Audio-Technica AT-LPW40WN Fully Manual Belt-Drive Turntable, 2 Speeds, Dynamic Anti-Skate Control, Carbon-Fiber Tonearm Walnut

10 reviews for Audio-Technica AT-LPW40WN Fully Manual Belt-Drive Turntable, 2 Speeds, Dynamic Anti-Skate Control, Carbon-Fiber Tonearm Walnut

1. 

   5 out of 5

   John Spressler – January 23, 2020

   This is my second audio technica turntable. I upgraded go the AT-LP30TK from the AT-LP60 ( gave that one to my brother) and I couldn’t be happier with it. Audio Technica makes some great tables as I loved my AT-LP60 but wanted to upgrade and this turntable is outstanding! The sound that it produces is so rich and full. The build quality of the table, tonearm and the stylus are top notch. I’ll be enjoying this turntable for many years. Thank you Audio Technica for making a quality and sharp looking turntable!!

2. 

   5 out of 5

   James Hughes – March 25, 2020

   I was a beginner with the at-lp60, but I wanted something not auto and had a vintage look, so I was debating on this player or the one with carbon fiber arm. So I thought about it and said carbon fiber not worth 50$ more to me haha. Long story short I got the player, super easy to set up just be sure to read instructions if you have never set up a tone arm, level the machine out , pair it with awesome speakers and drop the needle.The cart it come with is good and sounds good but I feel I will eventually pair a orange technica cart on it.I have edifier BT speakers hooked up to it and man they put out some serious sound, I believe they are 60 watt ones.Anyways I’ve owned this player for roughly 6 months now I think . And man it just worksDownfall I hate is the power button is in the back.Recommend it to anyone

3. 

   5 out of 5

   Nicholas – July 12, 2020

   Amazon asked me to rate (1 to 5 stars) the thickness of this turntable. I’m really unimpressed with its thickness. It seems to be about exactly as thick as all of the other turntables I have ever seen. It doesn’t offer a razor thinness or is not really f*&%*ng chunky thick. But otherwise, it really does play records. The onboard pre-amp is great, makes this unit work with a head unit I have that does not have a phono pre-amp built-in. I love that the onboard pre-amp can be switched off. I love that the head unit and cartridge seem to be of solidly good quality. Can I hear how awesome the carbon fiber tone arm is? I don’t think so? I mean, I never had a carbon fiber tone arm, but it looks like carbon fiber and carbon fiber was really expensive in the past and probably still is? Right? Anyhow, this thing plays records! It does the job it was hired to do! I actually hear an improvement in tone over my old direct drive decks, which, admittedly, were of middling quality and very old and beat to hell from being dragged all over the place in the long long ago when I used to play records at hole in the wall bars and house parties. This record player is super quiet when it plays the records I mostly listen to now, which, tend to be quieter records. No humming or other garbage now. Is this the best record player ever made? I have no idea. I mean, probably not. It has zero lasers, and the wood grain is only a veneer. But is it the best record I have ever owned? And maybe the most I was willing to spend on a record player and now I’m happy that I purchased it and now I can let go of one of my dilapidated old decks that is possibly worth $9 in parts? That’s a hell yes, amigo.

4. 

   5 out of 5

   Justin WeberJustin Weber – July 16, 2020

   I’ll start this review by saying that I spent weeks obsessing over the right replacement for my old LP60, which was a fine table to start with, so anything was going to be an upgrade.Going into my search, my requirements were that I wanted something that was automatic, had a pre-amp built in, had a removable headshell and cables for upgrading, wasn’t just black, and was of a quality that it wouldn’t breakdown in a couple of years. I had a budget of $300-$400.Much to my dismay, there’s not really anything out there that matches that exactly. All of the fully automatic tables seemed cheap or overpriced. The Denon DP-300 had tons of reviews that said it broke down in a few years, it only came in black and the cables were built in. The AT-LP3, which seemed like a winner, had a cheap plastic-y build that just felt unstable. Everything else was a cheap brand like Crosely that I didn’t trust.After that research, I figured I needed to expand my budget and I was set on Wirecutter’s suggestion of a Denon DP-400. It had only auto-stop with arm lift – which felt like the more important half of fully automatic – but it had everything else I was looking for, including coming in white. But it had a really dumb dustcover that you can’t use while a record is playing and doesn’t really protect the turntable. As a family with cats, it was a deal breaker.I looked into the Fluance tables. They seemed really nice and had auto-stop (but no arm lift) and they came with nice needles already. But the RT-82 and up didn’t have a phono pre-amp (which wouldn’t have been a dealbreaker). The deal breaker was that I really didn’t like the look of it. It was hulking and wanna-be classy. I also didn’t like that the cheaper $250 RT-81 that did come with a pre-amp came with the old AT-95E needle instead of the new VM95E that is more upgradable without remounting the cartridge and the motor didn’t have a sensor monitoring speed.So I decided to look into fully manual tables. I started with U-Turn and they seem like a great option, but it gets expensive quickly as I added on options. With pre-amp, a decent needle, and the color I wanted, I was quickly getting past $400 (and that was without some basics like a tone arm lift or a dial to select the speed).I did briefly look into old turntables and DJ turntables, but it quickly got too overwhelming for me. I didn’t know how long the old tables would last and more of them didn’t have preamps anyway. The DJ tables just had too many features I didn’t care about and they didn’t have the look I wanted.Enter this turntable. I decided that I’d give a fully manual table a try because this had a pre amp, speed dial, tone arm lift, looked great, came with the VM95E needle, had a functional dustcover, removable cables, and had a quality motor with a speed sensor. And the tone arm is carbon fiber, which only seems to be available on tables that are hundreds of dollars more. It even, contrary to some reports on the web, had adjustable feet so you can level it. All in all, it seemed like a lot for the money if I was willing to give up on auto-stop.So I got it and I couldn’t be happier. It feels solid, much more substantial than my old LP-60. All the dials and dust cover feel like they’ll last a while. It sounds great. Didn’t have any issues with ground hum or the table being too boomy. For the record, I’m plugging directly into a Sonos Play 5 for now. It looks excellent. It’s not quite as nice as the solid wood U-Turn tables since this is a veneer, but it’s a great shade and it’s sleek.Do I wish it was automatic? Yes, a bit. But it hasn’t been as big of a drag as I thought and I get a kick out of lowering the tone arm lift and watching the needle gently drop. The tone arm mechanism is easy to set up and I cross checked it with a needle tracking force scale and it’s accurate. The alignment of the cartridge was spot on out of the box. Everything was packaged safely and securely.So if you’re in the some boat as I was – looking for something that will last without breaking into the $500+ range and still gives you a good set of features – I’d highly recommend this turntable.

5. 

   5 out of 5

   Flan – August 22, 2020

   Being in the market for a new turntable, I have been doing a lot of research and I decided on the AT-LPW40WN and I’m glad I did. I looked at U-Turn, Pro-Ject DC, Fluance RT 81 among others, and while they all look like fine TT’s, the deal maker for me was the feature that keeps the speed accurate and consistent. All the others have had comments about variations in platter speed and to me there is nothing more annoying than hearing your music sounding different because it’s too fast or slow. This table is beautiful to look at and is simple to set up and operate. One of the few tables that the anti-skating actually works as it should! The carbon fiber tonearm looks awesome and the unit as a whole is solidly built. And at about $100 less than it’s competition, it’s a no-brainer to me. As far as sound is concerned, it’s the best performing TT I’ve ever used, and I’ve had quite a few.

6. 

   5 out of 5

   Virgil Aviles – September 5, 2020

   The media could not be loaded.  I’m using a legacy Nakamichi RE-3 with Klipsch R-51M speakers and the AT-LPW40WN Audio Technica turntable. Both the AT-LPW40WN turntable and Klipsch speakers can be found on Amazon. I attached a video of how this turntable and setup sounds. I hope it will help with your decision of buying it. It’s playing an old Gigi Grynce Quintet LP.

7. 

   5 out of 5

   Scott Rose – September 5, 2020

   I have not purchased a turntable for many, many year but wanted to experience some of my fav LP’s on actual Vinyl. This turntable was easy to assemble and it looks amazing. Perfect for a beginner (non-Audiophile).Now for the most important part, the Sound. Nothing beats Vinyl on a nice turntable and this is a nice turntable. Functions well. Handles slightly wrapped records just fine. Well balanced. The built in preamp is a great feature as many newer Amps and most of the new “vintage” tube amps to not have a dedicated phon input so a preamp is critical (otherwise buy a separate preamp). Can’t go wrong with this unit.

8. 

   5 out of 5

   Manny – September 17, 2020

   I upgraded my LP60 to the LP60X but I hated that the plastic body caused some resonance.Now, that’s my fault. If I had normal speakers that wouldn’t been an issue. But I use 1968 KLH series 5’s with a 2 channel tube amp. So I get a lot of warmth and the bass response is quite full.So I went for this one. Out of the box my only issue was that I couldn’t get it to track at 2.0 as the recommendation said. I got it to work at 1.5. So Im keeping an eye on it. (Update: An AT tech called me and he fixed the issue which was entirely my fault. Fantastic customer service).But other than that the sound is rich and it wraps around. Great sound. The preamp it has is good. really good but I was getting some hum with my gold plated cables that i purchased separately. Soooo, I disabled the preamp and went with a pyle pp444 so i could properly ground it. There was the a-ha moment. The Pyle muddys the field, So lesson learned. Don’t buy cheap preamps. I proceeded to to a DIY on the amp and installed a lug nut on the chassis and boom! Switched the Preamp back on and I was back in business.Recommendation: Make sure you can ground it properly prior to buying cables or preamps. Don’t waste money since the preamp it has, works and it’s winner. Just make sure you got somewhere to ground it. In my case I didn’tI give this turntable a 5 star. It looks sexy too!

9. 

   5 out of 5

   Aaron AguileraAaron Aguilera – January 18, 2021

   Before I found this gem of a turntable that seemingly nobody talks about, I did a lot of research on different brands such as Audio Technica, Planar, U-Turn and Pro-Ject. One reason I was turned away from the last three I mentioned were that some of their belt-driven turntables had speed consistency issues according to some Youtube video reviews and written reviews that I read. For the life of me, I couldn’t imagine spending over $400 on something that COMES WITH known issues. On the other hand, I didn’t want to be basic and go with the AT LP-120 as I kind of had the feeling most of the rave reviews were from people who just don’t really know any better. The electronic/USB feature must take away from something else’s performance, or so I figured.I was just about to throw the towel in when I stumbled across the LPW40WN, which I’ve never even seen anyone mention before, even after asking about turntables in online forums. The reviews already had me convinced this was the turntable I wanted to go with, and when I looked at the price, I was blown away as other brands have similar turntables for at least $100 more.Audio Technica has a Youtube video for setting up this turntable, which made life much easier. Thank goodness, because the start-up guide is mainly pictures with no explanation if you’re stuck with a question.After having spun about 20 records on my LPW40WN, I’ve come to the conclusion that not only am I extremely satisfied, but I’m glad I overdid my research and skipped out on those other turntables. I haven’t experienced any speed fluctuations, the stylus is apparently pretty nice according to those more knowledgeable than I, and it just LOOKS BEAUTIFUL. I’ve posted pictures online and visitors have commented on the stunning wood grain appearance and carbon-fiber tone arm. This turntable is obviously great for beginners as it has a built-in pre-amp, so that’s one less thing to have to buy and do research on. However, since I’m no audiophile, I can see myself having this for many years to come, even when I’m no longer new to spinning vinyl.

10. 

    5 out of 5

    Craig M. Schmidt – February 10, 2021

    very nice for the money. arm is decent as is cartridge. platter speed is right on which is super critical. very nice looking. a very good buy. for user who had hum problem.. i had to leave my ground wire off. it was then dead silent. try it.