One of the scariest considerations for new vinyl listeners is that the best turntables are just the first of many expensive purchases you’ll likely have to make. Unless you buy a rig with a built-in speaker, you’ll have to shell out for a fairly expensive and space-consuming hi-fi setup, including amplifiers and speakers, to listen to your tunes.
These are two problems that audio company Victrola has set out to solve, with a new speaker, launched at CES 2026. This is the Victrola Soundstage, a soundbase that will go on sale in summer 2026 for $349.99 (approximately £260, AU$500, regional availability TBA).
On the Victrola high up
If you’re buying for that first reason, choose a tape measure. The Soundstage measures 16″ x 15″ x 3.5″ and, as the image at the top of the article shows, is about the same size as a record player. Perfect for elevating your vinyl player or, ahem, putting the Victrola up high (sorry).
As you can imagine, offering a single speaker instead of a complex setup can potentially impact audio quality, but Victrola has two technologies that go some way to compensating for this.
One of them is what it calls the Symmetric Drive Woofer, a downward-facing dual-diaphragm woofer that it says delivers powerful, well-tuned bass while preventing vibrations. As you can imagine, the shaky bass on a turntable will have you scratching tracks faster than a DJ.
The other technology Victrola has added is a balanced mode radiator, which is designed to disperse music evenly over a wide area while preserving the original sound profile of your music. Hopefully this will counteract the lack of space between the stereo speakers and the width of sound it creates, something virtually impossible to achieve when you only have one speaker.
The Soundstage was specifically designed to work alongside the Victrola Wave and Victrola Automatic, but the company says it will also be compatible with many other turntables. It will connect via Bluetooth, 3.5mm AUX, RCA or USB-C and, for the first time in a sound dock, Auracast, and as that listing suggests, you’ll also be able to use the Soundstage with other inputs as a wireless speaker. A sound base is for life, not just for vinyl.
In addition to announcing Soundstage, Victrola also revealed a new color model for the Wave turntable and Tempo bookshelf speakers. You can now get them in a walnut tone, which Soundstage also comes in if you don’t want their black option.
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