The Article

TT9 TURNTABLE FROM SOULINES

2nd March 2026

Arriving complete with the KiVi M3 tonearm, Paul Rigby wonders if this high-end Serbian design has any. Soul that is…

And yes, this is a high-end design. Retailing at £3,990 which includes both an acrylic dust cover and clamp (more of which later), the twin-speed tt9 (lower case is a thing) is constructed from a combination of aluminium, acrylic and Delrin (a low-resonance material).

tt9 turntable with cover in place (above and below)

Based on an inverted bearing with stainless steel spindle plus brass and Delrin to boot the belt runs from a nearby pulley on the plinth to a Delrin sub platter. A 2.5kg acrylic platter sits atop. Because of that acrylic, you do not need a platter mat.

I do like the toggle switches that span both power and speed select. A pair of pots sporting a micro screw sits next to the toggles allowing you to trim the speed. Before testing, I found speed ran a revolution too slow so these pots came in useful. I recommend checking the speed before use, therefore.

A trio of hight-adjustable inverted cone feet sit underneath.

The foot is a-foot!

To the right is the KiVi M3 tonearm. Delrin is the major material used in its manufacture plus aluminium. Described as a captive unipivot, the locating pin sits within three stainless-steel balls. So there is some play during use but not as much as a true pivot.

Toggle switches a go-go – speed pots to the right the lower toggle.

Screw-on counterweights are employed at the rear of the arm, when employing tracking force for the cartridge. These were easy to use and adjust. Anti-skate uses the trad, hanging weight off a thread approach. Azimuth and VTA adjustments are possible with the tt9 too.

Screw-on counterweights

Installation was straightforward except for one thing.

Pope John Paul II once said that, “Stupidity is also a gift of God, but one mustn’t misuse it.” Well, Soulines can be assured that I put it to good use. To ready the tonearm, you need to remove three bolts and two acrylic plates. I didn’t ‘spot’ one of those bolts and the final plate and couldn’t understand why the tonearm wasn’t performing accurately. Hours went by. Then I saw the issue, slapped my forehead with the palm of my hand and the review proceeded.

Apart from my own foolishness, the problem is exacerbated by the manual. The text is helpful but there are just too few illustrations. The manual looks too busy and cramped. It looks like the company budgeted for four sides of paper and then realised that they were running out of space and so squeezed everything in, to the detriment of clarity and common sense.

I got there in the end, though.

So, how does this turntable sound then?

SOUND QUALITY

There’s not a great deal of money floating around at the moment so, if you do have some savings to buy this turntable, there’s every chance that a new, high-end cartridge might be one component too far. A lower-cost or lower-end design already in your possession might be all you can afford.

But that should be fine. In practical terms, the tt9 should still be able to do a job with a lower-quality cart. After all, Rega’s Planar 1 has been doing that very job every day of its life, sporting a simple yet excellent plinth, top quality tonearm and cloned Audio-Technica, cheapo 3600 cartridge. And that turntable still performs way above its price point.

That’s why I grabbed the Goldring 1042 moving magnet cartridge as the first cart to test with the tt9. A superb moving magnet performer in its own right but not one that you might immediately consider to fit to the tt9, priced as it is at around £365 – give or take.

I listened to the early, 1981, Level 42, self-titled outing and the pop/jazz funk track Turn it On and I also combined the Goldring with a reference turntable, my Michell Tecnodec. This is exactly the sort of turntable design, priced around £2,000, that you might upgrade from.

Hence, this set up asks two questions: is it worth upgrading to this new turntable from a solid, established turntable like the Michell or similar and can the tt9 still perform when loaded with a relatively lower-cost moving magnet cart?

And the answer? Oh, most definitely yes. Sporting the same Goldring 1042 cartridge, the lead vocal was now fuller from the tt9 with a weight to his delivery while both bass guitar and percussion was massy and heavier now. The slap bass guitar especially offered an extra bounce. The secondary percussion that sat at the rear of the mix now sat within more space adding a touch of extra reverb while synths offered more confidence and certainty.

I also played Joanie Sommers original Warner Bros. pressing of For Those Who Think Young and the track I Feel A Song Coming On. This album was mastered with compression, no doubt to punch through the weedy Dansette speakers of the day. The Michell turntable emphasised the biting upper mids and treble but the Soulines turntable added much needed balance to the soundstage, reducing listening fatigue and adding a sense of order to the overall presentation.

I then upgraded the cartridge to a moving coil design, in this case the Ortofon Cadenza Bronze priced around £2,000 and compared that to the Goldring cartridge in the tt9.

With the Cadenza installed, music from the tt9 climbed a few rungs up the sonic ladder from the Goldring, offering greater clarity right across the soundstage with more complexity around the percussion, more reverb across the lead and backing vocals, better tonal realism from the electric piano and plenty of extra character from the bass.

Next? I drafted in another reference, this time a confirmed super turntable, my AVID Acutus with SME IV tonearm. Since I bought this combo many years ago, AVID has since dumped the SME tonearm and now sells their turntables with their own tonearm designs. Even so, I thought this combo – priced at the heady heights of £17,500 for the turntable and around £3,500 for the arm – would be an challenging test for the tt9. I ran the Cadenza cartridge on both decks.

And actually? It wasn’t. A challenge that is, because the tt9 sounded better. I’ll just pause a moment and let that sink in. That’s right, this £4k turntable from Serbia, sounded better than my £21,000 super turntable/arm combo, while using the same cartridge.

To explain, the AVID system sounded very good indeed. Nothing was actually wrong with it but it sounded rather bland. Very average. It lacked excitement. There was no passion. No insight.

And I do not blame the AVID turntable itself which, let me emphasise, remains a quite brilliant piece of engineering. The problem was not the AVID. The problem was the SME arm. A classic it might be but, nowadays? It’s way off the pace in sonic terms. It dragged the AVID down to the level of ‘meh’.

Which only proves how important is the plinth and tonearm team. Get this duo right and any turntable will fly. Soulines has done just this with the tt9 and KiVi M3. The result was a lively, passionate intense and emotional performance which kept me riveted to the test music. Such was the delicacy across the treble-infused cymbals, the sheer, hip-swinging bass groove and the emotional sensitivity across the vocal deliveries.

Oh and a quick word about the included clamp – which is a badged Michell clamp, incidentally. Should you use it? No. No you shouldn’t. In use, the clamp fixes to the spindle which then impacts the bearing itself. In this case, dynamic reach is harmed while air and space recedes around the mids. Sure, the clamp is excellent as a clamp but the tt9 doesn’t need one. It’s good enough left alone. Put the clamp in your spares bin and use it the next time you buy a budget belt-drive for around £200 where the bearing will be a low-tolerance, wobbly model. The clamp will be ideal for that.

Finally, I did receive a Soulines platform to review, there’s some extra feet to talk about too but these accessories verge on modding so I left those.

CONCLUSION

Well built and attractive to the eye, the Soulines tt9 gives music a compelling intensity and a lightness of touch while presenting the entire performance as a driving and powerful extravaganza. All at the same time. Which takes some doing, let me tell you. The result is a relaxing performance – via its smooth midrange – but the tt9 also offers a tight, powerful, sonic authority. Frequency discipline helps to produce a balanced and neutral performance packed with detail and information. There is no doubt, the Soulines tt9 is an extraordinary turntable.

SOULINES TT9 TURNTABLE & KiVi M3 TONEARM

Price: £3,390

Websites

Soulines: www.soulines.com/distributors

UK – www.soundfowndations.co.uk

GOOD: smooth mids, authoritative bass, spacious soundstage, clarity

BAD: manual