John Darko
Lenco has announced the L-3810, a direct-drive turntable reportedly designed for DJs and home listeners. I tried to look past the press release’s claims that the new model “blends the nostalgic warmth of vinyl records with the convenience of modern technology” but alas ‘warm’ shows up again as a sonic descriptor for the Audio Technica 3600 moving magnet cartridge that comes factory-fitted to the L-3810’s S-bend tonearm. Not all vinyl playback sounds ‘warm’, just as not all digital playback sounds ‘clinical’.
Like many turntables of this stripe, the headshell is detachable, there’s a target light to help with cueing a record in low light and Lenco has put an on/off rotary power switch next to the large ‘stop/start’ button on the bottom left side of the plinth. More unusual is seeing speed selector switches for 45rpm and 33rpm placed just below the pitch fader.
And with similar functionality to 2016’s Pioneer PLX-500, the new Lenco features an in-built MM phono stage (which is bypassable) and an A/D converter that sends a digital signal out of the USB socket when it is connected to a PC or Mac. That’s handy for digitising records.
However, the 2024 iteration of Lenco is a long way removed from the original Swiss company that developed a formidable reputation (as a turntable manufacturer) during the 1950s and 1960s before folding in the early 1980s. Since then, the Lenco brand name has been rejuvenated twice – once in 1984 and again in 1997 – and each time with limited success. That’s according to Wikipedia. Lenco’s current owner, Commaxx International NV, bought the rights to the name in 2015.
The Lenco L-3810 will begin shipping in March for ยฃ279, โฌ329 or US$499.
Further information: Lenco
