Winning one What Hi-Fi? Award is a great achievement. But winning six consecutively? That’s almost unprecedented. Yet that’s what the Vertere DG X record player and partner Phono-1L MkII phono preamp have done.
You don’t have to take our word for it – you really need to experience these devices for yourself to fully appreciate their full sonic capabilities.
Where heritage meets pedigree
The DG X is just the latest stop on an audio journey that has lasted over 40 years and counting. Vertere founder Touraj Moghaddam is a visionary engineer and passionate audiophile, and the man behind the legendary Roksan Xerxes. He founded Vertere with a singular mission: create the most musically truthful playback systems possible.
The DG X is the culmination of all of his knowledge and experience in creating hi-fi equipment.
But despite its price, don’t call it a budget version. Vertere doesn’t do budget. It makes reference-level equipment, some of which happens to be more affordable. The DG X has the same engineering philosophy, the same obsessive attention to detail, the same "Reducing the Veil" design mandate that informs every Vertere product from entry level to flagship. It’s this heritage and pedigree that has made the DG X such a phenomenal success.
Six of the best
You can’t win a What Hi-Fi? Award by fluke, let alone six in a row. The Vertere DG X has consistently triumphed against the best turntables in the industry, year after year.
Fresh competition, new technologies, existing record players getting price cuts or spinoff versions… none of these have been able to topple the DG X in recent years. Every year, the DG X not only defends its position but continues to set the standard by which others are measured.
You don’t have to take our word for it. But once you experience it yourself, you’ll understand why it’s had us so beguiled.
Form follows function
It’s not just us who love it. Renowned recording studios, industry professionals, and even music icons use Vertere in some capacity, be it as a reference, or entrusting it with archival work (as Nick Mason CBE, Giles Martin and Miles Showell do). Because when your professional reputation – not to mention your livelihood – depends on absolute sonic accuracy, you want the best.
The DG X is your chance to experience the same no-compromise audio quality. It shares the same DNA as Vertere’s reference systems, with the same engineering principles and performance philosophy. It’s not a consumer product with delusions of making the professional standards, it’s a piece of pro-grade kit made accessible.
Take the design. The DG X wasn’t designed as a style statement, rather it was engineered so that form follows function with absolute discipline. Its plinth’s proportions weren’t chosen purely for their aesthetic properties, but were designed to be acoustically optimised for constrained-layer damping. That it is visually striking is a consequence of engineering excellence, rather than an objective in itself.
The same can be said of the bearing housing (which is machined to tolerances that would satisfy a chronometer manufacturer) and the tonearm (whose geometry isn't just technically correct, but visually elegant).
Like a master watchmaker who knows that perfect function creates its own aesthetic, Vertere understands that uncompromising engineering discipline results in objects that command attention.
The turntable announces its quality before the needle touches the groove. Vertere didn’t add elaborate design flourishes, but removed everything that didn't serve sonic perfection. What remains is essential, purposeful and as such, beautiful.
As if further proof were needed, try running your hand across the plinth. The finish isn't just visually flawless – it's a tangible expression of manufacturing standards. The controls have that precision action that only comes from properly engineered mechanical components.
This is equipment built to last decades. Like the finest examples of purposeful design, the DG X becomes more valued over time, not less.
And we haven’t even pressed play.
Reference-grade audio
The DG X is designed to reproduce music with unprecedented accuracy. And it does just that – witness the way Miles Davis’ trumpet on Kind Of Blue suddenly has a sense of breath, texture and physical presence in space, or how Joni Mitchell’s voice on Blue connects emotionally in ways you won’t have experienced on a lesser system.
Play a track you’ve heard hundreds of times before, and the DG X will reveal instruments within the arrangement that you never knew existed. It offers a level of spatial information that goes beyond left/right stereo imaging to include front/back depth, elevating the sound above mere background entertainment to something that commands your full attention.
By removing the barriers between you and the music, the DG X takes you closer to what’s actually encoded within a record’s grooves. It will recalibrate your understanding of what’s possible, crossing the threshold from ‘very good’ to ‘reference-grade’. It’s a great place to be…
Hitting the inflection point
Vertere is able to offer such a prestige turntable at an affordable price thanks to its manufacturing efficiency and direct relationships. By focussing on performance rather than marketing clout and lifestyle branding, combined with the compound effect of 40 years of production knowhow, not to mention its UK manufacturing base without inflated distributor margins, it keeps the costs down without sacrificing any of what really matters: the purest audio performance possible.
The DG X is ideally situated at the inflection point where it delivers reference-grade audio before you’re dealing with diminishing returns. To get close to this level of performance, you would have to spend substantially more – somewhere in the region of £12,000 - £15,000.
That’s fine if money isn’t an issue, but not realistic for most people. And even if you’re one of the lucky few, you might be disappointed that your substantial investment doesn’t sound that much better than the DG X.
You also get a 10-year warranty with the DG X. Because Vertere turntables are made to last not just years, but generations. And it can be continually upgraded just by improving its accessories, elevating it to the level of a true heirloom product.
Are you experienced?
We could tell you more, but really you need to experience a turntable of such quality for yourself. Book an audition with your local Vertere dealer, bring your favourite records, and they will reveal themselves like never before. You’re about to hear what six consecutive What Hi-Fi? Awards sounds like.
