Powered speakers and turntables should be an easy match. One box, one plug, done. Except most powered speakers cannot take a turntable directly, because a cartridge puts out a tiny signal that needs a phono stage first, and most makers leave that out.
We counted. Of the 129 powered speakers in our database, only 22 have a phono stage inside. That is one in six.
Powered speakers with a phono stage by price
Quick facts
- 22 of 129 powered speakers take a turntable with no separate preamp.
- Klipsch makes 9 of the 22, more than PSB, Kanto and Onkyo put together.
- 249 dollars to 3,499 dollars, a fourteen-fold spread for the same basic feature.
- Only eight brands do it at all.
- Built in almost always means moving magnet only, and basic. That caveat is at the end.
Klipsch has quietly taken over this corner
Nine of twenty-two is 41 percent of the category from one brand. PSB and Kanto have three each, Onkyo and Triangle two, and ELAC, Q Acoustics and Technics one apiece. Klipsch alone outnumbers the next three brands combined.
They also cover the whole ladder. The R-41PM at 499 dollars and the The Nines II at 2,399 are the same idea eight years and 1,900 dollars apart.
Klipsch The Fives II powered speakers
The generation change that kept it
This is the part we expected to go the other way.
Klipsch replaced The Fives, The Sevens and The Nines with II versions this year, and put the prices up hard:
A price rise like that is usually where a feature quietly disappears. The phono stage survived all three. Klipsch's own wording for the II models is the same as it was for the originals: a dedicated analogue input with a built-in phono stage, so you plug the turntable straight in.
Given how few powered speakers bother, keeping it through a redesign is a decision rather than an oversight. Somebody at Klipsch thinks the people buying these own a record player.
The cheap end is where it gets interesting
The two Onkyo Creator models come in at 249 and 349 dollars, which is the least you can currently spend on our list and still plug a deck straight in. At the other end the Technics SC-CX700 is 3,499.
Fourteen times the price for a feature that is, at bottom, one small circuit. What you are paying for is everything else in the box.
What built-in phono actually means
Here is the honest part, and it matters if you care about records.
A built-in phono stage is almost always moving magnet only. If you have a moving coil cartridge, or you plan to buy one, most of these will not take it and you are back to a separate preamp.
It is also usually the cheapest part of the design. A phono stage is a small circuit competing for space and budget inside a box that also has amplifiers, a DAC and a streaming board. Ours is a spec, not a verdict: our data tells you the input exists, not that it sounds good. If your turntable is the centre of your system rather than a nice extra, a decent outboard phono stage will still beat what is inside most of these.
What the list is good for is narrowing things down. One in six powered speakers can do this at all, so knowing which is most of the work.
Are you running a turntable into powered speakers, and did you use the built-in stage or add your own?