Turntables — Soulution Audio 787 Turntable

The 787 is the first turntable from Soulution, the Swiss maker of solid-state electronics. Soulution showed it at High End Munich 2025 with a price of CHF 67,000 and takes an unusual approach to linear tracking - instead of the tonearm travelling across the record, the platter moves sideways beneath a short pivoted arm. Gryphon had already entered the turntable market, and with the 787 Soulution joins a small group of Swiss and Danish electronics makers moving into vinyl.

Key specs that matter

The 787 plays at 33 and 45 rpm and is driven by a DC motor. Its 8 in tonearm is adjustable for VTA and azimuth, accepts high-compliance cartridges and is wired with precious metal alloy cables. The platter turns on a sintered magnetic bearing. Output is one pair of RCA sockets. The mains supply is universal, 100 to 240 V at 50 to 60 Hz, and consumption is 10 W in use and under 0.5 W in standby. The switched-mode supply combines high-efficiency DC-DC converters with low-noise linear regulators. The turntable is 480 mm wide, 450 mm deep and 250 mm tall, with a weight of about 36 kg.

Engineering and use context

On an ordinary pivoted tonearm the stylus travels through an arc, so it sits tangent to the groove at only two points and is pulled inwards by skating force. Linear-tracking arms avoid this, but they are usually driven or pulled along by the groove, which adds friction and unbalanced forces. Soulution keeps the arm almost stationary instead. The whole platter subassembly - platter, sub-platter, magnetic bearing and drive motor with precious metal brushes - slides laterally on polished axles. Inductive proximity sensors track the tonearm's position and control a motor that shifts the platter, holding the arm's angle within 0.15 degrees either way from the outer to the inner groove. As the arm barely moves, no anti-skating is required and alignment is simple. The tonearm is mounted on an isolated, resonance-controlled sub-chassis. When the platter travels to its parking position, the arm swings out of the way for record changes. The Nakamichi TX-1000 of the 1980s used a related principle, although there the arm moved and the platter corrected record centring.

Pairing

The RCA output needs a phono stage, and Soulution's own phono preamplifiers such as the 755 are the in-house choice. The 8 in arm takes both MC and MM cartridges.