Tech Reviews: ION Luxe LP vinyl record player

Dust off the old LP collection, which in my case consists of a ridiculous amount of metal albums, and give them another spin. The process of slipping an album from its sleeve is lost in an era of Spotify, but there is something profoundly ritualistic about placing a dusty old Megadeth album onto the turntable of the budget-friendly ION Luxe.

The Luxe has three speed modes – 33 1/3, 45, and 78 – which, for Gen Zs in the audience, are adjusted according to the needs of each individual disc. The built-in speakers are not great, to be honest. You can broadcast the audio wirelessly to Bluetooth speakers although Bluetooth, in turn, compresses sound.

The ideal option is to connect the ION Luxe to an external speaker system using the turntable’s standard RCA outputs. Bingo! Instant ginormous heavy metal riffery. Beelzebub is summoned and the neighbours are livid.

Luxe can convert your vinyl to digital via USB. Again, this defeats the purpose of listening to rich, crackly vinyl in all its ragged un-digitised glory: a rare treat, even when it consists of Dave Mustaine howling like a kid who just dropped his ice cream.

• ION Luxe is at Three stores, and Three.ie, for €140.

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