Fluance RT85 Reference Turntable | Review

The Fluance RT85 Reference turntable retails for $500. That’s very important to me from a historical standpoint, so allow me to elaborate. I came up with the $500 Rule for turntables back in 1998, during the early days of my original Vinyl Anachronist column for Perfect Sound Forever. The $500 Rule states that “you have to spend about $500 to get a turntable that out-performs every mass-market CD player out there.” This, of course, was back in those dark, almost medieval years when most music lovers thought CDs sounded way better than scratchy old LPs, and the only suitable response to the idea that vinyl still sounded better was derisive laughter and finger-pointing. I picked the $500 figure because that was the retail price of the Rega Planar 2 at the time. That was my recommendation for an entry-level player, the absolute minimum you needed to buy before you could say yes, LPs do sound better than the little silver discs. I heard many record players that retailed for less, but none of them sounded convincing enough to make my point about analog superiority. At the time, my only exceptions were vintage turntables such as Duals, Garrards and ARs that […]