Victrola Hi-Res Onyx: Two-minute review

The Victrola Hi-Res Onyx is a welcome surprise in this touch-above-entry-level bracket, offering customary entry-level versatility coupled with the form and features of quality manual turntables twice the price. It helps, too, that it looks a bit swankier than most of its competitors.

The Hi-Res Onyx is a highly capable turntable with a built-in Bluetooth encoder, that enables you to cast your vinyl audio out to any Bluetooth device of your choosing. Its Qualcomm aptX Adaptive capabilities up the fidelity factor (hence the ‘Hi-Res’) – making for the slickest wireless audio you’ll have heard in a while. 

The Hi-Res Onyx performs admirably as a straight-up turntable too, with a decent Audio-Technica cartridge and a fine-enough phono preamp built in for ease of use; a toggleable auto-stop protects the condition of your stylus, while counterweight and anti-skate mechanisms let you dial your turntable in perfectly for the protection of your records.

There are some points of friction, from the imprecise counterweight set-up to an ineffectual dust cover, but these are trifles against the greater successes of the Hi-Res Onyx. It’s not quite for everyone, but it does a fantastic job for most – and particularly so for its price. One of the best turntables to have graced our testing process in some time then? You betcha. 

Victrola Hi-Res Onyx review: Price and release date

• $399 / £399 / AUS$625
• Launched on Sept 7, 2023

Victrola has made a point of graduating from the entry level in recent years, with a slew of turntable designs that reach beyond the bedroom bookshelf towards a fertile market of accessible hi-fi record players. This, the Hi-Res Onyx, is a further graduation from a stand-out model with limited reach: the Sonos-compatible Victrola Stream Onyx. 

These stream-y record players join a plurality of designs from manufacturers old and new, all vying for the same hot property in a still-emerging space for the turntable market. The union of analogue and digital is by no means new, but the valuable integration of Bluetooth technology into something like a turntable has proven difficult for many – until, perhaps, now.

Victrola Hi-Res Onyx review: Specs

Victrola Hi-Res Onyx review: Features

• Manual turntable with auto-stop and built-in phono stage
• Bluetooth streaming
• Counterweight and anti-skate

In a welcome break from the vast majority of other Bluetooth-enabled turntables, the Hi-Res Onyx is a calibrate-able two-speed manual turntable, with an adjustable counterweight and an anti-skate mechanism to ensure both pristine playback and the safety of your records. 

This commitment to playability follows in the Hi-Res Onyx’s choice of cartridge, again a step or two above those commonly found on cheaper players. The Onyx comes with an Audio-Technica AT-VM95E moving-magnet cartridge, a budget cartridge on Audio-Technica’s roster but one which delivers excellent sound for its price and against competition. A toggleable auto-stop function further protects your recs, and protects the stylus too.

A lot of manual turntables below £400 would stop here, but the Hi-Res Onyx is made of… more… stuff. There’s a switchable phono preamp built in, allowing you to plug the Onyx into most anything; Victrola are kind enough to supply a high-quality RCA cable with a ground lug, too. The rub of the unit, though, lies in its wireless attributes.

The Hi-Res Onyx is so named for its Bluetooth transmitter, which supports the high-fidelity Qualcomm aptX Adaptive and HD codecs as well as Bluetooth 5.4 and LE Audio. With this mode, you can stream your vinyl audio out to any Bluetooth receiver, be they headphones or speakers in rooms afield. The mode is pretty seamless, in pretty much every sense, being accessed by a single press of the Hi-Res Onyx’s single front-facing button. It’ll pair with your receiver of choice instantly, and automatically re-pair with the same next time you switch modes.

I would switch to Bluetooth for kitchen listening, then switch back to the wired connection on returning to the living-room; the switch-back is immediate and immaculate, with no pops, clicks or abrupt pauses – a genuine and welcome surprise that dramatically improves its practicality.

• Features score: 4.5/5

Victrola Hi-Res Onyx review: Sound quality

• Impressive fidelity
• Rich, fulsome bass
• Occasionally obvious wowing

At this price (and with the right initial set-up), the Hi-Res Onyx is hugely impressive. The relative fullness of the built-in phono pre-amp, the relative quietude of the motor, the relative smoothness of record playback… Relative to players from premium brands, there’s always going to be room for improvement, but relative to other mainstream entrants at this price or even slightly above, ‘impressive’ is the word (and ‘relative’ the second word).

Wye Oak’s Civilian + Cut All The Wires: 2009-2011 double-album is a fave go-to review album, mostly because it’s great but also because there’s a great degree of dynamic shift from song to song. No Words is a plaintive, near-fragile track with lonely electric guitars and a leaping vocal, handled with care by the Hi-Res Onyx; the guitars chime, there’s silk in Jenn Wasner’s voice, and the sparse kit cuts through without pulling focus. 

Electricity, on the other hand, is a rich and boomy hit of maximalist folk-noise – and does a better job of showing the Hi-Res Onyx’s relative(!) shortcomings. Mid frequencies get a little lost in that prominent, fulsome low end, while some treble elements are unwarrantedly boosted; a missing guitar moment here, an over-prominent hi-hat there.

A more ostentatious record, in CANT’s Dreams Come True, speaks more to the Hi-Res Onyx’s strengths. Too late, too far’s booming kicks, searing synths and mounting voices fill the field, well-separated and delightfully wide, while BANG’s stacked line-up of deep subs, shimmering leads and drowned vocals are distinct, legible yet cohesive. However, the quieter last tracks of Side A and B respectively reveal some unfortunate speed dysregulation, as the pianos and broken vocals of (brokencollar) and Bericht warp a little too far for comfort.

The Bluetooth streaming mode, which describes the ‘Hi-Res’ bit of the Hi-Res Onyx (on account of its aptX Adaptive Bluetooth codec support), is innervatingly good. I am usually something of a Bluetooth curmudgeon, but a combination low-difficulty pairing and strikingly detailed sound has won me round. Wye Oak’s Holy Holy is a gratifyingly full-spectrum listen, and there’s nothing missing from the heft Queens of the Stone Age’s Songs For The Deaf – …Millionaire and First It Giveth sounding as bombastic as they always should.

• Sound quality score: 4/5

Victrola Hi-Res Onyx review: Design

• Smart, understated monochrome aesthetics
• Smooth and ergonomic interactivity 
• Cool design forfeits ease of calibration

With regard to setting-up, the Hi-Res Onyx is a relative cinch. Far from the plug-and-play practicality of cheaper units, there is some assembly required – but this is no bad thing. One such assembly step, though, reveals a small sting in the turntable-design tail.

Before we get to that, I’d like to acknowledge the fun of the Hi-Res Onyx’s aesthetic design. Aesthetically speaking, the Hi-Res Onyx is a demure thing. It’s an obelisk of sorts, wedded to matte black and almost impressively so at that. Were it not for the white hairs of the household cat, the Onyx would be a Clarke-ean monolith amidst a sea of kooky mid-century hi-fi furnishings. It’s hard not to use the word ‘sleek’ to death when it comes to designs like this – though I suppose I have now, so there. 

This commitment to ineffable quasi-minimalism leads to some neat flourishes. The tonearm cradle, for instance, is of uniform material, and holds the tonearm in place with a concealed magnet as opposed to a plastic clip. This is swanky – and kinder on the tonearm if you forget to unlatch it before you use the tonearm lift.

Another flourish brings with it a frustrating moment, though. The counterweight is a pleasing object, fastened smartly in place on the tonearm’s rear by a small, knurled grub screw. Indentations on the tonearm’s rear indicate where to affix the counterweight, but they don’t quite corroborate with the recommended tracking force for the cartridge; I had to use a digital tracking force scale to ensure it was set correctly. Pleasing as this counterweight is to handle and place, conventional screw-back counterweight designs (with the numbered calibrator wheel) aren’t as fiddly.

Not to ‘and another thing’ this section, but another, separate, gripe emerges with respect to the dust cover Victrola provides. It’s a smartly-designed, single plastic sheet, moulded to arch over the resting tonearm and conforming with the contour of the platter. However, it only protects the tonearm and platter when the turntable isn’t in use. It’d be nice to have a more conventional kind of lid, particularly for this writer – whose cats pose an eternal and existential risk to the preservation of beloved records in-play. 

The Hi-Res Onyx is smart-lookin’ and smart to use. Where it wins many points for being smooth in style and ergonomics, it unfortunately drops one for occasional impractical awkwardness.

• Design score: 4/5

Victrola Hi-Res Onyx review: Value

• Practical and versatile for its price bracket
• A quietly-featureful bargain

At a shade under $400 / £400, the Victrola Hi-Res Onyx pitches itself a tad above the entry level, putting itself in ‘somewhat serious investment’ territory for the average household. That money, though, is buying you a discrete and practical unit that outplays most in its range.

It’s rare to find such a fully-featured turntable with this kind of tweakability at this price point. The result is something that can work to most hi-fi briefs – a quietly versatile machine that excels in its class. 

Really, this turntable is a bit of a bargain – and straight-up convenient, at least for those who haven’t already poured money into a comprehensive hi-fi system. If you own a phono preamp, you probably don’t need any of this turntable’s flashier attributes, at which point you should be looking elsewhere in the market anyway. For most, then, this is a valuable advancement on the tried-and-tested entry-level formula.

• Value score: 4.5/5

Should you buy the Victrola Hi-Res Onyx?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Victrola Hi-Res Onyx: Also consider

How I tested the Victrola Hi-Res Onyx

• Tested for 3 weeks
• Used as primary turntable in living-room hi-fi system
• Predominantly tested through Cambridge AV amplifier and Celestion speakers, as well as a Soundcore Bluetooth speaker

The Victrola Hi-Res Onyx became my primary living-room turntable for a month. The RCA outputs fed my dependable Cambridge Audio Azur 540R amplifier and Celestion F1 bookshelf speakers; for Bluetooth, I connected to my Soundcore Motion 300 speaker. I used personal favourite records with which I am intimately familiar, and with which I was able to get a feel for the Hi-Res Onyx’s character both wired and wirelessly.

First reviewed: August 2024

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Victrola Eastwood II: Two-minute review

The Victrola Eastwood II is, in many ways, the ideal first turntable. It is an eminently attractive, well-featured all-in-one hi-fi solution that beats plenty of its competitors on a number of metrics. But is it one of the best turntables for the money? Well, bi-directional Bluetooth connectivity, a mini-but-mighty built-in amp and a truly plug-and-play setup routine together make the Eastwood II a formidable entrant to the entry level sector, at least… 

That Bluetooth connectivity is the main draw here, as the Eastwood II is capable of both receiving and sending audio via its respective Bluetooth and Vinyl Stream modes – as well as acting as a conventional player with RCA and headphone aux outputs on the rear. Using each mode is easy to the point foolproof-i-ness, and switching between them as simple as clicking the Eastwood’s single rotary encoder/button.

An Audio-Technica cartridge furnishes this starter turntable with surprising fidelity, too - but, despite these worthy merits, the Eastwood II has its fair share of disappointments. Cheap materials and a flimsy-feeling tonearm system with no counterweight inspire less confidence in the Eastwood II’s handling of your records, and the motor serving the turntable’s plastic platter is prone to instability – with often-audible impacts on the turntable’s sound performance.

Functional elements of the Eastwood II leave you wanting, too, from a dust cover that catches your records to a fundamental missed opportunity with the Bluetooth setting. While a versatile first turntable, this won’t be the one for everyone – particularly not record owners looking to upgrade an existing hi-fi system. 

In spite of these gripes, the Eastwood II is a great choice for the teenage or student bedroom – and a smart aesthetic addition to most any space too. At a shade over £100/under $100, it’s also hard to beat budget-wise! 

Victrola Eastwood II review: Price and release date

• $99.99 / £119 / €129.99 (around AU$146) 
• Launched on July 31, 2024

As intimated by its title, the Eastwood II is a successor model to Victrola’s Eastwood hybrid turntable. The design principles and core functionality remain the same, but material improvements and a sleeker aesthetic set the Eastwood II apart from its predecessor. There are two styles of Eastwood II available as of August 2024 – a striking Black, and a cool mid-century-ish Walnut – the latter of which is the unit reviewed here. 

Both colourways sell at $99/£119/€129.99, which is around AU$146, give or take, or a pleasingly cheap price for its build and capabilities. The price goes some way to describing some of the material decisions made here, but equivalently-priced turntables with better tonearms and platters do not have any of the bells and whistles offered by this highly-accessible hi-fi alternative.

Victrola Eastwood II review: Specs

Victrola Eastwood II turntable review: Features

• Three-speed playback
• Near-comprehensive Bluetooth connectivity
• Not as versatile as it could be

Let’s start with the basics: the Eastwood II is a semi-automatic, belt-drive turntable capable of playing 33 1/3, 45 and 78rpm records. The turntable part of it is simple as can be, comprising two selectors for record speed and toggling an auto-stop function (which stops the motor when the tonearm reaches the end of the record), and a lever for the tonearm lift. All these controls are embedded by the tonearm pivot, leaving the record’s base clear and clutter-free – save for a single rotary encoder knob.

This simplicity belies the Eastwood II’s selling point – its near-comprehensive connectivity. Three modes afford you a great deal of versatility for a relatively inexpensive all-in-one unit. Vinyl mode lets you listen to records via its built-in speakers, on headphones via an aux output or on your hi-fi via RCA outputs; Bluetooth mode lets you stream music from your phone or laptop to the turntable; Vinyl Stream mode lets you stream a record from the turntable to a Bluetooth receiver of your choice. 

The single rotary encoder knob controls most everything mode-related, and is foolproof in its function; pressing and holding turns the unit on, clicking cycles through the unit’s three modes, and turning the knob controls the volume of the onboard amplifier. Not only is it foolproof, but it’s very satisfying to use indeed. In amongst this connectivity, though, there’s a gap which makes the Eastwood II feel less capable than it is. 

The Bluetooth mode of the turntable does not work with its RCA outputs, presumably due to the RCA outs being fed by an always-on phono pre-amp for the record player – meaning you cannot use your wired hi-fi system when streaming audio. The ability to do this might only be meaningful to a select few owners, but to this reviewer, its lack feels almost arbitrary – particularly as enabling the Bluetooth mode to kill the preamp would be a trivial thing to engineer. A little more thought into this Bluetooth mode might have made this a much more seamless hi-fi companion, as well as a self-contained unit.

Of course, this is a self-contained unit, and most will be buying this as a one-and-done solution for playing records. Good, then, that a built-in amplifier and speaker system is plenty loud! For Bluetooth audio, the Eastwood II uses the default A2DP standard; while audiophiles might balk at the lack of aptX utilisation, there are few situations where that additional fidelity would really achieve anything. As such, the Eastwood II is (almost) everything it needs to be.

• Features score: 4/5

Victrola Eastwood II turntable review: Sound quality

• Great-sounding entry-level cartridge
• Rich mid-range and crisp highs
• Powerful, somewhat boxy internal amp/speakers

In a vacuum, the vinyl-playing bit of the Eastwood II is great for the price. The Audio-Technica AT-3600LA cartridge with which it ships is a cut above those often found on other budget turntables. The difference is best illustrated through a dedicated hi-fi system, via the RCA port on the back – which was my first experience of the Eastwood II, and a joyfully positive one at that.

Wye Oak’s Civilian + Cut All The Wires: 2009-2011 double LP was well-represented, with touching, even tactile softness in the quieter moments of We Were Wealth, and a full-throated bombast to the explosive end of Electricity and the drums-and-thrum of Black Is The Color. There’s middy richness and a crisp treble, and even some solid low-end representation (even if a tad indistinct in places). This representation is hampered somewhat, though, by the sometimes-unstable performance of the turntables motor, which caused some obvious wowing or warbling in places. 

Lighter-weight records, like my pressing of Andy Shauf’s The Party, seemed to fare worse, wearing said warble a little more prominently on their respective sleeves. Opening track The Magician, full of enigmatic piano chords and drawn-out clarinets, would sound great if not for seemingly-random dips in playback speed that tugged on those legato notes; closer to the spindle, album closer Martha Sways suffered from a warbly near-vibrato that similarly killed my immersion. In short, this probably isn’t the turntable for active listeners.

As for the built-in amp and speakers, through which most users will do their listening, there is a lot to like. The amp is plenty powerful for filling a room, though there’s little headroom when the volume gets pushed. Nick Drake’s Pink Moon is clear and breathy, with some surprisingly sonorous guitar representation, but the overrepresented upper mids have a tendency to squash and crunch a bit when things get louder. The speakers sound a tad boxy (perhaps an unavoidable characteristic for smaller all-in-ones of the Eastwood II’s ilk), but a snappy high end and bloomy low end create a surprisingly fulsome version of this boxiness.

As for headphone listening, there’s a real sense of clarity in the reproduction – albeit at the expense of some bassy heft, which is found wanting when I revisit Wye Oak’s Black Is The Color. All round, the Eastwood II is clearly a capable budget unit, with some pleasant surprises that are unfortunately caveated by some not-so-pleasant limitations.

• Sound quality score: 3/5

Victrola Eastwood II turntable review: Design

• Swanky mid-century-ish looks
• Smart dust lid, imperfectly executed
• Brittle-feeling in places

Eschewing the all-too-common faux-leather-and-shiny-bits design of throwback suitcase record players, the Eastwood II chooses modernity for its aesthetics – at least, a form of mid-century modernity, with a charming fabric front and some wood-effect side panels that together look effortless.

Functionally speaking, the Eastwood’s design is both smart and simple. There’s no convoluted setting-up, nor any real confusion as to how to get it working straight away; it’s the most plug-and-play it could possibly be, and great for it too. However, despite how easy it is to get installed and in use, the Eastwood is still hamstrung by some design oversights that make daily use less-than seamless. One major gripe relates to the turntable’s lid. 

The smart part is that, since 12” records extend beyond the smaller size of the unit’s base, the lid has cut-outs to accommodate these extraneous segments. This is, in principle, a nifty flourish that makes playing records with the lid closed feel sleek, even dynamic. But the rear cut-out isn’t deep enough, and catches the back of your 12”s whenever you try to place them; something nifty in principle becomes frustrating in practice. 

To Victrola’s credit, you can tell they’ve attempted to fix this already – the rear cut-out is deeper than the others, to create more room for placing records – but it sadly wasn’t quite enough. This is something of a theme with the Eastwood II, where great ideas and intentions are met with unfortunate execution.

Though the Eastwood II boasts upgraded materials from its predecessor model, there are still inexpensive plastics in use, which make for a brittle feel. This is most obvious when handling the tonearm, which is at once flimsily light in-hand and heavy-handed on-vinyl. A heavier, counterweighted tonearm would inspire more confidence, but seems a tall order at this price and with this many internal features.

• Design score: 3.5/5

Victrola Eastwood II turntable review: Value

• Beats many equivalent models for sound quality
• Great jumping-on point for new vinyl owners
• Tough to justify for certain consumers

The Victrola Eastwood II is on the cheaper side of the Bluetooth turntable spectrum, and cheap even against a majority of all-in-one turntable solutions on the market. For those that beat it on price, the Eastwood II beats them handily on sound, thanks to that Audio-Technica cartridge and capable internal amplifiers. It’s also extremely easy to use, and hence a great jumping-on point for those new to vinyl (or even just after a bedroom speaker system).

However, the three-figure price point might be a tad tough to justify for slightly more seasoned buyers. Little oversights in design and function add up, rendering this visibly-sleek tabletop hi-fi a little less sleek to use. Also, the tonearm’s cheap construction can be found in units half the Eastwood II’s price.

• Value score: 3.5/5

Should you buy the Victrola Eastwood II?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Victrola Eastwood II turntable: Also consider

How I tested the Victrola Eastwood II turntable

• Tested for 4 weeks, as primary turntable in living room
• Tested with Cambridge Audio amp and Celestion speakers, Audio-Technica headphones and a Soundcore Bluetooth speaker

The Eastwood II was put through its paces via my tried-and-true Cambridge Audio Azur 540r amplifier, which feeds two Celestion F1 bookshelf speakers. For headphone listening, I trialled the unit with a wired pair of Audio-Technica ATH-M40xs, and for its Vinyl Stream connectivity I paired it with a Soundcore Motion 300.

The records I chose to listen with are records I know back-to-front, meaning I can fairly evaluate differences in sound and playback – both with respect to different turntable modes, and with respect to other turntables.

• First reviewed: August 2024

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