recorded velocity of 3.54cm per second, which is about that specified by Audio-Technica but appears lower simply because Audio-Technica uses a higher recorded velocity than Newport Test Labs (Audio-Technica’s specification is 200mV at 1 kHz at 5cm per second) when testing. It’s a good result. Measured at 45 rpm, the AT-LPW50B’s platter speed was even more stable, so that the measured frequency varied only between 2998Hz and 3000Hz. Again, this is an excellent result. Newport Test Labs has plotted these variations in the speed histogram (Graph 1).It goes without saying that a heaving Convention Centre show floor is hardly the perfect environment for having a critical listen to a record player – and, to be fair to Audio-Technica, it hasn’t even attempted to make that possible. priate force and resolution such that we could follow subtle instrumental strands even during the most climactic moments. The stereo image delivered was so precise it was easy to identify the position of instruments anywhere across the soundstage. Conclusion

The light blue dashed vertical line at the centre shows the mean actual speed, which you can see is very slightly lower than 33.33 rpm at 33.324 rpm, so 0.006 rpm slow. Not significant. The purple and red dashed vertical lines show the wow measured according to DIN IEC 386 using both the dynamic method (purple dashes) and the 2 sigma method (red dashes). In terms of percentages, the measured wow using the DIN IEC 386 2 sigma method was 0.08% at 33.33 rpm and 0.07% at 45 rpm. A year ago we announced the arrival of new budget players from Audio Tecnica. Two of these were AT-LPW40WN and AT-LPW30TK. Common to these is that they have strong similarities to the model being launched today - the AT-LPW50PB. Belt-driven budget players The carbon fiber tonearm is cleanly finished and sonically helpful. However, the bearings could be better. One of my favourite recordings was recorded by Dutch pianist Jeroen Van Veen in two different versions, both of which are on a double-LP set pressed by Brilliant Classics titled ‘Erik Satie Slow Music: Gymnopedies, Gnossiennes, And Other Works.’ Van Veen achieves a sublime perfection that eludes most pianists. I suspect his success might be because he’s not only also a composer but is also considered by many experts to be one of the leading exponents of minimalism in the world today. These traits, along with him being a great pianist, are obviously what’s required to make the music work! The platter is a lightweight cast aluminum construction with a fixed radius for the flat belt and rib-like bracing towards the center to prevent platter resonance. The flat belt is already stretched and can be grabbed with a red ribbon from the top through the side hole. You put the platter on the platter bearing and pull the belt carefully over the pulley – done.Hear all the detail that’s been missing from your records, with the beautifully engineered Audio Technica AT-LPW50PB. Flutter was measured separately for both speeds, again using both CCIR and DIN measurement techniques. At 33.33 rpm Newport Test Labs measured flutter at 0.05% (CCIR) and 0.045% (DIN). At 45 rpm, flutter was measured at 0.055% (CCIR) and 0.05% (DIN).