A Victrola for Your Sonos

If you've wandered by Victrola turntables on the shelves in Walmart, Bed Bath & Beyond, or Crate & Barrel, you wouldn't set high expectations for the sound quality of those suitcase record players.

- By Leslie Shapiro

VICTROLA STREAM CARBON TURNTABLE

However, in a bold move, Victrola hit the market with the Stream Carbon Turntable VPT-3000 (MSRP $799), designed for the serious vinyl enthusiast who also craves the convenience of streaming into their existing Sonos ecosystem.

What's in a name? In some cases, over a century of history. It's common knowledge that today's Victrola is a distant relative of the original Victor Talking Machine from the early 1900s. What isn't as well-known is the background behind the current era of Victrola.

Victor merged with RCA in 1929 and continued producing record players for decades. But eventually, the Victrola name ceased appearing on turntables. In 2006, the name and trademark were revived by Corey Lieblein. Lieblein's company, Innovative Technologies, successfully sold budget turntables to retail companies such as Kohl's and Sam's Club. To be taken seriously, he purchased the sleeping Victrola name and trademark for an undisclosed amount. But it's the company's current CEO, Scott Hagen, who is responsible for this entrance into the higher-end turntable market and has spearheaded the company's innovation for the last few years.

The Victrola Stream Carbon (VPT3000-BSL) is this new venture's most expensive turntable to date. It is clearly meant for a higher-end clientele. As alluded to in its name, the Stream is designed to connect seamlessly to an existing Sonos speaker system. It also has RCA line outputs with a built-in phono preamp to connect to a more traditional system. There are no phono level outputs.