Victrola Stream Carbon review: Play your vinyl on Sonos speakers

Value When Reviewed

$699.99

Best Price ranges Right now: Victrola Stream Carbon

$699.99

Sonos pioneered the wireless house streaming revolution and they’ve saved strengthening their speakers about the yrs,

Victrola has partnered with Sonos to insert wireless vinyl playback to your Sonos network with the Stream Carbon turntable, an exceptional turntable made to do the job specifically with the Sonos ecosystem. Customers can also hook up the turntable to any other audio procedure through the common wired RCA connectors.

That convenience arrives at a price tag. Victrola is effectively recognized for its top quality, entry-stage history players, turntables, and wi-fi speakers. They make superb items, but the company has hardly ever in advance of introduced nearly anything as high priced as the Stream Carbon turntable.

The Victrola Stream Carbon turntable seems good and is effective flawlessly with Sonos, but there are some potential buyers who will knowledge a little bit of sticker shock with this device. Is this turntable really worth the cost?

James Barber/Foundry

Environment up the Victrola Stream Carbon

The Victrola Stream Carbon turntable arrives with simple-to-abide by illustrated recommendations. Pull the belt about the pulley, screw on the headshell, slide the counterweight to the acceptable groove on the tonearm and established the anti-skate gauge ahead of setting up the Victrola Stream application from the iOS or Google Participate in app keep.

Factors need to be very simple from there. Increase the Victrola Stream Carbon in the app, join to your Wi-Fi community, and then decide on your primary Sonos speaker or speaker team. Convert on autoplay to make absolutely sure the turntable results in being the default resource when you’re playing vinyl and you ought to be finished with the application eternally.

My practical experience was not as seamless as that, but I’m nonetheless happy with how it all performed out. My Sonos A single speaker was owing for a firmware update and did not demonstrate up in the application. Following the firmware update didn’t clear up the issue, I pressure stop equally the Victrola Stream and Sonos apps, restarted my mobile phone, and tried out all over again.

James Barber/Foundry

Which is not exactly correct. I tried many combinations of pressure quitting the apps and restarting the mobile phone just before hoping all 3 at after, but none of the ways worked. I was stumped.

The wonderful information is that Victrola experienced a toll-free number on its internet site that was answered by a particular person who walked me by way of several achievable options until finally we did a difficult reset of the turntable by urgent down the volume knob for 15 seconds. I then included the Stream Carbon yet again in the app and the Sonos speaker confirmed up.

The app itself could use a bit extra polish, but the practical experience of chatting to a human to take care of a technological issue more than produced up for any problems I experienced with setup.

James Barber/Foundry

What is it like to use the Victrola Stream Carbon?

Once you are hooked up, procedure is basic. The turntable commences spinning when you move the tonearm from its rest and connects to your Sonos as you are lowering the stylus on to the vinyl. Once the side has concluded actively playing, the turntable immediately stops, so there’s no speeding across the area to continue to keep the stylus from slamming into the edge of the runout groove.

The turntable arrives with an Ortofon 2M Pink relocating magnet cartridge, a unit that’s an exceptional price at $99 and just one that provides the warm and dynamic sound that vinyl listeners cherish. You can enjoy data at possibly 33 or 45 RPM following selecting your velocity with a knob that sits up coming to the 7-inch adapter at the back again of the plinth.

The Victrola Stream Carbon turntable steps 4.37 x 16.93 x 13.58 inches (HxWxD) and weighs just more than 13 lbs. It has a brushed chrome front panel and a gray metal plinth structure factors that evoke the famous Sony aesthetic of the 1980s and 90s. The total unit feels exceptionally very well manufactured, with none of the plastic components that make so quite a few other turntables appear to be low-priced.

James Barber/Foundry

The turntable comes with just one of Victrola’s unusual dustcovers that sit flat on the platter and put a hood over the tonearm when it’s not in use. It is a thriller why the enterprise doesn’t utilize a additional conventional hinged cover that would protect the entire floor and be accessible to use during history playback.

The great news for listeners is that the Stream Carbon Wi-fi turntable utilizes Wi-Fi rather of Bluetooth to join with your Sonos speakers. That will produce a better-high-quality signal, except if you have a spotty house community. If you’ve received a spotty dwelling network, on the other hand, you are previously having problems with Sonos before you purchased this turntable. And if which is the case, you probably use ethernet cables to tie every thing to your router, and the Stream Carbon has the RJ45 port to make that happen.

I examined the turntable with a brand name-new, 180-gram pressing of the 2016 remaster of David Bowie’s 1972 LP The Increase and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. I’m ordinarily one particular to insist on first pressings any time achievable, but this new heavyweight variation seems orders of magnitude superior than the flimsy RCA Dynaflex I acquired back again in the day.

The outcomes weren’t a surprise. The Ortofon cartridge sent its regular stellar success and songs like “Starman” and “Suffragette City” discovered all the detail you’d anticipate from a turntable that is intended be a made a decision action up from entry-amount styles.

James Barber/Foundry

Even extra exciting is the 25th anniversary reissue of Girls In opposition to Boys’ 1996 LP Residence of GVSB. Producer Ted Niceley did an amazing job of capturing the band’s twin bass guitar attack and the new vinyl remaster by Bob Weston captures additional small-close than the original pressings did. There’s a whole lot much more bass than you’d feel achievable coming via the Sonos.

There are a couple of caveats. I relished the wireless screening and set up the turntable on a little table subsequent to my desk. The motor on the Stream Carbon Wireless was a bit louder than I’d hope from a turntable at this cost, and the noise was clear in the silence concerning songs and even in some quieter sections of the new music. When I was throughout the area, nonetheless, the noise was not visible.

If you are applying Sonos speakers, you have currently committed to the company’s electronic sign processing scheme. If you really like the sound of your Sonos streaming tunes, you’re likely to be extremely pleased with the sound of your vinyl when employing this turntable with your Sonos speakers.

Ought to you obtain the Victrola Stream Carbon Wi-fi?

There’s no doubt that what’s on present listed here is a hassle-free and seamless consumer working experience for Sonos buyers. Sonos speakers are very good, but they do not essentially deliver the absolute greatest sound top quality at their price issue. What you get from Sonos is a polished consumer working experience that emphasizes the in general encounter extra than the specifics and specs that audiophiles like.

The Victrola Stream Carbon turntable is specially developed for men and women who really like their Sonos setup and want to increase vinyl to their household audio combine. Victrola gave the turntable a slick, 80s industrial layout and provided an outstanding Ortofon cartridge. Could you buy a better-stop turntable at this value? Undoubtedly, but that turntable would not perform with Sonos out of the box. If you are a Sonos admirer, this is surely the simplest way to integrate vinyl into your existence.