System of the month

For our vinyl special, an affordable turntable set-up brought right up-to-date with streaming smarts

The system

Turntable

Rekkord Audio F110 £399

Streamer

WiiM Pro Plus £219

Amplifier

Marantz PM6007 £449

Speakers

Wharfedale Diamond 12.1 £249

TOTAL PRICE £1316

It’s not often that we at What Hi-Fi? get to test a turntable from a new brand. The vinyl disc, after all, was clearly facing a rapid demise in the early 1980s with the stunning arrival of digital media in the form of the compact disc; or so we thought. As it turned out, though, not so much.

The turntable is enjoying a great revival, and sales of vinyl records have been on the up for a couple of decades now. Still, a new brand to extol the virtues of the old analogue medium is something of a turn up for the books.

The joy of the Rekkord Audio F110, as a glimpse at our review on p34 will tell you, is that, not only is it a very fine performer in its own right, but it is also one of those relatively rare beasts – a fully automatic turntable. So all you have to do to enjoy all that your vinyl collection has to offer is to place a record on the platter and hit play. The deck will do all the hard work of lifting the tonearm, moving it into position above the spinning groove, and gently lowering the cartridge into place for the needle then to spiral its way towards the middle of the disc and the music’s end; finally, as a departing party trick, the F110 will pick the arm up again and put it back in place to rest. It’s all rather reassuring – especially for those with less experience of playing records.