U-Turn Audio

U-Turn Audio was established in 2012 by three friends from Lexington High School,[1] Benjamin Carter, Robert Hertig, and Peter Maltzan. They raised money to start the company by participating in a business incubator program at Northeastern University, and they successfully completed a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign[2] to build the first Orbit turntable prototype and begin manufacturing operations.[3][4]

U-Turn's initial product line consisted of two products: the Orbit Basic turntable, with a platter made of MDF, and the Orbit Plus turntable, with a platter made of acrylic.[5] Both models were equipped with a unipivot tonearm designed in-house and pre-fitted with an Ortofon magnetic cartridge.[5] The plinth, or base, of the turntable was also made of MDF and was offered in a choice of three colors: black, blue, or green.[5] The Basic model was priced at $179 and the Plus model was priced at $279.[5] Magnetic cartridges from Audio-Technica and Grado Labs were offered as build-to-order options.[5]

All Orbit turntables utilize a belt-drive system that uses a low voltage AC synchronous drive motor positioned at the left rear corner of the plinth, and a rubber drive belt wrapped around the motor pulley and the outer edge of the platter.[6] Playback speeds of 33.3 RPM and 45 RPM are selected by positioning the drive belt on one of two sections of the drive motor pulley.[6]

In 2015, U-Turn introduced the Pluto phono preamp, available in external and internal versions.[7] Two more Orbit plinth colors — red and white — were offered that year.[7]

In 2016, the company began production of the Orbit Special turntable, offering customers two new plinth choices: solid maple wood and solid walnut wood.[7] Later that year, U-Turn announced that a new tonearm, called Orbit Arm 2, would replace the company's original tonearm.[7] Orbit Arm 2 uses a gimbal bearing rather than a unipivot bearing, and includes a new and improved anti-skating mechanism.[7]

In 2019, U-Turn introduced a new Orbit plinth color, purple, which the company stated would be available only for a limited time, but it has remained part of the regular product line ever since.[7]

In 2020, the company announced that an improved phono preamp, called Pluto 2, would replace the original Pluto preamp.[7] The Orbit Special turntable gained an additional plinth choice that year: birch plywood with maple wood veneer.[7]

In April 2021, U-Turn announced that it had built 100,000 turntables, and that the most popular plinth color was black.[7] In November of that year, the company began producing the Ethos self-powered loudspeaker.[7] The loudspeakers use custom-designed four-inch woofers and one-inch tweeters, housed inside MDF cabinets, available in white or black (priced at $399), or in walnut wood veneer (priced at $499).[8] They are powered by an internal audio amplifier rated at 80 watts, and can receive audio input signals via wired connections or wireless Bluetooth connections.[8]

U-Turn Audio Orbit Custom turntable with a Grado Blue 1 cartridge, playing Saxophone Colossus by Sonny Rollins

All U-Turn Audio products are manufactured and assembled by hand at the company's factory in Woburn, Massachusetts[9][10] and come with a three year warranty against defects in materials and workmanship.[11] Most of the parts and components come from American suppliers.[12] The company sells and distributes its products in the United States and Canada.[13]

• Official website