If you keep up with our weekly Soundbytes emails, you might have noticed we've been assembling great deals from our brand partners. Here, we focus on eight of our most popular turntables – and how their engineering, features, and operation can enhance your music-listening experiences.

We start with Mark Levinson's No. 515 turntable, on which two iconic manufacturers pooled their resources to design and manufacture a model worthy of the Levinson legacy. Crafted from the ground up by VPI and a Levinson design team headed by Todd Eichenbaum, No. 515 begins with a robust triple plinth shaped to mirror the contour of Levinson electronics. It adds oversized isolation feet, a heavy 12" platter, a threaded clamp, and a standalone fully filtered triple-belt single-pulley motor drive. Throw in a custom-designed hybrid 3D-printed gimbaled arm and Ortofon's Cadenza Bronze MC cartridge, and you have all the trappings of reference analog. I had the pleasure of hearing this rig at the company's Connecticut think tank with a suite of Levinson electronics and Revel speakers. Its impact and immediacy is beyond compare, matching or exceeding (dare I say it) VPI's own flagship offerings. I credit its sound in part to the one-piece standalone PSU/motor assembly. By fusing parts of VPI's heralded ADS, the motor comes fully voiced for low-vibration specs. The three-belt pulley adds to the motor/platter relationship to enable for quick starts and stable pitch at 33 and 45RPM. There's also a fused aluminum armwand and pivoted armbase (with VTA on the fly, no less). Finally, with the Ortofon Cadenza, analog brilliance makes itself known at the first drop of the needle. Bass notes are immediate and impactful, while top-end detail and ambience explodes in full bloom. Break out your fave LPs on this rig, and you'll be hooked.

Speaking of VPI, the Prime turntable is no slouch. The first turntable created under VPI President Mat Weisfeld's watch, the U.S.A.-made Prime exceeds expectations as a rig that welcomes the next generation of analog-spinning music lovers via its modernistic appearance and all the flourishes that come with a VPI design – including top-shelf parts, a standard-setting 10" 3D-printed tonearm, VTA on the fly, and a 300RPM standalone motor.

We've shipped plenty of these heavyweight 'tables to customers throughout the U.S.A., netting us awards for top sales (as a Platinum Dealer in 2019). What further sells me on Prime pertains to its relatively simple setup and compatibility with just about any cartridge. Specifically, the Audio-Technica AT-OC9XSL dual MC phono cartridge or any of Ortofon's Quintet and Cadenza models. The harmony with these carts and Prime is astonishing, and while each of the cartridges has its own identity, each makes beautiful music with Prime. Also, like virtually all VPI products, Prime allows for easy and multitudinous upgrades.

Clearaudio's Concept Dark Wood turntable is a sexier take on what has become one of the German manufacturer's top-selling designs. As is the case with its sibling models, fine engineering can be seen throughout, starting with a low-profile, dense plinth to isolate the two-piece platter/subplatter and ultra-quiet motor. Also, Clearaudio's Satisfy arm is mated to its popular Virtuoso Wood v2 MM, one of the best-sounding cartridges at its price point. Add dark Baltic birch trim, and you have all the makings of a sleek analog spinner. It's a great match with systems specializing in micro-dynamic conveyance, taut bass notes, and wide soundstaging.

Of course, our eight picks include the runaway hit 'table of the past 12 months, MoFi Electronics' UltraDeck +M turntable. An EISA-winner for 2019-20, the U.S.A.-made UltraDeck +M sports a factory-installed UltraTracker MM cartridge and stands as the easiest model in this lineup to plug and play. In addition to its metro-looking appearance – echoes of mid-century hipness carry right down to its smoked dust cover – UltraDeck +M scores big when it comes to involving analog playback. No surprise, given its 10" gimbaled tonearm, rigid and dampened plinth, asynchronous motor, thick Delrin platter, and specially engineered feet engineered by HRS. The combo conveys everything its designers set out to accomplish: The ability to present music with as much faithfulness and accuracy as the record grooves allow. And MoFi's "Original Master Recording" philosophy becomes all the more evident when you match this 'table with gear that prizes natural, organic musicality, non-hyped details, and expressive bass.