Musical Fidelity M8XTT Turntable

The Musical Fidelity M8XTT Turntable is a high-end turntable with an impressive technical performance and many new innovations. The design features a bespoke 10” tonearm mounted on a multi-layered plinth. The platter is made of heavy aluminium and the turntable is built to the highest standards.

The dual-layer design isolates the motor from the tonearm and the whole ethos of the unit is to eliminate resonances. Hence there are also four multi-layered feet with Teflon isolators.

Dual layer plinth

The dual-layer plinth of the Musical Fidelity M8XTT Turntable is made of non-resonant acrylic. This is mounted on four, multi-layered magnetic feet. Each layer features Teflon spacers that dampen any vibration. The top acrylic layer holds the main bearing spindle and the tonearm mount.

This isolates them from the stand-alone drive motor. The drive motor is mounted on the lower layer and is isolated by a special foam material. As a result, the tonearm and cartridge are completely isolated from any resonance or vibration.

Exceptional rotational stability

The Musical Fidelity M8XTT Turntable has a specially selected drive motor that sits on its own acrylic layer and is connected to the platter by a silicon drive belt. This unique platter has a dual-layer construction.

The layers are joined together by aluminium inserts that improve the flywheel effect. The high mass of the platter tends to resist any speed variations for exceptional rotational stability. Lastly, speed changing is automatic.

New low resonance tonearm

The new 10” tonearm of the Musical Fidelity M8XTT Turntable features a conical aluminium tube along with a translucent acrylic bearing ring. The design has ultra-low resonance and two counterweights. Also, both vertical tracking angle(VTA) and azimuth are adjustable allowing cartridges weighing from 6 to 20 grams to be used.

The counterweights are also damped with TPE. Lastly, both balanced XLR and standard RCA outputs are provided. This gives maximum versatility when selecting a phono preamp.

What is the vertical tracking angle?

The vertical tracking angle of a cartridge is described as the angle of the stylus relative to the record. This is not actually 90 degrees. VTA can vary due to the height of the cartridge. As a result, high-end turntables have an arm height or VTA adjustment to compensate for different cartridge heights.

Another required adjustment is azimuth. That is the vertical angle of the stylus. This needs to be exactly perpendicular, to get an even channel balance. Lastly, anti-skate is used to apply a slight force to the arm as it has a tendency to pull into the centre of the record. This can cause uneven record wear and distortion, especially on the last few tracks.

A choice of cartridge

The Musical Fidelity M8XTT Turntable can be fitted with either a moving magnet or a moving coil cartridge. Unusually for a turntable the Musical Fidelity M8XTT also has a balanced XLR output as well as RCA. This is ideal for low-output devices such as moving coil cartridges that can have outputs below 1mV.

This makes them more prone to noise pickup, as the phono preamp has to have more gain. Balanced connectors have three wires instead of two. There is a “hot” wire a “cold" wire and a ground connection. Each wire is carrying a signal of the opposite phase. Specially designed circuits in the preamp re-join the two signals so that any noise is cancelled out.

About cartridge types

The aforementioned Moving Coil type of cartridge has tiny coils mounted onto the cantilever that holds the stylus. The coils move inside a fixed magnet and generate the audio signal. The advantage is lower mass and more accurate tracking, particularly at high frequencies. Moving magnet cartridges have the magnet mounted on the cantilever. These have a higher output but less accurate tracking.