Audio-Technica AT-LP120XUSB vs Fluance RT82

These two sit in the same bracket, get recommended by the same people, and are built on opposite decisions. Direct drive against belt drive; a phono stage included against one you buy; a maker who publishes measurement conditions against one who publishes better numbers without them. Our under-$500 roundup has to place both among six decks. This page only has to separate two, which means it can go all the way into the four figures where they actually differ.

1. The wow-and-flutter gap, and the condition attached to one of them

Audio-Technica publishes < 0.2% WRMS at 33 rpm, measured at 3 kHz. Fluance publishes 0.07%and nothing else — no weighting, no test tone, no speed. Taken at face value the Fluance is nearly three times better. Taken properly, one of those is a specification and the other is a number.

WRMS is a weighted measurement that de-emphasises very slow drift and emphasises the flutter rates the ear notices; an unweighted or differently-weighted figure on the same turntable reads lower. Audio-Technica’s figure also carries a “less than”, which makes it a guaranteed maximum rather than a typical value. So the comparison is directionally in Fluance’s favour and its size is unknown. What can be said without hedging: a belt-drive platter is isolated from the motor by a compliant belt, a direct-drive platter is coupled to it, and our drive comparison works through why each arrangement trades different things.

2. The signal-to-noise figures are 18.5 dB apart and not comparable

Audio-Technica: > 50 dB, with no weighting stated. Fluance: 68.5 dB weighted. An A-weighted noise figure on the same device typically reads several decibels better than an unweighted one, because the weighting discounts exactly the low-frequency rumble a turntable produces most of. So part of the 18.5 dB is the weighting rather than the turntable.

There is a second reason to be careful here. The AT-LP120XUSB’s signal-to-noise spec is a figure for the whole deck including its built-in phono stage, which is a gain stage with its own noise floor; the RT82 has no phono stage at all, so its figure is for a passive deck feeding a device not yet chosen. Those are not the same measurement of the same thing, and the honest reading is that neither number tells you what you will hear once both are connected to a real system.

3. The cost nobody includes in the comparison

Fluance is explicit about this and deserves credit for it: the RT82 specification page states “Separate Phono Preamp Required”. The AT-LP120XUSB has one built in — switchable PHONO/LINE, 36 dB nominal gain, RIAA equalized. So the real comparison is one box against two.

Two qualifications, because the arithmetic above is not the whole argument. First, a separate phono stage is a better phono stage: the PA10 publishes 0.004% THD and > 90 dB signal-to-noise, where Audio-Technica publishes no distortion or noise figure for its built-in stage at all. Second, the AT’s stage is switchable to LINE, so it can be bypassed later — buying the Audio-Technica is not a commitment to its preamp forever. The deck that forces you to buy a stage is also the deck that guarantees you a specified one.

4. What each one does that the other cannot

The Audio-Technica, three things. It plays 78 rpm— Fluance publishes 33⅓ and 45 only, no 78. It has a USB output (16-bit, 44.1 or 48 kHz selectable, USB 1.1), which is the whole route in our digitising guide. And it ships with the AT-VM95E on an AT-HS6 removable headshell, which means every cartridge on our cartridge roundup fits it with no soldering and no alignment jig beyond what the headshell already allows.

The Fluance, one thing, and it is a real one. It publishes a tonearm effective massfigure — 0.77 oz (21.78 g) — where Audio-Technica publishes none for any deck we cover. Treat it with the caution our registry already records: a genuine effective-mass figure normally falls between about 8 and 14 g, so 21.78 g may be total arm mass rather than effective mass, and we have not computed a resonance figure from it. Our matching guide explains why that distinction decides which cartridges suit an arm. A figure you have to interpret is still better than a blank, and the blank is what Audio-Technica offers.

The RT82 also ships with the Ortofon OM 10 rather than the AT-VM95E, which matters for upgrade path more than for sound: the OM range and the VM95 range are both stylus-swappable, so either deck can be improved without replacing the cartridge body.

5. Why the third pick is here

Because if the Fluance’s drive is what attracts you, the RT85 is the version of that argument that is actually worth the money. Same 0.07% wow and flutter, 69 dB signal-to-noise against the RT82’s 68.5 dB — a 0.5 dB difference, which is nothing — and an Ortofon 2M Blue pre-installedrather than an OM 10. The 2M Blue publishes 25 dB channel separation, a nude elliptical stylus, 80 µm tracking ability at 315 Hz and a +2 / −1 dB frequency response tolerance. Bought separately that cartridge is a substantial fraction of the RT82’s own price, so the step from RT82 to RT85 is largely a cartridge purchase with a deck attached. It still needs a separate phono stage. Our RT85 review has the full treatment.

So which one

First turntable, no phono stage, want to rip some records, own a few 78s: the AT-LP120XUSB, and it is not close. Already own a phono stage, want the better-specified drive and a published effective-mass figure to work with: the RT82. Prepared to spend more and want the cartridge sorted from day one: the RT85. All three need setting up properly— tracking force, anti-skate and a level plinth will make more difference than the gap between any two of them.