A turntable isn’t just a cool piece of audio gear; you’ve actually gotta power it up and live with it, hopefully for a long, happy relationship. And let’s face it, certain practical features can matter even more than looks. Personally, I value few things:Ease of setup, Footprint, Weight, User-friendliness, Longevity
1. Ease of Setup
A good turntable shouldn’t feel like you need a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering just to set it up. It’s not only about placing it on a shelf and plugging it into a phono preamp. The real test is when you need to tweak a few settings or move it to a new spot—that process should be smooth and straightforward.
When it comes to setup, there are three main elements:
- Positioning the turntable on a shelf
- Configuring the drive (motor)
- Adjusting the tonearm
Positioning on a Shelf
Sometimes, placing a turntable on a shelf feels like rocket science. Luckily, BennyAudio’s turntables are pretty simple to position.
- Immersion: This model arrives in just three main pieces—the plinth, the platter, and a tonearm in one piece. That’s all. Leveling the plinth is probably the trickiest bit, but adjustable feet or spikes help a lot. From unboxing to ready-to-tonearm setting, figure about ten minutes.
- Odyssey: This one’s a different ballgame—it has a separate base, an external motor, the main plinth, and three platters. Plus, the tonearm comes in three parts. Just like Immersion, you’ll need to level the base first, but after that, it’s pretty much a downhill coast. Odyssey ships in two crates, and once everything’s unpacked, getting it set up on your shelf takes around twenty minutes (tonearm is a separate process)
2. Motor Setup
Both turntables are belt-driven, which keeps things nice and simple. On the Immersion, the motor’s built right into the plinth, so all you have to do is slide the belt over the platter and the motor pulley—done!
The Odyssey’s motor is external, but there’s only one spot it’s meant to go. That means no guesswork about how close or far it should be from the platter; you just place it exactly where it’s supposed to sit, slip the belt around the smallest platter, and you’re good to go.
Heads-up: With many free-standing external motors, a tiny 1 mm difference in distance from the platter spindle can mess with your speed stability. BennyAudio’s approach avoids that hassle by giving you a dedicated spot for the motor so you don’t have to worry.
Both models rely on a single motor—no reason to overcomplicate. One well-implemented motor is more than enough to keep a turntable spinning at a stable speed. You can verify Wow&Flutter yourself by checking the RPM apps on iPhone or referencing the Shaknspin database. Multi-motor setups often cause more headaches than they’re worth and typically don’t spin as consistently as a single, solid motor design.
3. Speed Adjustment
Setting up the motor also means making sure your turntable spins at exactly the right speed. Both turntables are factory-calibrated to work perfectly with their respective belts.
- Immersion: There’s a button on the underside of the plinth that lets you fine-tune the speed from 1 to 16 increments. Each press adjusts the speed by +1 until 16, then it loops back to 0. Super straightforward. The Start button’s backlight even blinks according to whatever increment you’re on. Generally, you dial it in once and forget about it. Once the motor is locked on, it maintains speed regardless of voltage fluctuations or which 12 V DC power supply you use (anywhere from about 11.9 to 12.1 volts is fine). It auto-calibrates like a champ.
- Odyssey: Here, you’ve got plus-minus buttons on the motor’s control panel for up to 16 levels of fine-tuning. Whenever you hit one of these buttons, a dot on a 16-step scale lights up to show your current setting. You can even change the backlight color or brightness of the control panel, but that’s a story for another time.
Both turntables automatically save your settings once a full cycle of running, stabilizing, and stopping is complete. When you stop the motor and the system detects no speed deviation, it stores your adjustment so you don’t have to redo anything later.
4. And the Tonearm?
That’s a whole separate topic—stay tuned for the next post in the series!
Why This Matters
As you can tell, BennyAudio’s Immersion and Odyssey turntables are designed to be as fuss-free as possible. Fewer parts to assemble, no guesswork with motor placement, and a no-brainer approach to maintaining correct platter speed. It saves both newbies and veteran vinyl enthusiasts a ton of time. After all, the whole point of a turntable is to kick back and enjoy the music—not sweat over technical headaches.
Next time, we’ll dive into setting up the tonearm—see you then!