The Gruvy Awards

The Gruvy Awards are back yet again! An annual event, The Gruvys are given to the best products AnalogPlanet reviewed in the most recent calendar year. This time around, the Gruvys honor the gear we tested in 2024 and subsequently found to possess a combination of high build quality, exceptional sonics, and in the case of less expensive gear, provide great value for the money. We’ve been especially encouraged by the exemplary quality of a good bit of the more budget-oriented gear we’ve had on the test bench in 2024, which shows just how the audiophile-aspirational experience is available to most everyone. We are also indicating which products deserve Honorable Mentions on the AP Honor Roll this past year as well. (Note: While a Gruvy indicates a product is deemed to be exceptional, products that haven’t been so awarded should not necessarily be considered unworthy.)

Rest assured, we will be reviewing even more analog-centric products in 2025 than we did this past year, so we expect to see and hear plenty of Gruvy-worthy gear in the offing. And with that, let’s take a look back at most of the cool gear we reviewed in 2024, and see which products garnered Gruvy Awards.

TURNTABLES

PRO-JECT T2 SUPER PHONO TURNTABLE
$649
Gruvy Award Winner: Best Budget Turntable of 2024!
Billed as the company’s “Audiophile Entry Level Turntable,” the Pro-Ject T2 Super Phono turntable played with the punch of a direct-drive model, and the assured rhythmic breeziness of a belt-drive. According to our chief turntable reviewer Ken Micallef, the T2 “never sounded stuffy, slow, or lacking in energy — if anything, its sense of rhythmic acuity was one of its strong suits.” With the T2 — which is an upgrade of the company’s T1 table — Pro-Ject takes advantage of their place in the market by offering a sturdy plastic subplatter that sits atop a 0.001mm main bearing extending to a steel axle with a brass bushing. This, along with its solid tonearm, precisely machined plinth, and onboard phono preamp, makes the T2 Super Phono the table to beat in its price range. Bravo!

Read our full review here.

GOLD NOTE T-5 TURNTABLE
$1,000 as tested / with Gold Note B-5.2 9in tonearm
Gruvy Award Winner!
If you’re serious about your music, $1K is a reasonable fee for this level of build quality, smart design, and rock-solid performance the Gold Note T-5 turntable offers, one that happens to share trickle-down tech from Gold Note’s excellent Mediterraneo X table. Along with its intelligent design, seen in its ridged plinth and large spherical feet, which both help to break up standing waves and isolate the machine from vibrations, the T-5’s tonearm was equally munificent, tracking smoothly to support soundstage and image stability. In short, Micallef concluded, “the Gold Note T-5 performs well beyond its price point of entry.”

Read our full review here.

AUDIO NOTE TT-ONE DELUXE TURNTABLE
$3,430 (as tested) / with Audio Note AR One/II tonearm ($1,276) and Audio Note IQ I MM cartridge ($635)
Gruvy Award Winner!
The Audio Note TT-One Deluxe turntable works on a unique suspension system. This two-speed, belt-driven table utilizes a three-point, suspended sub-chassis with an acrylic platter. A high-torque motor sits within the plinth, isolated by steel springs for vibration control. This uncommon suspension isolates the platter and tonearm for cleaner audio, and it’s also intended to maximize clarity and detail. The TT-One Deluxe was an absolute joy to use, from its silky cueing lever to the silent function of its pully and platter system. As Micallef put it, this Audio Note table “offered a high degree of silence, purity, and sublime sounds [. . .] a revelation.”

Read our full review here.

TECHNICS SL-1200GR2 TURNTABLE
$2,199 / silver finish
Honorable Mention!
Like all descendants of the Technics SL-1200, the feature set offered with the Technics SL-1200GR2 series has remained consistent: a direct-drive motor, 9in static S-shaped gimbal tonearm, stroboscope, target (stylus) light, diecast aluminum platter, four insulator feet, and slider pitch control. The GR2’s motor control signal is produced by engagement of a PWM signal generated by ΔΣ (Delta Sigma) Modulation, a process of 1-bit D/A conversion used in Technics’ digital amplifiers that use their proprietary JENO Engine technology. “The technology works,” stated Micallef, before adding, “The GR2’s darker sound worked well with jazz, and its larger images and richness allied to its lush atmosphere, making music listening satisfying and pleasing.”

Read our full review here.

REKKORD M600 TURNTABLE
$1,499 (as tested) / matte black finish
Honorable Mention!
The Rekkord M600 turntable boasts a vibration-resistant plinth crafted from a wooden chassis. This substantial base is cloaked in a high-quality piano lacquer, meticulously polished in a six-step process. The elegant form is further complemented by an 8.6in aluminum tonearm. This precision instrument pivots on a sophisticated 4-way ball-cardan bearing housed within sleek, solid aluminum blocks that recall the Brutalist look of Tron. Completing the picture is what appears to be an aluminum tonearm wand and a torsion-resistant carbon headshell. A utilitarian-looking, fantastic-performing analog machine. Micallef observed that the M600 “played with excellent solidity, and created clean images in a large, layered soundstage. Music had liquidity and drama, life force and flow.”

Read our full review here.

ACOUSTIC SOLID VINTAGE EXCLUSIVE TURNTABLE
$3,628 U.S. ($4,999 CAD) to $8,815 U.S. ($12,144 CAD)
Honorable Mention!
The German-made Acoustic Solid Vintage Exclusive turntable is both beautiful and badass — and it performs with silent reliability. Its integrated motor is built into a solid frame with side panels. The plinth surface is shiny and subtly textured with a precise quilt-like detail, with perfectly glossed sides and a 40mm (1.575in) aluminum platter. Inside the stunning chassis, a sandwich construction of stainless steel, aluminum, and plastodem houses the Berger Lahr synchronous motor. With this table, guitar tones were crisp, clean, and lifelike, while strong bass and drums were punchy and full-bodied. As reviewer Shanon McKellar put it, “The attention to the details both in build and componentry should put Acoustic Solid on your radar [. . .] The Vintage Exclusive is a cool, compact, and stylish piece that grabs the eye first — but then it has you bringing out favorite tracks to hear again, as if for the first time.”

Read our full review here.

TONEARMS

THE WAND PLUS 9.5-INCH TONEARM
$1,950
Gruvy Award Winner!
The Wand Plus 9.5in tonearm — a product of Design Build Listen Ltd. of Dunedin, New Zealand, with U.S. distribution by Profundo Audio — follows an aesthetic departure in tonearm design. Its imposing silhouette — a sharply truncated, horizontally oriented cylinder finished in a somber gray — evokes an industrial elegance reminiscent of high-end, minimalist architecture. The Wand’s unipivot design is made of carbon fiber with a counterweight machined from brass, and boasts a large, ⅞-in diameter carbon-fiber armtube. As Micallef noted, The Wand Plus was able to deliver “a diamond-clear sound, with spooky vocals chiseled from a deep, cavernous space. The overall impression was one of illuminated clarity, pristine treble and warm, propulsive bass bursts.”

Read our full review here.

CARTRIDGES

DENON DL-103o MC CARTRIDGE
$549
Honorable Mention!
The Denon DL-103o is a re-think of one of the most iconic MC cartridges ever, the Denon DL-103R, and it is now being produced in collaboration with Devon Turnbull, the audio innovator/upstart also known as OJAS. Features of the 103o MC cart include a conical stylus, low-compliance design, low-mass stylus assembly, and precision-wound copper coils styled by Turnbull. Micallef observed that “played through the $3K Manley Chinook phono preamp, the DL-103o engaged me with its clarity, impressive tonal depth, and laudable treble extension. [. . .] The DL-103o’s liveliness and transparency made the music jump and groove.”

Read our full review here.

PHONO PREAMPS

AURORASOUND VIDA MKII PHONO PREAMP
$5,290
Gruvy Award Winner!
Aurorasound’s VIDA MkII phono preamp — made by a Japanese manufacturer based in Yokohama, and distributed here in the U.S. by High End Electronics of Apple Valley, California — is a smartly made, thoughtfully designed component. Company founder and designer Shinobu Karaki has 28 years’ worth of experience working for Texas Instruments Japan, Inc., and he’s also a musician, music teacher, and dedicated audiophile. As Micallef posited, “What listener wouldn’t appreciate a second turntable input, multiple impedance load options, mono/stereo switch, and a MC/MM selector, all on the front panel? [. . . This unit] prioritized clarity and detail, with precise imaging and neutral tonal balance. The VIDA MkII’s high frequencies are clean and extended, the mids transparent, and the bass tight, controlled, and sometimes lean.”

Read our full review here.

PRO-JECT TUBE BOX DS3 B PHONO PREAMP
$1,099
Gruvy Award Winner!
The Tube Box DS3 B tube phono preamp is yet another high-value, smartly priced product from the brain of Pro-Ject founder Heinz Lichtenegger, and it is, of course, made in Europe. “Like a thunderbolt out of a clear blue sky — or a bracing punch from a best friend, and/or perhaps akin to some brainwave-altering medicinal activity — the Pro-Ject Tube Box DS3 B phono preamp charged out of the gate like a bull headed straight for my ears.” Micallef said. “Not to say it wasn’t refined, gentle, or atmospheric when called for — but the DS3 B’s overall footprint, while somewhat light compared to my reference phono preamps, simply knocked me over with its sense of exhilaration, layering, pristine but sun-flecked treble, transparent mids, and generally tight if not entirely weighty bass.”

Read our full review here.

RECORD CLEANING MACHINES

RECORD DOCTOR X VACUUM RECORD CLEANING MACHINE
$599.95
Gruvy Award Winner!
Besides design carryovers of such RD series record cleaning machine features like the vacuum motor, cleaning strip, and storage tank, the Record Doctor X VRCM simultaneously cleans both sides of a record, which thankfully helps minimize excessive LP handling during the cleaning process. Other key new features include a bi-directional turning motor that alleviates the need to turn the record by hand — something reviewer Mike Mettler pointed out as “a major plus for those of us who have gotten, well, quite cranky at having to crank it up all the time while using certain RCMs, V-related or otherwise.” Mettler added that “The RDX cleaned a wide swath of my some clean-ish, some pristine-ish, and some grimy-ish LPs as prescribed, time and again. [. . .] Its consistent cleaning performance more than backs up the price of admission, which is a few bills less than some other higher-end vacuum-centric models.”

Read our full review here.

PLAYBACK ACCESSORIES

SUBLIMA AUDIO RESEARCH MAT CHAKRA LIMITED PLATTER MAT
€350
Honorable Mention!
Though we haven’t posted our full review of the Sublima Audio Research Mat Chakra Limited Platter Mat just yet, we here at AP were sufficiently impressed with this mat that we feel it warrants further attention here before year’s end. Its base is made of a polycarbonate similar to PVC for aerospace uses, where about 30 natural mineral and non-mineral elements are sprayed in several passes, sealed by a very thin nanotechnological resin, and activated according to a patent-pending process. Company founder Alessandro “Alex” Cereda believes the wear of a record and the stylus cutting into it is “significantly” reduced when you’re using a platter mat, and we’re certainly finding positive, related results. In the past month-plus, AP editor Mettler has been testing this mat in a variety of configurations — by itself, and on top of another mat — as well as with different size/shape record clamps, and he’s experienced nothing but excellent results to date. As but one example, a particularly pesky vintage pressing of Robert Palmer’s second solo LP on Island, November 1975’s Pressure Drop (ILPS 9372), played with better clarity with the Chakra mat underneath it than it ever had on his naked platter. It was genuinely refreshing to hear how the of-era string accompaniment on a pair of Side 1 cuts, “Give Me an Inch” (Track 1) and “Back in My Arms” (Track 3), along with the last song on Side 2, “Which of Us Is the Fool” (Track 4) — most especially the crescendos and swells during the second chorus of “Inch,” not to mention the full character of Mongezi Feza’s flageolet playing throughout most of that song’s back half (and on the title track at the end of Side 1 as well!) — was much more vibrant with the mat than without. More to come — but in the meantime, you can also read our news report here.

The balance of the gear photos in the story are courtesy of AP chief product reviewer Ken Micallef, while the Acoustic Solid Vintage Exclusive photo is courtesy Shanon McKellar.

If you want to see which products won our Gruvy Awards in 2023, go here, and if you want to see which products won our Gruvy Awards in 2022, go here.