Rekkord F300 Turntable

The resurgence in vinyl in recent years has allowed companies like Rekkord to really show their stuff off. When something moves from a niche interest to a more mainstream role, it can sometimes lead to a drop in quality but these guys based in the Black Forest in Germany haven’t compromised one bit! Each of their turntables are hand made and the vast majority of the components come from local sources, even the screws! And this is all so that they have complete control over the sound quality that comes from their turntables – now there’s dedication for you!

The F300 is an automatic turntable not a manual one. Personally, I find this gives me a lot of reassurance as I’m always petrified of dropping the arm on to the disc and wrecking the record or forgetting to remove the arm when the record is finished! Simply put, you press a button and the turntable takes care of the rest of it for you, settling the arm in to position and moving it back to its resting place when the record is finished, easy! The usual drawback to an automatic turntable is the fact that the armature is full of components that facilitate this and these can interfere with the tonal quality of the track. Rekkord have done their best to mitigate this – not just with handmade precision and locally made components but with things like having a carbon fibre reinforced headshell (carbon fibre has very good acoustic qualities akin to natural wood) for the cartridge to be mounted on, the base of the unit being made from MDF (this allows consistency across the range as opposed to natural wood and is cheaper– it’s also more environmentally friendly than acrylic, the other usual choice for turntables) and the aluminium platter topped with a felt mat helping to dampen unwanted resonance and noise by adding mass to the spin and so keeping the disc more stable. Everything that goes in to this turntable is there for a reason and made with materials deliberately chosen for their particular qualities, even going so far as to have the bearings made with specially designed tools to end up with as little friction as possible and making use of special coiled springs normally the exclusive reserve of the wrist-watch industry.

Carrying on with this attention to detail and providing for the consumer the F300 has been designed so that you can easily change to a different type of cartridge should you wish to use a different kind of stylus or have a cartridge that you prefer from the standard supplied (the AT91 is a perfectly good basic cartridge by the way, don’t feel obliged to change it just because you can!). With user-adjustable tracking and antiskate forces, you can set a cartridge to how you need it, aided by the mounting gauge to ensure you have the stylus in the right place.

So, with all this attention to detail, is the outcome any good? Perhaps unsurprisingly, yes it is! It’s fair to say that this is not a top of the range model, coming in at this price band but then, it doesn’t pretend to be. It’s solidly made, well engineered with attention and care given to its construction and is probably one of the best turntables you can get at this price range that you are likely going to use for a good few years. It can play 33’s and 45’s and most tracks came out sounding perfectly fine and, unless you’re a perfectionist seeking audiophile, will be plenty good enough for the majority of us! RRP $499

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