I’m not a lot of an analog audio man. I like listening to music, however I don’t get so obsessive about sound high quality that I attempt to optimize each single listening second. So I assumed that stepping into gathering albums on vinyl wouldn’t be for me. Till I attempted the Victrola Stream Onyx, a participant designed particularly round a digital streaming expertise.
Victrola has a protracted historical past of constructing wonderful document gamers, however the Stream Onyx is a bit of distinctive. Its main distinguishing function is its capacity to stream to Sonos audio system—which sounds a bit of counterintuitive. Isn’t the purpose of investing in a vinyl assortment to get that wealthy analog sound?
Effectively, perhaps. And the Stream Onyx nonetheless has analog outputs if you wish to retain the choice of listening that method. Nevertheless, the addition of Sonos streaming—and the simplicity that the Onyx offers—makes a robust argument that vinyl and digital pair rather well collectively.
The Digital Paradox
The Stream Onyx is a remarkably easy gadget. It has an analog stereo RCA output, so you should use it like a standard document participant, and it has an Ethernet port for connecting to your community. Nevertheless it’s solely mandatory to attach the facility cable. Then you’ll be able to stream audio from the participant to any Sonos-compatible speaker in the home.
This isn’t the one document participant that may join wirelessly to audio system, however many alternate options use Bluetooth, which doesn’t seize fairly as a lot element and richness as Sonos audio, and has extra limitations by way of streaming distance. Whereas it won’t fulfill audio purists, I discovered the sound high quality coming from my Onyx—paired with a Sonos Period 300—to be wonderful. The clicks, pops, and texture of enjoying a document got here via simply as clearly as they’d from analog audio system (to my ears, anyway).
Nevertheless, since Sonos isn’t the one possibility, there’s nonetheless flexibility to get the most effective of each worlds. The analog RCA output means that you would be able to join the participant to a sturdy analog system, however nonetheless stream music to different rooms that is likely to be much less handy to attach. Perhaps you favor listening to data in your hi-fi den, however there’s nothing stopping you from persevering with playback on a speaker within the kitchen.
Past the Needle
{Photograph}: Victrola
It’s additionally value conserving in thoughts how a lot of the expertise of listening to data isn’t nearly audio high quality. I’m not an enormous document collector, however I had the identical expertise as critiques editor Julian Chokkatu when he first bought into vinyl. Visiting a document retailer, placing arms on a full album, the tactile expertise of interacting with a single work is unparalleled in a streaming world.
The interface for listening to music can also be very completely different on a document. One may ask, “When you’re going to stream digitally, why even trouble utilizing a document participant in any respect?” My prime reply is that you would be able to’t pause a document. As soon as I placed on a vinyl of Queen’s biggest hits, I’m dedicated. There’s no monitor skipping, no shuffling. Simply listening to an album the way in which the artist meant. And I’ve bought an enormous sleeve with album artwork, photographs, and extras to peruse whereas I do.
It’s laborious to overstate how liberating that is, how far more intimately I really feel the music after I hear like this. It’s an expertise that streaming simply can’t contact. After I hear to at least one music on vinyl, no algorithm goes to attempt to guess what I’d like to listen to subsequent, solely to bafflingly comply with Van Halen with a music from Bo Burnham: Inside, simply because I’ve listened to each not too long ago. ( you, YouTube Music.)