Mixx Analog+ review

When you’ve been around for 50 years, you think you’ve seen it all. Throughout What Hi-Fi?’s half-century history of reviewing audio products, we’ve seen all kinds of turntables, CD players, iPod docks, in-car stereos and more.

This, however, is a first: a turntable with a CD player hidden inside it. While other combined turntable-and-CD-players do exist, we’ve never encountered a 2-in-1 design like this before.

Ticking many elements of today’s audio trends and demands – love for physical media, the convenience of Bluetooth, ease of use, and affordable price – this kind of integrated design could well be the perfect audio source for those who are strapped for space, strapped for cash and want the best of both physical format worlds. Without all the fuss of separates, that is.

It’s an intriguing, innovative design. Does it work?

Features

Starting with the turntable side of things, the Mixx Analog+ is capable of playing 33⅓ and 45 RPM speeds and both 7 and 12-inch records. It’s a belt drive design, and comes equipped with an Audio-Technica AT3600L fitted to the metal tonearm.

It’s a cartridge we know well and have encountered before on other budget decks, and the tonearm is all set up for the AT3600L moving magnet cartridge, so it’s ready to play straight out of the box. You can replace the cartridge if damaged, but it will be a like-for-like replacement as there is no scope for adjustments on the tonearm.

The Analog+ is fully automatic in operation, with a few tricks up its sleeve. Press play and the tonearm will automatically lift, move and start playing the record – without you ever needing to touch the arm. Just remember to put on the rubber mat and take off the stylus guard before pressing play, and set the correct size of the record so the automatic mechanism knows where the start of the record is.

At the end of the record, the tonearm will return to its arm rest – a handy feature that means the needle won’t be left digging a groove indefinitely if left unattended.

The turntable also has a nifty repeat function that lets you start over a side, and you can forward and rewind tracks. The latter isn’t an exact science – the arm simply moves a pre-determined short distance on the record rather than finding the precise spot where the next track starts.

For greater control, you can also hold down the skip buttons (either on the unit or on the included remote) to move it further and just about direct it to exactly where you want the needle to fall.

In fact, Mixx advises you not to touch the arm at all, so as not to damage the auto mechanism. The automatic operation is smooth in action, although the motor is quite noisy when the arm is moving. Thankfully, it goes quiet when the needle touches the groove.

Take the record off, and you’ll find the top-loading CD player built into the platter of the deck. It’s neatly accessible through the cut-out mat and platter of the Analog+, so you don’t have to disassemble any other part of the turntable. It’s a neat design.

Simply push down on the bottom edge of the lid to open, and there is a handy ‘Function/FN’ mode on the deck to switch between the turntable and CD modes. The display at the front of the deck shows you the track number being played and the time remaining. When in vinyl record mode, it shows the speed and size chosen.

The Analog+ can play CD, CD-R and CD-RW discs, and you can even leave a CD in its player without affecting the record playback on top. As long as you remember to switch to the right playback mode, one format shouldn’t affect the other’s replay.

That’s not all. The Mixx Analog+ has a built-in phono stage, which means you can plug it directly into a pair of active speakers or an amplifier’s line level inputs. Unlike rival decks such as the Sony PS-LX3BT or Pro-Ject T1 Evo BT, you can’t bypass the Mixx’s phono stage for an upgrade. We don’t expect customers for this kind of integrated product to go down the traditional separates route or to invest in an outboard module, so keeping things simple is no issue here.

Another convenience that’s added here is Bluetooth streaming, which lets you wirelessly stream your records or CDs to your favourite Bluetooth speaker or wireless headphones. The standard AAC and SBC codecs are supported, and pairing the Mixx with compatible Bluetooth-enabled speakers such as the Ruark MR1 Mk3 is swiftly done.

Just remember to toggle the RCA/Bluetooth output switch at the back of the turntable depending on whether you’re going the wired or Bluetooth route.

Build & design

The Analog+ looks smart and is nicely made. It has a fairly slim but solid MDF plinth, with rubber buttons laid out sensibly on the metal-fronted panel and reactive to every press.

Using it is as practical and straightforward as using a standard CD player, which makes it easy to get along with right from the start – even the automatic vinyl section feels intuitive.

There is clearly a lot of thought gone into the design of the Analog+ – it makes the Sony Bluetooth turntables look a little plasticky and clunky in comparison – and both turntable and CD player sections work smoothly during our testing.

The LED display showing vinyl modes and CD tracks is crisp and easy to read, and all the controls – speed change, play/pause, skipping tracks, repeat – are mimicked in the handy remote control. Apart from physically changing the CD or vinyl record, you’ll never have to leave the sofa to use this modern player.

The Analog+’s tonearm doesn’t have a finger-lift (a nice way to discourage you from manually moving the arm), although we do wish there was a safety clip for when it’s back in the armrest.

We like being able to see the CD spinning through the clear lid – although if you suddenly spot that the CD has stopped moving but music is still playing, don’t panic! There is a memory buffer that allows the CD player to store and play a track from memory, meaning it’s perfectly normal for the disc to stop every minute or so without interrupting playback at all.

Sound

We hook the Mixx Analog+ up to our usual reference system of Arcam A5+ amplifier and Epos ES-7N speakers, but also use it with the more price-compatible Ruark MR1 Mk3 powered speakers as part of our testing.

It’s worth mentioning that any additional elements to a standard turntable – integrated phono stage, automatic operation, Bluetooth – all tend to affect overall performance, and that’s before we even get to the fact this deck has a CD player incorporated inside it. The closest rival to the Analog+ we have is the Sony PS-LX3BT (£299 / $400 / AU$469), but this doesn’t have a silver disc spinner built in.

We start with the CD player, with Hans Zimmer’s The Dark Knight OST spinning. Even with our expectations for this kind of integrated player curbed, we find the CD player’s performance is quite poor and muddled. Nothing sticks out unduly throughout the frequency range, but there isn’t much in the way of clear detail, distinct separation or snappy rhythms.

It’s quite a small-scaled and dynamically squashed window through which it performs, which doesn’t remotely capture the dramatic flourishes and nail-biting tension of the soundtrack.

We move over to the turntable, and things improve. Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS album sounds fairly solid and stable, with a better sense of liveliness than its CD counterpart. For a product of this type, it sounds quite balanced. Detail levels are decent and it sounds pretty clear, too. The infectious pop record comes through with a sense of punch and flow, with the midrange in particular getting the best spotlight. It’s not really able to dig out deep bass for impactful swings in the rhythm, however.

Dynamically, the Analog+ is still quite limited in scope, no matter which format you listen to. In comparison, the Sony LX3BT turntable rival offers far greater subtlety and clarity to detail, a better sense of space and more precise, fluid dynamics. It’s simply a more musically interesting and involving listen.

Is the Mixx Analog+ more suited to casual listeners who prioritise convenience over sound? We plug it into the Ruark MR1 Mk3 speakers – through both RCA and Bluetooth – and find that while the connection side of things goes without a hitch, the player’s limited performance remains the same.

If you were hoping for the sound quality of entry-level separates of either a CD player or turntable in this 2-in-1 design, you will be left disappointed.

Verdict

We have to hand it to Mixx Audio. The brand is fairly young and the Analog+ is its most premium product yet. To design something so different from anything else on the market – and in an appealing, modern package – is worth applauding.

While the Mixx Analog+ has plenty going for it in terms of usability and features, and could be a neat solution for those who want an easy, all-in-one player that can play CDs and vinyl records from one unit – the sonic compromises are too big to ignore.

We hope a second-generation version, or a step-up model, will take more care with sound quality. Then it could get really interesting.

Review published: 16th April 2026

SCORES

• Sound 3
• Build 4
• Features 5

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