Why we started

Nobody lied to us. That is the problem.

Everything about that first purchase was technically true. The listing was accurate, the seller was honest, the player worked exactly as described. And it destroyed a record that had been in the family for forty years, in under a month, because not one person involved thought to mention the only number that mattered.

Ryyvo exists to make that purchase understandable before it is too late.

A worn record examined under a lamp, its groove walls flattened by a heavy stylus — The record that started it

01 — Where it starts

A record worn out in a month.

A friend's copy of Sweet Baby James, inherited, played perhaps thirty times on a £59 suitcase player, and finished for good. Not scratched. Worn — the groove walls flattened by a needle pressing three times harder than it should have been.

The box did not say five to seven grams. The listing gave no tracking force at all. Nobody asked what it was going to be plugged into. Every step of that purchase was technically honest and completely useless.

Ryyvo started as a list of the things nobody tells you before you buy. It is still that list. It has just grown a workshop around it.

5–7 gWhat a ceramic cartridge presses with. A moving magnet presses 1.5 to 2.5.

02 — The numbers

Five numbers worth knowing before you spend anything.

None of these are ours. They are the numbers the trade knows and rarely prints, because every one of them is a reason to sell you less than you came for.

2.0 g: Tracking force; What a moving magnet cartridge presses with. A ceramic one presses two to three times harder.
£26: A replacement stylus; If your old turntable needs one of these, buy it instead of buying from us.
500–1,000 h: How long a stylus lasts; Past that it does not sound duller, it starts taking the groove with it.
6–8 dB: How much quieter a record plays; Not a fault, and the commonest reason a working deck gets sent back.
2 m: Between the deck and the speakers; The commonest cause of skipping is not the turntable. It is the shelf.

03 — Where we draw the line

Three things we will not do to you.

They are the only promises we make, and each one costs us money on a regular basis. That is rather the point of a promise.

We publish every number the maker gives us

Cartridge type, tracking force, speaker output, packed weight, cable length. The flattering ones and the ones that are not.

We publish what they will not tell us

Every product page carries a list headed "not stated by the manufacturer". If we do not know the tracking force, that is exactly what it says. We would rather look under-informed than fill the gap with a guess.

We say when the answer is not our product

If your amplifier already has a better phono stage than ours, use yours. If your old deck needs a £26 stylus rather than replacing, that is cheaper than buying from us, and we will tell you so.

04 — One last thing

Now go and choose one.

Five turntables, with every number the maker gives us on the page. If you are not sure which, answer three questions and we will point at one, including the cheapest, if that is the honest answer.

See the turntables Help me choose