Avid’s gorgeous new turntable looks like it was worth the 12-year wait

Avid makes some of the most striking high-end audiophile turntables around, but it doesn't like to rush things. The hand-built Relveo is its first all-new record player in over 12 years.

Designed, engineered and built in Cambridge, England, the Relveo is the result of over 30 years of innovation and refinement, claims the firm. It encompasses much of the design expertise garnered in that time.

Indeed, the vinyl deck has been launched to commemorate the firm's 30th anniversary, and founder, owner and CEO Conrad Mas says it "embodies everything Avid stands for: engineering without compromise, enduring beauty, and a profound connection to music".

And as we've come to expect from the company, it's an extraordinary-looking thing – it looks more like a UFO than a piece of audio equipment.

AVID Relveo turntable: key features and pricing

The Relveo takes many of its design cues from the flagship Acutus turntable, and features a heavy 7kg high-mass precision-engineered aluminium platter – Avid's newly developed conical 3-point elastomer suspension with a separated DSP vari-speed power supply.

The suspension is designed to deliver better isolation from vibration while also making it easier to set up the turntable.

The deck comes with Avid's award-winning Altus v2 tonearm, which features micron-tolerance bearings and its unique dual adjustable bias compensation system.

This is a high-end turntable so it's hardly a budget buy. But when you compare it to the same firm's Acutus, which retails for £37,500 for the reference version, it's a relative steal at under £7K complete.

There are two ways to buy the turntable. You can get it bare for use with your own tonearm – the Relveo has standard mounting specifications for wide compatibility – or with the Altus v2 tonearm.

The bare version is £5,500 / $8,995 / €7,495 (about AU$11,280) and the complete version is £6,900 / $10,995 / €8,995 (about AU$14,150).