Majority Auto

There is a cartoon strip that has been doing the rounds online for eons that features two men standing in front of a large hifi system and one saying to the other ‘The two things that really drew me to vinyl were the expense and the inconvenience.’ Now, I am as big a fan of vinyl as you’ll find - but the reason why this little comic has proved so incredibly durable is that there is more than kernel of truth to it. Turntables can become very expensive very quickly, and it’s hard to argue they don’t generate a bit of faff as they go.

Majority has been carving out a niche producing cost-effective and convenient pieces of audio equipment across multiple categories. The Auto is not their first turntable - but it is by far the most interesting. Its name refers to its ability to start and stop playback with no physical input from the user - the arm will rise, swing over and drop on the record without your input and, when you reach the end of the side, it will perform the process in reverse. So long as you tell the Auto the size of the record (and don’t have a big collection of ten-inch albums), it’ll drop the stylus in the right place every time.

Automatic turntables are less common than their manual counterparts, but they’re not unheard of. Where the Auto really stands out is that lurking in the box is a remote control. You can make the arm perform its start and stop process from your sofa which is almost unheard of. Do you want more? How about the ability to skip tracks like you can with digital files? Not content with this witchcraft, you also get a built-in phono preamp, the means to output a USB signal to a PC to rip your records to digital, and Bluetooth 5.3 to send the signal wirelessly to a Bluetooth receiver. This is a combination of functionality I don’t recall seeing on any turntable, let alone one that costs £129. 

What’s very important about this is the fact the Majority does a solid job of being a record player as well. At the end of the tonearm, you’ll find an Audio Technica AT3600L cartridge - it’s a variant of the AT-91 family. This isn’t the most amazing cart ever made but it tracks at a weight that plays, rather than ploughs, records - and other details like the rubber mat-topped metal platter and decent pitch stability all point to the Majority being able to play your records in a way that ensures they should last the course. The Auto is an affordable way of playing them, but new records remain pricey things.

Sound Quality 

Once the exciting selection of noises that the Auto makes while moving and lowering the arm have subsided (I’ll cover this in a bit), the performance on offer is genuinely respectable for the asking price. Initially the most notable thing you’ll find when the Auto comes out of its box is that the built-in phono stage has huge amounts of gain on offer, and achieves this without creating a lot of unwanted noise at the same time. 

This means that you hear more of what is on the record, and the results are genuinely good fun at times. If you were to make a meaningful comparison to a Goldring GR3 (which, even as one of the more affordable turntables we’ve tested, is five times the price of the Auto), the Goldring can find more detail on records and generate a wider soundstage - but you nevertheless get a genuine sense of the artist’s intent here. 

What’s more, the Majority has a genuinely decent grasp of vocals in particular. The AT3600L isn’t terribly sophisticated, but it’s able to deliver voices with enough detail to make them intelligible and possessed of some of that richness and fundamental tangibility that has seen some of us persist with this ridiculous format for as long as we have. There is enough of that quintessentially analogue quality that you can unwind into the sound.

There are limitations, though. Even compared to fairly affordable alternatives, the Majority has to be considered somewhat bass-light. Very little I play on the Auto, even through a pair of hefty PMC speakers that are entirely comfortable with a bit of bass shove, sounds rather lightweight - and I’m unable to find a way to correct this. I suspect that some of this is because the sonic balance is geared towards using the Auto into a Bluetooth speaker (most of which have rather too much bass for their own good). Sure enough, when I use the Auto via Bluetooth into the same integrated amp as I use throughout my test, it generates a bit more oomph at the bottom end. 

What can’t be completely eliminated when using either wired or wireless transmission is a degree of end-of-side distortion. This is a factor with any record player, because the path of the stylus through a groove is an arc - and as this tightens towards the centre, the information is closer together and harder to read. With the Auto, some records that have buried energetic material at the end of sides have been a little prone to audible hash on some voices and instruments. 

Living with the Majority Auto

Setting the Majority up is genuinely easier than most streamers. Remove it from the box, make sure it’s level, apply power and interconnects and you are good to go. There is no need to set tracking force or even fit any parts - turntables don’t get any easier than this, and the standard of build and finish is more than acceptable for the price too. This isn’t the prettiest turntable ever made, but it’s neatly proportioned and unobtrusive. You get a hinged lid too, which three of the turntables currently resident on my kit-rack (none of which is less than thirty times the cost of the Majority) do not.  

What’s more, the auto functionality works well too. The Majority plants the needle positively and accurately, and seems able to handle very long sides without stopping ahead of time. The track skip function is also surprisingly effective. Being able to avoid playing the track that has always annoyed you without leaving your sofa is a genuinely delightful novelty I could get used to.

There are, naturally enough, some shortcomings though. The first is that the auto mechanism is… not quiet. Any powered movement of the arm is accompanied by noises similar to the power loader in Aliens and, while they stop when the record is playing, they will be mildly alarming to start with. The track skip is also best seen as approximate - it’s never going to rival digital for precision. It also works via an optical sensor, which means the Majority will clip the end of tracks when playing as the sensor cuts in. If you want a turntable to do things for you, you’re going to have to accept this. On the other hand, the Bluetooth pairing is fairly straightforward and is stable in use. I did not test the USB ripping feature as, regardless of the turntable being used, this function is as much fun as a root canal and very few sensible humans ever try using it more than once. 

Conclusion 

The Auto has clear limitations over simpler (and, let’s be clear here, more expensive) alternatives but it can do things that no other turntable I’ve tested at any price can do - and it does them with useful proficiency. When you consider the ultra-keen price it’s being sold at, this is a combination that many people will find irresistible.

Listening notes 

Bangles Different Light
The sort of album that sometimes still appears in charity shops is an infectious and poppy listen that allows the Majority to show off its genuine ability with vocals and deliver an authentically eighties experience.

‍Huey Lewis and The News Fore!
A ‘guilty pleasure’ album of mine (and it’s better than Sports) but, for many reasons, the song Doing it All for My Baby is a blight on the tracklist. Here you can skip it, making the Majority a superb choice on which to play the album. 

‍ZZ Top Degüello
‍The fascinating transition album from ‘good old boys’ to ‘unexpected MTV Rock Gods’ is a riot to listen to, and the Majority delivers a genuinely entertaining performance with an engaging sense of flow joining that decent tonal balance.

If the business of manually lowering and raising the arm on and off a record gives you the heebie-jeebies, the means of doing so automatically don’t get much more affordable than this. The Majority isn’t the last word in analogue excellence, but it’s affordable and stonking value for money.

The Majority will work both wired and wirelessly into the Elipson Horus 6B Active BT powered speakers and the result will be convenient, cost-effective and almost certainly genuinely entertaining to listen to at the same time. The Elipson’s healthy output and natural refinement should partner well, and the Majority will give them a bit of excitement at the same time.