Common Turntable Setups (Part 2)

Turntable + Powered Speakers

This is the most compact turntable setup. With a preamp built right into your turntable, you would simply plug your turntable into your powered speakers via an RCA cable.
The powered speakers would have its own integrated amplifier so no other components are required which is perfect for smaller spaces or if you simply want a more minimal and easy to use setup. Do note that not all turntables have built-in preamps so if you want this compact setup ensure your choice of turntable has one built-in.

Fig 1. Turntable + Powered Speakers

Turntable + Preamp + Powered Speakers

This setup adds a separate preamp into the mix. This gives you flexibility for a more customized sound as well as removing more electronics from your turntable signal path allowing you to have a cleaner signal. With the separate preamp you will also need to add a grounding wire from the turntable to the preamp, and the preamp to the powered speakers to avoid any buzzing or humming noise. You can achieve this setup with turntables that do not have a built-in preamp or your turntable has a defeatable phono stage allowing you to bypass the built-in preamp.

One of the most common turntable setups for vinyl enthusiasts. You would plug your turntable with built-in preamp into your receiver via an RCA cable. Your receiver would then be plugged into 2 or more speakers. This setup allows you to easily plug into an existing speaker setup that may be multi-purpose such as home theater watching or wireless music streaming. Some A/V receivers have a built-in preamp allowing you to bypass your turntable preamp, or connect a turntable without a built-in preamp to it.

Fig 3. Turntable + A/V Receiver + Passive Speakers

Turntable + Preamp + A/V Receiver + Passive Speakers

This is the most separate component-heavy of the setups . Many hardcore enthusiasts opt for this route as it allows for the most customization and upgrade-ability of their systems. Choosing this setup allows you to replace and upgrade specific components over time to get the exact sound performance desired.

This setup is the same in principle as the turntable + powered speaker setup. The main difference here is an even more compact setup. The biggest drawback of this setup is not achieving proper stereo separation in your soundstage. For utter simplicity however some listener opt for this setup.

Fig 5. Turntable + Standalone Speaker

Turntable + Bluetooth speaker

You can connect a turntable to a wireless speaker using a Bluetooth transmitter and a RCA male to 3.5mm stereo female adapter. This would mainly be done if you wanted your speakers further apart without wanting to using cables to connect them. While possible to do, we do not recommend this type of setup. Due to wireless compression, wireless audio may not maintain the high standard of audio quality obtained from vinyl.