How the Victrola Soundstage Changes How You Think About Speakers

Since time immemorial, or at least the 1950’s, it’s been common knowledge that your speakers and turntable should not share a shelf. The vibrations from the latter could shake the former and leave you with records that skip more than the Sound of Music kids.

So how does the Soundstage—Victrola’s new speaker system-- pull off room-filling sound from something this flat and low-profile? It comes down to two speaker technologies doing very different jobs, working together.

Up front, you've got Balanced Mode Radiators, or BMRs. A normal speaker cone just pistons back and forth, and at higher frequencies that sound starts to beam in one direction — think flashlight. BMRs work differently: as frequencies climb, the whole surface of the diaphragm flexes in these bending-wave patterns instead of just moving straight in and out. That turns your flashlight into more of a lamp, throwing sound evenly around the whole room instead of in a narrow beam. It's also the trick that lets one single unit create that wide, spacious stereo feel you'd normally only get from two separated bookshelf speakers.

Down below, doing the heavy lifting on bass, is the Symmetric Drive Woofer, or SDW. It's really two woofers sharing one frame but facing opposite directions, so as they move, their vibrations cancel each other out instead of shaking the cabinet — or your turntable sitting right on top of it. You still get deep, full bass, just without any of the rattle or resonance that normally comes with it.

And once it's all set up, you're not stuck getting up to adjust anything — the included remote lets you dial in bass, treble, and volume from the couch, with a little digital display hidden behind the grille confirming your changes. Plug it in however you like too: AUX, RCA, USB-C, optical, a subwoofer out, Bluetooth, or Auracast.