There’s nothing like a vertical turntable on your wall to make you feel like you made tons of money on the stock market in the 1980s. Ruka’s TD-1, currently available for pre-order, reckons it’ll show off your meticulously curated vinyl collection while also retaining the quality you’d expect from a horizontal setup.
At this price, it bloody better. The TD-1 can be pre-ordered from Ruka Studios for a measly R1,650 ($100), but you’ll be left with R21,150 to pay before the company will ship the thing. Once they’re all ready to go, of course.
Entering the Ruka
The TD-1 doesn’t have to be mounted on a wall, but it’s engineered that way. It can also be mounted horizontally, or on a freestanding post if you prefer mobility. The company has designed its minimalist turntable to support wireless or analogue sources. Either you go fully retro or fully modern. It depends on your setup (and budget).
The turntable’s belt-driven platter uses magnetic surfaces to hold LPs stable. Whether it’ll replace a more over-engineered setup remains to be seen, but Ruka obviously thinks it will. It also reduces the whole thing’s footprint to a compact aluminium T-shape. The buttons and knobs are all physical, despite the interior technological advances. The TD-1 uses an MM cartridge, with the whole thing created to give records as much visibility as possible. Power is supplied over USB-C PD, with wireless connectivity via Bluetooth.
There’s also the limited nature of this thing. The initial run will only include 500 units. Ruka implies, but doesn’t state, that later editions will be more expensive, to boot.
