The rise of digital format convenience once threatened to finish off music on vinyl, but the platter-friendly groovy disc has been making something of a comeback in recent years. More records in circulation means more manufacturers making turntables. Taiwan's Minfort Audio has gone for a distinctly retro look for its new TT8 turntable, but like Sony and Akai, has also crammed in a healthy dose of modern technology – including a built-in amplifier and wireless streaming capabilities.
The two-speed TT8 belt-drive turntable is being made available in teak, walnut or oak, with an aluminum platter and AT3600L phono cartridge. Though you can use your own hi-fi amplifier courtesy of RCA outputs around back, the stylish retro-modern turntable rocks two Class D amplifiers of its own – a dual 50 W TDA7492 for the main speaker output channels and a 100 W TDA7498 for the sub output – and a CS4398 DAC.
It also has RCA inputs for cabled connection to a CD player, and music lovers can feed in MP3, WAV or FLAC files by plugging a thumbrive into the USB port. And there's an optical input too, so that gamers can hook up a console such as the PS4 or Xbox. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless connectivity means that streamers can send their digital music over to the TT8 from a variety of smart devices, at up to 24-bit/192 kHz resolution.
Minfort has knocked up a pair of wood-enclosed speakers with 1-inch dome tweeter and 4-inch woofer to match the TT8, and a 5.25-inch subwoofer. Tower speakers with a 1-inch tweeter and two 4-inch woofers are also available.
Minfort is raising production funds for the TT8 turntable on Kickstarter, where pledges start at US$599. Backers wanting to add a pair of Passiv8 speakers and a PS525 subwoofer will need to stump up at least $939, and the turntable plus FS8 tower speakers is pitched at $1,299.
If all goes to plan, shipping is expected to start in March 2018. The pitch video below has more on the project.
Sources: Minfort Audio, Kickstarter
