Origin Live Aurora Turntable

The Origin Live Aurora Mk1V turntable is the first in a range of high end turntables manufactured in the UK. The company are based in Southampton and have been in business for over 30 years and now have a range of five turntables,  eight tonearms and one cartridge as well as well as a number of accessories including turntable belts, a mat, a cartridge enhancer and a turntable weight.

The Aurora is essentially a scaled down version of the much more expensive Sovereign turntable and utilises much of its technology including an acrylic platter, outboard motor unit and the light speed control unit where the platter rotation is what the speed is based on.

Sound Quality

One of the first things you realise when you listen to this turntable is the musicality, something that it inherits from its more expensive siblings. Things like musicality, I believe, are among the most important aspects of any piece of audio equipment and one of the first things I look for as it is fundamental to your enjoyment of listening.

The second most impressive aspect of its sound quality is the rock solid speed and excellent imagery with very good three dimensional depth. The transparency is also very impressive as are dynamics. Finally the timing is also very good and the tonal balance is very neutral which means you can listen for long periods with no sense of fatigue.

Bass is decent especially when you consider this is a sub £1500 turntable. I listened to it with the Origin Live Silver arm which is the third model up in the range and again for its price of £675 this is an exceptional performer and a superb match for the turntable with the combination coming in around the £2000 mark.

Upgrades

There are a number of upgrades you can add to this turntable including the balanced power supply and the multi layer platter and of course you can also upgrade the arm so any potential buyer has a simple upgrade path without having to trade in the turntable against a more expensive model.

Features

We have touched on some of the features earlier in this review but the Aurora turntable is very well specified for the price which includes a separate motor unit and electronic speed control, an outboard mains transformer, an acrylic platter, the LSC or light speed control is a very impressive feature as the speed control is reading the platter revolutions. This means that things like belt slippage, temperature, oil viscosity, motor positioning and motor age are basically rendered null and void. Origin Live quote measurable drift as being only 0.0001{6806edec008b3c44af7a20f06579e4309e0b66af22fa80c5fd353ed1ebf7407a} which they say is over 100 times better than many competitors decks. I can’t measure that or confirm or deny those figures however I can say that speed stability on this deck was rock solid. It is also a very well finished product with a good polished black finish on the chassis and motor unit and decent absorption of any feedback so the deck certainly to my ears does not appear to be affected by feedback if positioned on a decent equipment stand.

Build quality

I was very impressed with the build quality, it is a nice looking turntable and the chassis is well finished in a gloss black paint finish. When you think about it a turntable is not just a device for spinning records but it is also responsible for trying to ensure there is as little vibration as possible as all vibration is magnified in a turntable, arm and cartridge. You are dealing with very low signals which then have to be amplified and therefore any problems are also magnified. The Aurora seems to do a very good job at reducing vibration due in no small part to its built quality, materials and features.

Faults

I can’t say the Autora is faultless nor is it the best turntable I have ever heard. There are a number of niggles. It does not come with a lid ( although you can buy one for it), the bass is decent but not exceptional, it is easy to set up but you do need to take care when setting it up to get it sounding at its best. It has good detail and transparency but again not exceptional. However I am nit-picking because at its price it is difficult to criticise.