Bitten by the vinyl bug? Everything you need to know about putting together the best record-playing system from £200

The dos and don’ts and top choices when it comes to getting the best from your record collection.

The vinyl revival looks here to stay. Album sales from popular artists such as Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey and Harry Styles have been topping the charts of late while back catalogue favourites including the likes of Fleetwood Mac’s iconic Rumours and Queen’s Greatest Hits have been given a new lease of life.

Clearly, plenty of people value vinyl’s physical properties - the album’s artwork and lyrics, the tactile delight of placing the record on the deck, cleaning it, dropping the needle into the groove. It’s a ritual that connects the listener with the artist and their creation in a way that a remotely-hosted data file never will.

Regrettably, very few converts will be hearing what a good recording is capable of and may find themselves confronted with a tinny, crackling, highly compressed din. More “no fidelity” than high fidelity.

Vinyl, which doesn't only come in black, connects the listener with the artist and their creation in a way that a remotely-hosted data file never will. Picture: Scott Reid

I suspect many newbies will have received one of those little retro-styled, record player-in-a-suitcase things as a Christmas gift, popped on their first album and wondered what all the fuss is about. Who can blame them for just closing the lid for good and returning to Spotify?

Yet, with a bit of knowledge, a little more expenditure (it needn’t be too much, though it is possible to blow thousands) and some patience that anti-climax can be turned into sonic bliss, and a life-long passion for the long-player.

So, where to start? There are a couple of options that need to be explored at the outset and two main routes that you can go down to get things spinning.

Option one is potentially the simplest and the lightest on the wallet. That is to buy a turntable with some form of integrated streaming, most likely via Bluetooth. The sound can then be directed to just about any smart speaker or TV sound bar, without cabling or the need for any additional hardware.

The long-playing record has seen a resurgence in popularity but getting the best out of it can be a challenge.

There are a growing number of players out there that incorporate Bluetooth and all of them will also allow a wired connection, though an adaptor cable is likely to be required for some smart speakers or sound bar. Pick of the bunch for me would be anything from the Audio Technica stable (their most basic LP60XBT model can be had for under £200), or Sony’s well-reviewed, very sleek and easy to set up PSLX310BT (under £250 and widely stocked, including at HMV).

Going down this deck-only route is convenient and reduces clutter but is entirely dependent on the quality and placement of your speaker and even the best of them will lack that depth, clarity and certainly stereo separation that a pair of dedicated hi-fi loudspeakers can provide.

A halfway house option, therefore, is to get hold of a pair of active speakers. This allows the deck to be wired directly into one of the two speakers, with the other connected via a speaker cable or wirelessly, depending on the particular model. Advantages? A decent step up in sound and proper stereo separation without the need for a separate hi-fi amplifier (it will come built in to the speaker). Best avoiding anything too cheap though and fork out at least £300 for a pair of active speakers. Around that price point the Eltax Monitor is a neat design with fantastic connectivity including the ability to hook up any turntable, whether it has a built-in phono stage (more on that in a bit) or not.

Unsurprisingly, the best way to get the best sound possible is to push the boat out and buy a traditional turntable, amplifier and pair of passive loudspeakers (those that don’t have built-in amplification). Having that extra box, the amp, allows you to plug in other components, perhaps a CD player or the output from your TV. Several also now incorporate wireless and Bluetooth support, allowing streaming services and mobile devices to be utilised. Keeping things separated out also provides an easier pathway to upgrading.

The turntable selected for this approach needn’t have Bluetooth, in fact, it’s preferable to hard wire it to the amp. What is critical is establishing whether it requires a built-in phono stage/phono pre-amp booster or not. This is a little circuit that boosts and equalizes the very low level signal that is produced by the stylus/cartridge combination in the deck’s tonearm.

The amp may have one of its own built in but if it doesn’t the turntable will have to. This is a crucial fact to establish as buying a deck and an amp combo where neither has a phono stage would necessitate getting hold of an external unit, and entail further expense - though there are some excellent separate phono pre-amps out there if you want to go down this route.

How cheaply can/should you go with the deck/amp/speakers set-up? A quick browse of the Richer Sounds website (in Scotland, the chain has physical stores in Edinburgh and Glasgow) throws up a pre-selected system comprising a Denon turntable, Cambridge Audio amp and compact Wharfedale speakers for around £300. That looks excellent value to me, the brands are well regarded and it’s about as low as I’d be going. Just allow a little more for some speaker stands (ideally you want the smaller high-frequency driver, the tweeter, pointing at or a little below ear level when you’re sitting listening) and quality cables.

Beyond that, the sky’s the limit. A few years back I attended the launch event for a £140,000 amplifier. Pretty strong money in anybody’s book. Yet that big black box doesn’t feature in the world’s top ten most expensive amps.

If you do decide to take your vinyl playing to the next level, an honourable mention must go to Rega, the venerable UK audio manufacturer. Billed as the “perfect all-in-one analogue solution”, their System One, British-built turntable/amp/speaker package can be had for a smidgen under £1,000. I’ve heard it. It sounds pretty brilliant and a million miles away from one of those scratchy suitcase record destroyers. The turntable that forms part of this system can be had on its own, the Rega Planar 1, again UK built, complete with pre-fitted cartridge/stylus, all pre-aligned, pre-balanced and ready to play in seconds, at £299.

So, there are some of the favoured options available from a couple of hundred quid up to the price of a flat-screen telly or smartphone. You can, of course, also go down the second-hand route, and bargains can be had, though a warranty is unlikely (some audio dealers that do sell used gear will generally offer a limited guarantee, so this tends to be the safest option). However, the prices of the better used turntables have been steadily creeping up and you will always have to factor in the need/necessity to buy a new stylus, not really knowing what sort of life may be left in it. Pre-owned speakers also come with warning signs.

Happy vinyl listening.

My top five tips:

- Find a good dealer to help with advice/matching/cabling requirements. There aren’t as many as there used to be but Edinburgh, for example, has a number including Richer Sounds, Loud & Clear, James Morrow and Hi-fi Corner. Face-to-face advice cannot be beaten.

- If you buy a separates-type external amplifier, do establish whether it has a built-in phono stage/pre-amp or not. If it doesn’t, the turntable will need to have one, otherwise you will require a separate box and cable.

- Make sure you don’t underpower. Most speaker damage is caused by smaller, lower-powered amplifiers being turned up too far, causing speaker cone-harming distortion, known as clipping. At higher listening levels, a 100-watt amp into a 50-watt rated speaker is potentially less harmful than a 50-watt amp into a 100-watt rated speaker. The former is ticking over while the latter is being stretched, with no headroom.

- Do locate the turntable on a rigid support and ideally not on the same surface or facing the loudspeakers.

- Do give the record a quick clean before each play. I would always go with a carbon fibre brush, costing from about a tenner for a decent one. I’ve been using the same one for more than 40 years and it’s never lost one of its hairs, unlike its owner.

Scott Reid is a business journalist at The Scotsman and previously worked in the hi-fi industry from 1982 to 1997