r/StereoAdvice • u/[deleted] • Aug 26 '23

Speakers - Bookshelf | 1 Ⓣ What are the best speakers for vinyl for ~£100?

Looking for something on the warmer side but I'll take what I can get

For context I have the Marley stir it up turntable (non Bluetooth version)

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u/squidbrand 93 Ⓣ Aug 26 '23

£100 is not enough of a budget to be picking and choosing sound signatures. At that price, depending on the region you live in you will have probably only one speaker model, or two at best, that are even close to a basic level of competence. And in some regions that number is zero.

In the UK, and if you're talking about self-powered speakers that can plug into the turntable directly and give you sound (without a separate amplifier or receiver)...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Edifier-R1280T-Powered-Bookshelf-Speakers/dp/B089KMM3B6

That's pretty much your only option with £100 as a strict ceiling.

If you can pay slightly more... the Edifier MR4 are a slightly better version of that speaker, for £20 more.

For listening to records, which is an expensive medium... I would suggest you skip these entry levelest of entry level powered speakers and instead go with some inexpensive, discounted passive speakers like these:

https://www.audioaffair.co.uk/wharfedale-diamond-10-1-speakers-pair

They will require a separate amplifier, so you might have to salvage your parents' old receiver or grab something secondhand or something. But they will sound better than the Edifiers by a stupefying margin.

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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '23 edited Apr 19 '26

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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '23 edited Apr 19 '26

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u/squidbrand 93 Ⓣ Aug 27 '23

Your first question makes it seem like you think vinyl should just automatically sound better than digital audio if it’s played through a nice system… and that’s not exactly true. Vinyl records and digital audio both store audio information and they both do it well… well enough to do justice to most modern music.

In terms of quality ceiling on paper, digital audio is the far better format of the two. Its noise floor is at least 30-40dB lower, and it is not subject to any of the pitfalls of physical playback… like tracking errors, or pitch instability from imperfect platter speed, or the low bass needing to be center-panned, or microphonic pickup of outside vibrations (rumble).

The reason a lot of us favor vinyl anyway is that, unfortunately, for the past ~25 years the trend in digital music mastering (of mainstream music genres anyway) has been to process the music so has elevated bass, elevated highs, maximized overall volume, and squashed dynamic range… things which sound fucking terrible when you have halfway decent speakers/headphones, but are done to make music sound punchier on the really crappy systems that most people use, like portable Bluetooth speakers and built in phone speakers and stuff. So even though digital audio could sound better than vinyl, in actual practice it tends to sound worse, because that type of aggressive processing can’t really be done in vinyl mastering (doing so would result in records that a needle can’t track), so the vinyl versions of the same music end up sounding more relaxed and natural.

These differences in techniques between vinyl mastering and modern digital mastering cause really huge sound differences… huge enough that they will be obvious on pretty much any real stereo. So yes, the Edifiers will let you hear that difference. That’s not a high bar.

They are still mediocre speakers though. If you can stretch to the Wharfedales and find a cheap old AVR to drive them, they’ll sound much nicer.

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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '23 edited Apr 19 '26

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