New Horizon 203 MKII turntable

The New Horizon 203 MKII turntable embodies the Italian manufacturer’s mid-range. It’s manufactured following the multi-chassis system dear to the brand. With this turntable, New Horizon Audio goes all the way with no less than 3 decoupled chassis.

The turntable features the brand new 9” aluminium/nylon NH-95 tonearm manufactured by the same firm in Italy.

However, just like all the other turntables from New Horizon, it’s provided with simple functionalities and a refined design to meet audiophile requirements while remaining affordable.

NEW HORIZON 203 MKII: DESIGN

The design is a huge success. The conventional rectangle shape receives a half moon-shape cut on the front side of the turntable; this is New Horizon’s signature look. In fact, we can see it on all their products.

Once unpacked, the New Horizon 203 MKII turntable turns out to be a nice surprise in terms of weight and appearance. The technical solutions are reminiscent of the design of Music Hall products.
As a matter of fact, the designers did the same for decoupling. New Horizon offers a fully optimised product to get optimum performance out of the turntable’s different elements (tonearm, motor, platter, etc.). Naturally, the goal is to offer the best quality-price-performance-musicality ratio.

The Italian manufacture is clean and full of details.

NEW HORIZON 203 MKII: CHASSIS

The New Horizon 203 MKII is designed on a triple chassis system. Each chassis is decoupled from MDF of various thickness: the thickest (25 mm) is for the base and the last two are 16 mm thick. These three chassis are decoupled by an anti-vibration material.

The top chassis features the tonearm, the middle one is for the motor and the one below for the bearing. It prevents these three essential elements from affecting each other. This system allows to reduce mechanical noise so that more details emerge from the grooves.

The lower chassis rests on four adjustable 5030RD feet. They are specifically made and designed to limit vibration from the surface below. They enable you to adjust the turntable’s level.

NEW HORIZON 203 MKII: PLATTER AND DRIVE PRINCIPLE

The 25 mm and 2.1 kg methacrylate platter is driven by a extra-thin silicon rubber belt via a suspended synchronous AC motor.

The platter’s rotation pivot is machined with precision from 16 mm diameter aluminium. It rests on a 0.25” steel ball-bearing which is on the top of the pivot. It guarantees maximum “silence” and a very low rotation friction.

NEW HORIZON 203 MKII: TONEARM AND PHONO CABLE

The 9” tonearm is designed and manufactured in Italy by New Horizon. The aluminium/nylon NH-95 is simple but highly efficient. Its manufacturing quality allows the combination with very high-quality cartridges.

The tonearm comes with a Audio Technica AT-91R MM cartridge as standard.

Our only regret is that the cartridge does not match the turntable for financial reasons. It’s not a big deal however, you just have to change it for a high-quality MM cartridge or low output MC cartridge.

Just like all turntables from the range, the phono cable isn’t captive and can be replaced eventually by a more ambitious model. The turntable’s high-quality female RCA terminals and ground connector receive a gold plating.

NEW HORIZON 203 MKII: DUST COVER

The New Horizon 203 MKII is supplied with a high-quality methacrylate dust cover.

You just have to put it on top of the platter to protect it as well as the tonearm. It prevents the use of conventional hinges.

NEW HORIZON 203 MKII: TESTING AND LISTENING

We associated this New Horizon 203 MKII with a Ortofon 2M Black MM cartridge  and Hana SL MC cartridge, as well as a Vertere Phono-1 MKII L phono preamplifier and a Aurorasound Vida Prima.

From the first few measures, we notice that the solutions used to prevent vibration are very effective! The New Horizon 203 MKII is very quiet. Background noise is very low and near zero vibration. This allows the phono cartridge to extract a maximum of information from the record groove.

Therefore, the amount of details is very high without making the turntable too analytical or surgical. As a matter of fact, the overall balance provides an excellent timbre with a nice substance. It can be heard on female voices and strings for example.

Bass is convincing and remains very readable, even with an entry-level cartridge. There’s also an excellent rhythm marking with a nice punch on drums.

The soundstage is very authentic and accurate enough to place the different music stands and sound sections with precision.

This New Horizon 203 MKII turntable offers a nice musicality and a performance to match its very successful design. The work on the chassis is really good, especially considering that it’s rarely optimised in this price range! The New Horizon 203 MKII is a true alternative to conventional turntables made by Rega, Pro-Ject, and so on.

For us, it’s a great success! Would recommend!