Once you’ve come to appreciate the seductions of vinyl, its tactility and its uniqueness, you’re almost certainly going to want to look for a player that brings the best out of your big, black discs. For some, that’s going to be buying something like the Goldring GR3, a $1,299 record player that not only brings epic sound quality but classic good looks and some premium features.

Goldring has been out of the game for a little while, though, so it’s understandable that some would be hesitant about the brand's return. Thankfully, after extensive testing and spinning, it looks like there’s barely anything to worry about with the GR3.

So, is this one of the best record players that money can buy or a deck to be avoided when compared to the competition? Let’s take a look.

Goldring GR3 review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A premium turntable
• Who is it for? Buyers looking for their next premium turntable
• What does it cost? $1299/£699
• What we like: Epic build, stunning good looks, and top-notch sound
• What we don’t like: It would be nice to bypass the internal pre-amp, and it attracts fingerprints from across the known universe

Goldring GR3: Specs

• Price $1299/£699
• Connectivity RCA, built-in Phono preamp
• Weight 12.1lbs
• Colors Black
• Cartridge Goldring E3
• Stylus Elliptical diamond
• Tracking Force 2g

Goldring GR3 review: Price and availability

The price of the Goldring GR3 depends entirely on where you are. In the U.K., the turntable’s home, it’s fairly affordable at £699. That means it competes with similar models from Pro-ject and Cambridge Audio, although with a look and feature set all its own. Most come with similar built-in pre-amps, but similarly priced decks lack the supremely polished finish of Goldring's effort.

Things are different in the US. The GR3 will set you back $1,299, although some retailers hike that price because it's harder to get hold of. Unfortunately, this is not a “order it on Amazon and call it a day” deck.

There’s also the matter of the competition. There are similarly priced decks, like the Orbit Theory. That’s $120 less with the built-in pre-amp, but you can bypass it with a quick button press if you need to, unlike the GR3’s option.

That higher price in the U.S. does make it trickier to recommend — especially considering the fixed state pre-amp. Still, if you’ve no desire to upgrade further down the line, this is an excellent “buy and use forever” turntable.

Goldring GR3 review: Design and build

• Gorgeous, piano black plinth…
• That gets dusty and fingerprinty in a femtosecond
• Very sturdy

As much as the GR3 follows the typical modern turntable design, some lovely touches set it apart from the crowd. For one, there’s that shiny black finish, which really does look otherworldly in person. It’s almost mirrorlike, reflecting light in interesting ways.

The black color scheme is echoed in the phelonic resin platter. The shiny sides match the plinth for reflectivity, making the whole thing look pretty special. The tone arm, an aluminium model, is also black, finished off with an all-black counterweight. The gold-accented Goldring and GR3 logos add to a very premium-feeling deck.

It makes it feel a whole lot more expensive than the wooden finish of the U-Turn Orbit Theory, although there’s also a slightly different vibe. One is more “slick and cool,” the other accentuates the tactility of the format. I like both for different reasons, although it’s ultimately the GR3’s black finish wins the day.

Setup is super simple. You remove some cardboard bits and then adjust the tone arm with the separately packaged counterweight. Adjusting the weight is easy enough if you've set up turntables before, but if it's your first time, you should read the instructions or find a YouTube video to get dialled in properly. The speed control is manual, and I’ll get to the adjustment later.

The phelonic resin platter is a lovely thing to hold and use, and thanks to the manual adjusting speed control, you’ll be handling it a lot. There’s part of me that wishes it were acrylic or even glass, but that does feel like a tall ask at this price — a tall ask that U-turn has happily capitulated to. It’s thick and solid, though, and it does a great job of reducing vibration.

The arm feels good too, although not quite as special as U-turn’s magnesium option. Still, it’s very solid, and I’ll more than happily take adjustment over fancy materials any day. The vibration-damping feet on the bottom finalize a lovely feeling and looking turntable that’s put together excellently.

Goldring GR3 review: Features

• Belt drive
• Manual operation
• Can’t turn the pre-amp off

As you might expect from a simple turntable, there aren’t many features. It’s a turntable — you place your records on the platter, turn the deck on, move the stylus over the disc, and lower the tone arm. There’s no auto-stop when the disc comes to the end, no automatic track finding, no fancy mechanism that puts a new record on. It’s completely manual, which is, in and of itself, a key reason to buy the turntable.

It’s manual all the way down to the speed control. Some turntables, particularly the U-Turn Orbit Theory, at this price have electronically regulated speeds, chosen with either a button or a switch. The GR3 needs you to move the belt drive mechanism to change speed.

It’s simple enough — lift the platter, and move the belt from the top rung of the motor mechanism to the lower one. It’s much easier than other belt drive decks with a similar method, because the motor pulley itself is so much smaller. Much easier to manipulate than one that spans the entire platter.

Then there’s the built-in phono pre-amp. It’s a very good model, amplifying the sound from the stylus with plenty of rich detail and vinyl warmth. It is also, however, a great shame that you can’t turn it off. As good as it is, the further you move up the vinyl food chain the more likely you are to want to add your own with improved performance. Unfortunately, you can’t do that with GR3, restricting you to the one in the deck.

I found the motor impeccably quiet, although I did use my own power supply as opposed to the model that came in the box. This is not recommended, I should add — you have to make sure that your supply matches what the player needs. Finally, there are some very lovely QED interconnects to both RCA and 3.5mm for attachment to powered speaker models. They’re top-notch and a reason to pick up the deck over everything else on their own.

Goldring GR3 review: Sound quality

• Powerful dynamics
• Plenty of detail
• Lacks a little drive

In the intervening years since Goldring’s last turntable release, it's put its considerable sonic talents to delivering excellent cartridges. One of those cartridges sits at the end of the aluminum tone arm of the GR3, creating the detailed, dynamic sonic core that does a fine job of translating those grooves to sound. Combined with the very good built-in pre-amp, the GR3 is a force to be reckoned with.

I can only really level one complaint, even at this price point. Everything is so tight and controlled, that it lacks some power in the low end. Bass seems to be pushed back ever so slightly, with the most impact coming from the lower mids instead. That means that acoustic and classical music sound stunning, but bassier genres are slightly flatter.

I spun up my test vinyl, salivating for some lovely detail, and boy did the GR3 deliver in spades, feeding my crisp symbol hit after cymbal hit throughout the 30-minute runtime of Bloodbath’s Survival of the Sickest. The delicious distorted guitars were meaty and edgy in equal measure, and the vocals sound impeccably mean and threatening. I did miss some low-end grunt — the bass guitar was pushed aside for the cold, metallic death metal fury to get on with its dirty work.

Dua Lipa brought the groove with some disco-inspired hits. Future Nostalgia and its creamy bass lines sounded great, although it was here that I really missed some low-end presence. Still, it got me moving and grooving, with some epicly clean-sounding vocal work from Lipa to keep things moving along.

Getting my copy of Kind of Blue spinning showed off those excellent dynamics. The volume ebbs and flows as the trumpet line interweaves with the rest of the ensemble. The trumpet itself is picked out in perfect detail, and the double bass rings out true. The deck might just be perfect for jazz, thanks to its control and restraint.

Goldring GR3 review: Verdict

The Goldring GR3 is an excellent turntable. It sounds amazing, and features everything you could need to get listening to vinyl (apart from a pair of speakers). It’s a great second or even third turntable, giving you a stunning experience that’ll look lovely for years to come; as long as you don’t mind making dusting and removing fingerprints a part of your regular cleaning routine.

But there’s a healthy caveat. Buyers in the U.K. are getting one hell of a deal, a stunning package for £699. U.S. buyers, on the other hand, have drawn the short straw. $1,299 is a lot of money no matter how you approach it, and so the GR3 will require more intensive purchasing consideration.

It is worth it — but so are the similarly priced competition.