McIntosh’s three turntables, side by side. Here are the MT2 and its two larger siblings and their specifications, showing what your money buys at each step.

The long read.

The MT2 is the most affordable way into a McIntosh turntable, and it is built to a clear brief: get the mechanical fundamentals right, fit a good cartridge, and set almost everything at the factory so the owner can play records rather than spend a weekend aligning them. It is not the statement deck of the range, and it does not pretend to be. It is a properly engineered belt-drive turntable that happens to wear the McIntosh name, and it responds well to the two upgrades most owners will consider: a better cartridge and a dedicated phono stage.

Brief product overview

A belt-driven turntable with a solid polyoxymethylene outer platter over an inch thick, dynamically balanced, and a dural-aluminium tonearm with internal damping that is light but rigid. The bearings are a considered design: two precision ceramic surfaces with damping fluid for the vertical bearings, and a gimballed sapphire horizontal bearing. It plays 33⅓ and 45rpm, has a subtle green glow beneath the platter and around the plinth, and comes with a contoured dust cover. As standard it is fitted with the Sumiko Moonstone, a moving-magnet cartridge with an elliptical diamond stylus, retailing at £319. Tracking force, anti-skate, overhang and arm height are all preset at the factory, so setup is a short job rather than a long one. There is no built-in phono stage, so the MT2 connects to a moving-magnet or moving-coil phono input on your amplifier, or to an external phono stage.

How it sounds

On the supplied Sumiko Moonstone the MT2 is exactly what it sets out to be: solid, tonally even and easy to enjoy, with firm bass and a clean, unfussy top end. Reviewers have tended to stop taking notes and start listening, which tells you most of what you need to know at the price. The deck itself, the platter, arm and bearings, is capable of rather more than the Moonstone extracts, which is why it rewards a cartridge upgrade so clearly. Move to a good moving-coil cartridge and a matching phono stage and the MT2 steps up in resolution, image focus and low-level detail without changing its fundamentally composed character.

Cartridge upgrades

The MT2 leaves the factory on the Sumiko Moonstone, and because that cartridge is a known quantity at £319, the cost of stepping up is easy to reckon. We suggest two moving-coil upgrades.

The Sumiko Oriole is the natural first step: a low-output moving-coil with a nude Shibata stylus and a low-impedance 5.5-ohm generator, keeping the Sumiko house character while adding the resolution and tracking a good MC brings. It is a moving-coil cartridge proper, so it needs a phono stage with correct MC gain and loading; it will not run from a moving-magnet input.

The Hana Umami Blue is the reference-level upgrade: a boron cantilever, a micro-ridge nude diamond stylus and an Alnico generator, drawn from Hana’s Umami series, with a 0.4mV output. It asks more of the system around it and repays it with greater delicacy and a wider, more clearly organised soundstage.

Phono stages

With no phono stage in the MT2 and both suggested cartridges being moving-coil, a capable outboard MC phono stage is the other half of the upgrade. We suggest two.

The Pro-Ject Phono Box RS2 is a flexible, fully adjustable stage with balanced operation and a wide range of gain and loading settings, which makes it an easy match for the Sumiko Oriole and its low 5.5-ohm impedance.

The Fezz Audio Gratia Prestige is a valve phono stage, and it suits the more resolving Hana Umami Blue, adding a little tube warmth and body beneath the cartridge’s detail. It is the more characterful, more ambitious of the two.

What we’d partner it with

Any amplifier with a phono input, or any of the phono stages above into a line input, will complete the system. The MT2 partners naturally with McIntosh integrated amplifiers such as the MA252 or MA5300, and with amplifiers from Rega, Audiolab, Naim and Primare that offer a phono stage. For a cartridge upgrade beyond the two above, Ortofon, Hana, Sumiko and Audio-Technica all offer moving-coil options we stock; for phono stages, Rega and Musical Fidelity sit alongside the Pro-Ject and Fezz as alternatives.

On cabling, a good-quality tonearm cable and interconnect are worth having; AudioQuest and Chord are the cable brands we stock.

Who shouldn’t buy it

If you want the larger platter, the more sophisticated arm and the higher ceiling of the mid-range McIntosh deck, the MT5 is the next step and worth hearing before you commit. If you already run a low-output moving-coil and a reference phono stage, the MT2’s ceiling may hold you back, and the MT5 or MT10 will make better use of that investment. And if you only ever play the occasional record, the standard Moonstone is all the cartridge you need; the moving-coil upgrades are for listeners who will use the resolution.

Both systems replace the MT2’s supplied Moonstone with a moving-coil cartridge and a matching phono stage, one a considered step up, the other a reference-level upgrade.

Setup notes: The MT2 arrives with tracking force, anti-skate, overhang and arm height preset from the factory on the supplied Moonstone, so out of the box the setup is quick. If you fit one of the moving-coil upgrades, the cartridge will need aligning and the tracking force and VTA set to suit it; the Oriole in particular rewards care over VTA. Place the deck on a level, stable, ideally isolated surface away from the speakers, and keep the belt and platter clean. Remember there is no phono stage inside, so route the deck either to a phono input or through one of the outboard stages above.

Warranty & service: McIntosh components carry a warranty when bought from an authorised dealer; service is handled through the UK distributor. The cartridge is a wearing item; the stylus has a finite life and can be replaced or, on some models, retipped.