These Minimalist Vinyl Hi-Fi Systems Are Unlike Any Other

How Andover Audio’s unconventional approach and superior sound are winning over even the most skeptical audiophiles.

Andover Audio One All-in-One Turntable audio system sitting on sideboard

By Tucker Bowe

Published June 3, 2024

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Updated June 3, 2024

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“When we introduced the Andover One ($1,999) , I think it was What Hi-Fi that reproduced our press release and the comments were like ‘This can’t possibly work,’ ‘Everybody knows that’s stupid’ and ‘Burn it, burn it with fire,'” recalls Bob Hazelwood, director of engineering at Andover Audio. The skepticism was not without reason.

You see, the Andover One is something that has traditionally been frowned upon by the hi-fi community: an all-in-one turntable. This means all the components — the turntable, amplifier, preamplifier and speakers — are built into the same box … which is problematic.

When you play music, the speakers vibrate, which shakes the box, which disrupts the fidelity of the other components, which ultimately distorts the sound. In a nutshell: All-in-one turntables (typically) sound like crap. But Hazelwood and co. want to turn the doubters into believers with the Andover One.

The Andover One can play vinyl records or stream music from your smartphone.

Based north of Boston in (yes) Andover, Massachusetts, the brand was born when co-founders Rob Mainiero and Rob Cardin acquired a part of Cambridge Soundworks — specifically, the engineering and the OEM business — from Creative Labs. Hazelwood says they were looking for their “niche” in the audio industry when they noticed a lot of people were getting back into vinyl, but didn’t want to go through the trouble of building a system with all the separate components. “We thought: ‘How can we make that easy?'”

When developing the Andover One, Hazelwood says the team attacked things from the speaker side first, building a mechanical structure that didn’t vibrate as much in the first place. “We discovered that by doing a couple of things we could get the vibration level down so low that just the rubber isolation of the turntable on top of the speaker was enough to take care of the rest of it.”

The Andover One is a plug-and-play machine that makes listening to vinyl easy. But it’s far from cheap.

What did they actually do? Three fundamental things.

First, they addressed the physical layout of the speakers. The left and right speakers are located on different sides of the cabinet so that when they vibrate, they cancel each other out. This obviously doesn’t cancel out vibrations completely, but it helps reduce a lot of them.

Second, they calibrated the design of the cabinet. Even with that loudspeaker setup, the cabinet is still going to vibrate and negatively affect the turntable. “There was a lot of measuring and figuring out where the bracing had to be in the cabinet to minimize that effect and minimize the transmission,” Hazelwood says.

Lastly, they tweaked the electronics and digital-to-signal processing (DSP). “We had to play a couple of tricks in the DSP which are critical to making sure that the two channels fully cancel each other at low frequencies,” explains Hazelwood. “That is really where it counts as mids and highs are not so much of a problem.”

When not listening to vinyl, you can use the Andover One as a wireless speaker. It supports both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth streaming.

The combination of those three factors is what Andover Audio calls “Isogroove,” its patent-pending technology for reducing feedback and vibrations. “We don’t have to compromise on bass performance. It plays loud enough to fill a room,” says Hazelwood. “It plays with high fidelity. It does all these things that you typically would need a conventional audio system to do, but without the complexity.”

But it’s not just Isogroove that makes all-in-one turntables sound better nowadays — it’s advances in a number of other technologies, including class-D amplifiers, digital-signal-processing and low-noise op-amps that make the old rules less valid.

“We found a lot of skepticism when we first introduced [the Andover One], but now we’ve got people from Stereophile, Rolling Stone and Forbes — not just audio publications — [confirming] our technology works and that it sounds good,” Hazelwood says. “We found that over those years, that skepticism has disappeared and that’s been a really refreshing change from people telling us that we are charlatans and it wouldn’t possibly work.”

The turntable on top of the Andover One is the only thing not made by Andover Audio. It’s supplied by the Austrian hi-fi maker Pro-Ject.

Of course, the Andover One isn’t likely the first all-in-one turntable that comes to mind. But unlike the Victrolas and Crosleys of the world, which you can buy for around $100, it starts at $2,000.

Andover Audio makes everything in the Andover One — except for the actual turntable. It wasn’t their area of expertise, so the brand reached out to popular Austrian hi-fi maker Pro-Ject, which wasn’t initially sold on Andover’s approach. “I met with Heinz [Lichtenegger], the president [of Pro-Ject], and basically had to demonstrate to him that the final project was viable,” says Hazelwood.

There are five playback modes. There’s mono (for older recordings), stereo and three “panoramic” modes for large-, medium- and small-sized rooms.

As part of the all-in-one package, the Andover One has a variety of wired and wireless connections. There’s built-in Bluetooth, but Andover Audio provides a little external music streamer, called the Songbird, for Wi-Fi streaming. (It opted for this external solution to better future-proof the Andover One.) Essentially, the Andover One is a modern wireless speaker that isn’t limited to just vinyl.

I think it was What Hi-Fi that reproduced our press release and the comments were like ‘This can’t possibly work,’ ‘Everybody knows that’s stupid’ and ‘Burn it, burn it with fire.’

For those wanting to take the Andover One to the next level, you’ve got options as well. You can get matching stands, the Andover One Upper Stand and Andover One Lower Stand, where you can store your vinyl collection. And there’s a wired subwoofer, the Andover One Subwoofer, for those wanting more bass. These additions work modularly with the Andover One and are built on the same Isogroove principles to eliminate vibrations.

This versatility and modular design was fundamental from the start with the Andover One — it needed to look good, sound good and be easy. “Rather than having to buy one thing from us then go to somebody else for the furniture, somebody else for the turntable, it just makes it easier to do one-stop shopping,” says Hazelwood. “[We]’ve taken the guesswork out of ‘will this work together?'”

You can adjust settings on the Andover One or use the remote.

When asked about the sound quality of the Andover One, Hazelwood joked that it’s their baby so of course he’s going to say it sounds perfect. But he then concedes there are limitations.

“Is it the ultimate in audio? No, there’s never an ultimate in audio,” he says. “The tendency of the audiophile is to always look for that holy grail in sound … which you’re probably never going to find. But for a lot of people, [the Andover One] sounds really satisfying without the hassle of a conventional system.”

Andover Audio Andover One

The Andover One is a true all-in-one turntable. There’s loudspeakers, an amplifier, a phono preamp and a turntable all in one box. It’s built with high-end materials and is engineered with the company’s Isogroove technology to minimize vibrations that often plague all-in-one turntables.