Fluance RT85 Review

Where the money went

The RT85 sits at the top of Fluance’s Reference range, and it is easiest to understand as a set of budget decisions rather than a feature list. Take the RT82’s high-mass MDF plinth and isolated speed-control motor, keep them unchanged, then spend the difference on two things: a high-density acrylic platter and an Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge. Leave the phono stage out, as the RT82 already does.

That is an unusually focused allocation. Most decks at this price hedge — a preamp so it works out of the box, a decent-but-not-special cartridge, a platter that is fine. The RT85 spends everything on the two components that touch the record.

The acrylic platter, and why it comes with no mat

An acrylic platter does two jobs, and the second one surprises people.

Mass. A heavier platter carries more rotational inertia, so small variations in motor torque or belt tension turn into smaller variations in speed. Fluance publishes 0.07% wow and flutterfor this deck. That figure is worth noticing not because 0.07% is a remarkable number in absolute terms but because most makers in this price bracket publish no wow and flutter figure at all — a spec you cannot see is a spec nobody has to stand behind.

Damping.Acrylic’s acoustic impedance is close to vinyl’s. When a record sits directly on it, energy from the groove passes into the platter and is absorbed rather than reflecting back up into the stylus. A metal platter cannot do this, which is exactly why metal-platter decks ship with a felt or rubber mat — the mat is standing in for a material property the platter lacks.

The practical consequence: do not put a mat on it. Adding felt between the record and the acrylic reinstates the problem the acrylic was bought to solve. This catches people who upgrade from a metal-platter deck and assume the mat comes with them.

The 2M Blue, fitted at the factory

The RT85 ships with an Ortofon 2M Bluepre-mounted and aligned. The 2M Blue’s distinguishing feature over the 2M Red below it is a nude elliptical diamond— the diamond is the whole tip rather than a small diamond bonded to a metal shank. Less mass at the tip means the stylus can follow rapid groove modulation more accurately, which shows up as high-frequency detail and as cleaner tracking through the inner grooves where the linear velocity is lowest.

Two things follow from that being factory-fitted:

• It is a large share of the deck’s value.Bought separately, a 2M Blue is a significant fraction of the RT85’s price. Compare the RT85 to a cheaper deck plus a cartridge upgrade and the gap narrows sharply.
• The upgrade path stays open and cheap.Ortofon’s 2M styli are interchangeable within the range, so you can eventually move up without replacing the cartridge body. We cover exactly that in 2M Red vs 2M Blue.

No preamp: the deliberate gap

Fluance is explicit that the RT85 has no internal phono stage and needs an external one or an amplifier with a phono input. Plug it into an AUX socket and you get a faint, thin sound that people routinely report as a broken turntable.

The argument for leaving it out is sound. A phono stage amplifies a signal of a few thousandths of a volt; putting that circuit inside a plinth a few centimeters from a motor is a compromise no designer would choose freely. Taking it out shortens the signal path and lets you match a stage to the cartridge — and with a 2M Blue fitted, matching is worth doing. See gain and impedance for what that means in practice.

The argument against is arithmetic. Add the cost of a good phono stageto the deck’s price before you compare it to anything with a preamp inside. Do that honestly and the RT85 is still strong; do it after you have bought the deck and the surprise is unwelcome.

Living with it

It is fully manual— cue down, lift at the end, no auto-return. Setup is the usual sequence: level the plinth, fit the platter and belt, zero-balance the arm, dial the counterweight to the 2M Blue’s specified tracking force, match anti-skate. Fluance publishes setup documentation for the whole Reference range, and our tonearm guide covers the arithmetic.

The isolated speed-control motor means speed changes between 33 and 45 are handled electronically rather than by moving the belt between pulleys — a small daily convenience that also means one less reason to touch the belt.

No Bluetooth, no USB, no automation. This is a deck for a wired system, and the absence of those features is consistent with everything else about how the budget was allocated.

Who should buy it

Buy the RT85 if you already own a phono stage or an amplifier with a phono input; if you want the platter and cartridge to be genuinely good rather than adequate; and if you would rather buy the cartridge upgrade once, with the deck, than twice.

Buy the RT82instead if the budget is tight and you would rather fund the phono stage than the acrylic platter — the plinth and motor are the same. Buy the Pro-Ject Debut Carbon EVO instead if the tonearm matters more to you than the platter. And if you need a built-in preamp at this level, the honest answer is that you are shopping in a different part of the market — start with turntables with a built-in preamp.