We’ve seen and featured Tentogra turntables in previous Audio Video Show reports. This Polish company’s premier turntable, the Oscar, now at Mk III status, is an over-the-top monster with its own battery supply, which is configurable to provide up to 68 hours of running on a single charge. Each time I encounter the Oscar, I’m startled by how much technology and innovation the company can jam into this thing. At $33,000 (all prices USD), the Oscar’s price is certainly reasonable, but it’s hard in any light to consider that much money for a turntable as an actual bargain.
Designer Wojciech Samolyk with his Tentogra Oscar Mk III turntable
This year Tentogra was showing its WoWo ’table, which is a far more modest design, but it’s still jammed full of cool tech. I said up front that the WoWo is a bargain, and it is. Consider this: the ’table itself, supplied with a Kuzma S 12 arm and CAR-30 cartridge, retails for $10,000.
Wait! I hear you thinking. How can $10K be any kind of bargain? Well it’s like this. The S 12 and CAR-30 retail for somewhere around $6000, so that means the WoWo itself is around the $4000 mark. That’s a lot of turntable for the money.
Tentogra WoWo turntable
Despite its integrated appearance, the motor stands alone from the chassis, and the plinth can accommodate multiple arms. The upper plinth is CNC-milled from a composite plywood called Compreg, which is formed under extremely high pressure. Multiple veneers and finishes are available at additional cost, and it’s apparently easy to swap out the plinth should you want a new look. The WoWo can also be upgraded to battery power, as it uses the same motor as the much more expensive Oscar.
I asked Wojciech Samolyk, the owner of Tentogra, whether we could get a review sample for SoundStage! Hi-Fi, but he smiled at me with a look of sadness tinged with pity. “My turntables are built to order,” he said.
You can’t say I didn’t try.
Jason Thorpe
Senior Contributor, SoundStage!
