It has been a while since I handled vinyl. There is plenty of it around the house; there are even a couple of turntables hanging about. But these days it is easier to just open up an app and start streaming, so the record player is more of an occasional device rather than an integral part of the music scene here.
Plus it is just so fragile: one wrong move and a scratch later, your records are ruined.
But there are plenty of reasons why vinyl has not been killed off. Digital audio is too clean, too sterile at times. Records are very firmly in the analogue camp, with all the warmth and sometimes the imperfection they bring.
But that doesn’t mean they can’t be dressed up a little with some high-tech additions.
That is what Victrola has done with the Stream Sapphire. A new addition to the Stream turntable line-up, the Stream Sapphire includes the Sonos connectivity of its predecessors and adds support for uPnP, bringing audio streaming over wifi.
That opens it up to speakers beyond the Sonos range, bringing all the convenience of audio streaming as you stream to speakers around the house, from AV receivers to TV sound bars, all in 24-bit/48kHz lossless FLAC.
You have to set it up first, though. Out of the box, the Stream Sapphire comes in several pieces, rather than as a sleek turntable with silver panels and a wooden veneer plinth. It has a brushless motor, an Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge and a carbon fibre tonearm.
But if you don’t know your tonearm from your counterweight, the Victrola app has you covered, with a step-by-step walk-through to make sure all the physical bits are in the right place before you even get to the wireless set-up.
That was where I encountered the first hiccup, with the app stubbornly refusing to move to the wifi set-up screen. One app restart later and things moved along.
It wasn’t the only hitch I encountered, although they were limited in number.
The controls can be confusing during the set-up process. The knob on the front feels like it should do something, aside from light up during the initial start-up.
You can customise the illumination level in the app, and once the record player is operational, the knob has one good use: a physical volume control that gives you tactile feedback with a satisfying click as you turn it. But that makes it even more obvious that it should do something more to give you feedback during set-up, because you feel like nothing is happening half the time.
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The app has some extra settings too, such as streaming settings to help deal with any potential connection issues with the Sonos speakers, or to prioritise the stability of the connection or audio quality.
And that is the key thing: you need it to connect to your wireless devices and make sure it stays that way, and that it sounds good while doing it.
The good news is that (to admittedly less than expert ears) the audio quality is good regardless of whether you are streaming to Sonos speakers or a compatible sound bar, or sending audio over the ethernet connection. Even streaming doesn’t take away the warmth of vinyl, and the high-quality streaming means you don’t lose much of the detail.
It is a convenient way to get your audio all over the house at the same time without a snarl of wires.
That said, you don’t have to use digital streaming, because the Stream Sapphire also has physical connections. Simply hook up an RCA cable to the back of the record player and you can hook it up to your best speakers.
You can also stream to your wireless speakers and play music over the wired RCA connection simultaneously, with the option to set a custom delay to match it to your wireless set-up.
There is one final flaw: the price. At about €1,500, the Stream Sapphire isn’t cheap. You pay for that extra connectivity, but for some it will be a premium that they can ill afford.
Good
Wired or wireless, you get great audio from the Victrola Stream Sapphire. The inclusion of the uPnP support opens the player up to more devices, stepping outside of the Sonos comfort zone.
There are also a host of wired connections too, keeping things flexible.
Bad
Despite the app walking you through the physical set-up of the device, it was a frustrating experience setting up the digital side of things. It didn’t always show up in the app, and getting through the wifi process was awkward at first.
While the design of the device looks good, it is weirdly heavy – great if you like a bit of heft to your electronics, but not so much if you need to shift it around.
It is also very expensive, especially compared with other devices in the Stream line-up.
Everything else
The dust cover fits in with the overall design of the turntable – sleek and subtle – but it doesn’t attach to the turntable. You just lift it off and store it somewhere when the turntable is in use.
Verdict
Plenty of connectivity options, but it comes at a price.
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