 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Electronics |
| Founded | October 10, 2012 |
| Founder | Benjamin Carter, Robert Hertig, Peter Maltzan |
| Headquarters | , |
Area served | United States, Canada |
| Products | Audio equipment |
| Website | https://uturnaudio.com/ |
U-Turn Audio is an American audio equipment manufacturer located in Woburn, Massachusetts. The company was established in 2012 by Benjamin Carter, Robert Hertig, and Peter Maltzan. Its primary products are turntables, phono preamps, and loudspeakers.
U-Turn Audio was established in 2012 by three friends from Lexington High School, [1] Benjamin Carter, Robert Hertig, and Peter Maltzan. They raised money to start the company by participating in a business incubator program at Northeastern University, and they successfully completed a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign [2] to build the first Orbit turntable prototype and begin manufacturing operations. [3] [4]
U-Turn's initial product line consisted of two products: the Orbit Basic turntable, with a platter made of MDF, and the Orbit Plus turntable, with a platter made of acrylic. [5] Both models were equipped with a unipivot tonearm designed in-house and pre-fitted with an Ortofon magnetic cartridge. [5] The plinth, or base, of the turntable was also made of MDF and was offered in a choice of three colors: black, blue, or green. [5] The Basic model was priced at $179 and the Plus model was priced at $279. [5] Magnetic cartridges from Audio-Technica and Grado Labs were offered as build-to-order options. [5]
All Orbit turntables utilize a belt-drive system that uses a low voltage AC synchronous drive motor positioned at the left rear corner of the plinth, and a rubber drive belt wrapped around the motor pulley and the outer edge of the platter. [6] Playback speeds of 33.3 RPM and 45 RPM are selected by positioning the drive belt on one of two sections of the drive motor pulley. [6]
In 2015, U-Turn introduced the Pluto phono preamp, available in external and internal versions. [7] Two more Orbit plinth colors — red and white — were offered that year. [7]
In 2016, the company began production of the Orbit Special turntable, offering customers two new plinth choices: solid maple wood and solid walnut wood. [7] Later that year, U-Turn announced that a new tonearm, called Orbit Arm 2, would replace the company's original tonearm. [7] Orbit Arm 2 uses a gimbal bearing rather than a unipivot bearing, and includes a new and improved anti-skating mechanism. [7]
In 2019, U-Turn introduced a new Orbit plinth color, purple, which the company stated would be available only for a limited time, but it has remained part of the regular product line ever since. [7]
In 2020, the company announced that an improved phono preamp, called Pluto 2, would replace the original Pluto preamp. [7] The Orbit Special turntable gained an additional plinth choice that year: birch plywood with maple wood veneer. [7]
In April 2021, U-Turn announced that it had built 100,000 turntables, and that the most popular plinth color was black. [7] In November of that year, the company began producing the Ethos self-powered loudspeaker. [7] The loudspeakers use custom-designed four-inch woofers and one-inch tweeters, housed inside MDF cabinets, available in white or black (priced at $399), or in walnut wood veneer (priced at $499). [8] They are powered by an internal audio amplifier rated at 80 watts, and can receive audio input signals via wired connections or wireless Bluetooth connections. [8]
All U-Turn Audio products are manufactured and assembled by hand at the company's factory in Woburn, Massachusetts [9] [10] and come with a three year warranty against defects in materials and workmanship. [11] Most of the parts and components come from American suppliers. [12] The company sells and distributes its products in the United States and Canada. [13]
There are three main types of phonograph turntable drives being manufactured today: the belt-drive, idler-wheel and direct-drive systems; the names are based upon the type of coupling used between the platter of the turntable and the motor. In a belt-drive turntable the motor is located off-center from the platter, either underneath it or entirely outside of it, and is connected to the platter or counter-platter by a drive belt made from elastomeric material.
Technics SL-1200 is a series of direct-drive turntables originally manufactured from October 1972 until 2010, and resumed in 2016, by Matsushita Electric under the brand name of Technics. S means "Stereo", L means "Player". Originally released as a high fidelity consumer record player, it quickly became adopted among radio and disco club disc jockeys, thanks to the direct drive, high torque motor design, making it initially suitable for pushbutton cueing and starting of tracks on radio and in dance clubs. Beside these features it had a so called pitchcontrol, which allowed the user to change the turning speed of the record gradually from -8% to +8%. This feature was specifically interesting for DJ's who were mixing two or more records with each other, especially in dance clubs. The turntable is still extremely popular with audiophiles.
Linn Products is an engineering company that manufactures hi-fi and audio equipment. Founded by Ivor Tiefenbrun in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1972, the company is best known as the manufacturer of the Linn Sondek LP12 turntable.
Roksan is a British manufacturer of high fidelity audio products for domestic use, based in Rayleigh, Essex. It is best known for its influential and innovative design for hi-fi equipment, and in particular its Xerxes platform for playing LP records.
Musical Fidelity is a British producer of high-end audio equipment focusing on streaming music players, and its core product range of amplifiers of various types. Other products have included headphones, Digital-Analog Converters (DACs), CD players, Bluetooth Receivers, ‘all-in-one systems’. Founded in the United Kingdom in 1982, they are known for their unusual industrial design, Nuvistor tube use and Class-AB amplifiers.
Stanton Magnetics, doing business as Stanton, is a business unit of inMusic Brands that designs and markets turntables, cartridges, DJ mixers, DJ media players, and DJ controllers.
The Linn Sondek LP12 is a transcription turntable produced by Glasgow-based Linn Products, manufacturers of hi-fi, home theatre, and multi-room audio systems. Its name is derived from the 12" vinyl LP.
Rega Research Ltd. is a British audio equipment manufacturer. Rega was founded in 1973. The company's name was formed of the initials of its two founders. Rega are widely known for their turntables – most notably the iconic Rega Planar 3, cartridges and tonearms, and has produced award-winning amplification and speakers for over 20 years. In addition to manufacturing products under their own brand name, they have also served as an original equipment manufacturer of turntables and tonearms for other companies such as NAD and Rotel.
Elektromesstechnik (EMT) is a manufacturer of phonograph turntables and professional audio equipment, including a well-regarded line of artificial reverberation devices beginning with the EMT 140 plate reverb. The company was founded by Wilhelm Franz.
Ortofon is a Danish manufacturer of electronic audio equipment. It is the world's largest producer of magnetic cartridges for phonograph turntables, with 500,000 cartridges sold annually.
The Technics SL-10 is a direct-drive, linear tracking automatic turntable, which was produced from 1979 to 1985.
Technics is a Japanese audio brand established by Panasonic in 1965. Since 1965, Panasonic has produced a variety of hi-fi and audio products under the brand name, such as turntables, amplifiers, radio receivers, tape recorders, CD players, speakers, and digital pianos. Technics products were available for sale in various countries. The brand was originally conceived as a line of high-end audio equipment to compete against brands such as Nakamichi.
Denon DL103 is an MC phono cartridge made by DENON company.
The Numark Pro TT-2, Pro TT-1+, Pro TT-1 and TT-100 were a family of private label, high end, direct drive DJ phonograph turntables sold by Numark during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Only in production for a few years, these models were among the early versions of the "Super OEM" manual DJ turntables made by the Hanpin Electron Co., Ltd. of Taiwan. The Pro TT-1, Pro TT-1+, and Pro TT-2 models incorporated a LCD display on the top plate to show turntable settings which included a unique 12 segment animated element to indicate platter rotation and direction.
Pro-Ject Audio Systems is a manufacturer of audiophile equipment, founded in 1991 by Heinz Lichtenegger and located in Mistelbach, Austria. Pro-Ject Audio Systems designs the products in Austria and produces them in Europe. It produces a range of audio equipment including a family of turntables, which are often quoted as reference entry-level models. Pro-Ject Audio Systems also manufactures a range of micro hi-fi components such as Amps, CD Transports, Phono Stages, Streaming Devices, Loudspeakers and more. Today, Pro-Ject Audio Systems ship into more than 80 countries world-wide. Since 2015 Pro-Ject has released limited edition turntables in cooperation with the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Metallica, Hans Theessink, Parov Stelar, and the Vienna Philharmonic.
SME is a brand name of an English company that produces high end tonearms and turntables, whose name has become synonymous with the industry standard detachable headshell mount.
The Roksan Xerxes transcription turntable is a record player named after the Persian king Xerxes I and produced by London-based Roksan Audio. Designed by Roksan co-founder, Touraj Moghaddam, the Xerxes is a belt-driven turntable with a solid plinth. Launched in 1985, the sound quality of the product positioned it as a strong competitor against the established industry leader, the Linn Sondek LP12. Many reviewers use the Xerxes as a reference turntable.
The Rega Planar 3, together with its successors, the P3 and RP3, is a well-known budget audiophile turntable by British hi-fi manufacturer, Rega Research available since 1977. It was a belt-drive deck that broke from convention, by employing a solid plinth in lieu of the compliantly suspended chassis or sub-chassis used in many quality turntables since the early 1960s.
The Audio-Technica AT-LP120 is a mid-range direct-drive turntable introduced in 2009 by the Japanese audio equipment manufacturer Audio-Technica. The AT-LP120 was intended to be a viable replacement for the long-running Technics SL-1200 series of turntables that was set to be discontinued in 2010. It supports both phono and line-level output, using a built-in preamplifier.