AT-LP120X vs Rega Planar 1

This is the comparison that exposes what “beginner turntable” actually means, because these two decks answer it in opposite directions and both answers are right.

The Rega Planar 1 is built so that nothing can be set incorrectly. Its manual says bias is automatic on the RB110 and no setting is required; the balance weight is pushed on until it reaches a stop point; Rega claims set-up is possible in under 30 seconds. There is no tracking-force dial, no anti-skate control, no pitch fader, no preamp switch. There is a platter, an arm, a cartridge, a power switch and a pair of phono sockets.

The AT-LP120XUSB is built so that everything can be set. An adjustable counterweight, adjustable dynamic anti-skate, variable pitch with quartz speed lock, three speeds, a removable half-inch headshell, a switchable phono preamp and a USB output. Which necessarily means it can also be setbadly.

The question that decides it: do you want to operate this machine, or just use it?

The short answer

• Buy the AT-LP120XUSB if you will balance a tonearm, if you want a cartridge upgrade path that costs a stylus rather than a cartridge, if you might digitize records or play 78s, or if you do not yet own a phono stage.
• Buy the Rega Planar 1 if you want a hand-assembled belt-drive deck, you already have a phono stage and speakers, and the appeal is precisely that there is nothing on it to think about.

The arm is the whole comparison

Everything else on this page follows from one design decision, so it is worth being exact.

The RB110 is a hand-assembled arm with ultra-low friction bearings, and by any account it is very good at the mechanical job an arm has: hold the cartridge steady and get out of the way. Bearing quality is genuinely hard to buy at this price and Rega has spent decades on it.

But Rega deliberately closed the adjustments. Its own manual gives the whole story in two lines: “Bias is automatically set on the RB110, no setting is required”, and push the balance weight on “until it reaches the stop point”. Tracking force and anti-skate are fixed at values chosen for the Carbon cartridge Rega fits.

The AT-LP120XUSB gives you both controls plus a hydraulically damped lift and a lockable rest. Audio-Technica publishes the procedure for balancing this exact arm and setting force, and our guide to balancing a tonearm walks the same steps with the reasons attached.

Here is the honest consequence in both directions. An adjustable arm can carry any cartridge, because you can set the force that cartridge needs — and it can also be left unbalanced by an owner who never read the manual, which sounds worse than the fixed arm and wears records faster. A fixed arm cannot be improved and cannot be ruined. Pick the failure mode you would rather have.

The cartridge, and the ladder behind it

The Rega ships the Carbon: moving magnet, conicalstylus, 2.5 mV output, 2–3 g tracking force. The Audio-Technica ships the AT-VM95E: moving magnet, ellipticalstylus, 4.0 mV, 1.8–2.3 g.

A conical tip is a sphere with a single contact radius. It rides higher in the groove and physically cannot follow the finest modulation cut into the walls, which is where most high-frequency detail lives. An elliptical tip is narrower across the groove and longer along it, so it sits deeper and traces more. This is the most audible single difference between these two decks as sold.

The ladders diverge further. The VM95 body accepts Audio-Technica’s entire VM95 stylus range— conical, elliptical, micro-linear, Shibata, and a 78-specific tip — as snap-on swaps that need no realignment at all. Every future upgrade is a stylus, on the same pre-aligned headshell. Rega sells the Carbon Pro elliptical stylus for the Carbon body, which is a genuine improvement and, on the Planar 1, is essentially where the ladder ends. See replacement styli and what fits what.

Speed: a switch against lifting the platter

The AT-LP120XUSB selects 33 1/3, 45 and 78 RPM from the plinth, with a pitch fader and quartz lock alongside.

On the Planar 1, Rega’s manual tells you to change speed by moving the drive belt between the steps of the pulley. In practice that means lifting the platter off, moving the belt and putting the platter back — every time you play a 45.

If your collection is albums, this is a non-issue you will encounter twice a year. If you own a stack of singles or 12-inch 45 RPM pressings, it is a daily irritation, and it is the sort of thing that never appears in a review because the reviewer had the deck for a fortnight.

The 78 setting on the Audio-Technica carries the usual caveat: shellac 78s have a far wider groove than microgroove LPs and need a 78-specific stylus. The VM95 family sells one; the speed alone is not enough.

What the Audio-Technica does that the Rega will never do

• Digitize records. A class-compliant USB output means a computer sees the deck as an audio input with no drivers to install, and free software such as Audacity records from it. Direct-drive speed stability matters here more than anywhere else, because a drift becomes a permanent property of the file. See how to record vinyl to a computer.
• Work without another box. Its phono preamp is switchable, so it plugs into powered speakers, an aux input or a soundbar on day one — and switches off later when you add a better stage. The Planar 1 has none, and its manual tells you to connect the phono output to an appropriate phono stage. If you do not own one, add the price of a phono preamp to the Rega.
• Take any cartridge. Removable half-inch headshell, adjustable force, adjustable anti-skate.

What the Rega does that the Audio-Technica does not

• It is hand assembled around a serious arm.The RB110’s bearings are the part of a turntable that is hardest to buy cheaply, and Rega’s are the reason these decks have the reputation they do.
• It cannot be set up wrong. No tracking force to get wrong, no anti-skate to mismatch. On a shared system, or one nobody wants to fuss over, that is worth more than a spec sheet suggests.
• It is half the weight and considerably smaller.Rega publishes 447 by 360 by 117 mm and 4.2 kg. The Audio-Technica’s listing gives 17.8 by 13.86 by 5.57 inches and 20.15 lb — more than twice the mass. Measure the shelf.
• No belt-free maintenance advantage, but no fan of complexity either. The Rega’s belt is a consumable that will eventually need replacing; in exchange there is no servo, no USB board and no preamp inside the plinth.

Neither maker publishes what you might expect

One thing these two have in common: neither wow and flutter nor signal-to-noise appears in the sources we can read for either deck. Rega does not publish those figures at all — a long-standing and deliberate position, on the argument that the standard measurements do not capture what makes a deck sound good. Audio-Technica does publish them, in the manual in the box, but its website returns a 403 to automated requests and the live listing does not state them.

So this page does not compare them, and it does not fill those cells with numbers from a third party. If measured specifications are how you want to shop, note that Fluance publishes all of them on its own product pages, which is a genuine point in its favour at this money.

Buying them is not the same experience

The Audio-Technica is on Amazon with a live price in the card above. Rega is not.A live product search on 2026-09-03 returned Rega cartridges, drive belts and power supplies but no Planar turntable, which matches Rega’s authorized-dealer-only distribution. Buying one means going to a dealer, and our link goes to Rega’s own product page because we earn nothing from it either way.

The decision, in one paragraph

Buy the AT-LP120XUSB if the deck should grow with you: the elliptical cartridge is better today, the VM95 ladder makes every future upgrade cheap, the preamp means it works on day one, and the USB output and third speed are jobs the Rega cannot be made to do. Buy the Planar 1 if you want a hand-assembled belt-drive deck with a genuinely excellent arm and no controls to think about, you already own a phono stage, and your records are albums rather than singles. The one outcome to avoid is buying the Planar 1 expecting to upgrade it later — the arm gives you no way to set a new cartridge’s tracking force, and that is a ceiling the price does not warn you about.