A new record player just unveiled in New York promises to win lots more converts to vinyl. It may even re-write the analogue market. It's called the Plus Record Player and it's clever and simple; a self-contained entertainment unit that can, as time and budget allow, be built up into a seriously good hi-fi system. It's all about flexibility and connectivity, and if you're a vinyl enthusiast you're going to see the potential. Start out with one of these, gradually add to it over the years and you can wind up with a great system.

There are plenty of self-contained record players around but most fall well short in sound quality and none I know of have a capacity to expand like the Plus. Currently, if you're serious about vinyl you buy a turntable, an amplifier and a pair of speakers; not just a major financial commitment but also a pretty daunting exercise for people new to audio.

But start with a Plus and when you can afford to buy bigger and better speakers you can add them on. If they're active speakers they'll work without an external amplifier or you could add regular passive speakers driven by an amplifier to suit. Or maybe you'll decide the Plus is all you need; it's sounds pretty damn good already.

It was unveiled at the recent New York Audio Show and got an enthusiastic welcome from specialist media. But there's a but. It's not available in Australia. Not yet, anyway. Sanino Vaturi, chief of sales and marketing at Plus Audio in London tells me he's looking for an Australian distributor.

The Plus assembles proven components in one box. The turntable is from Pro-Ject, an Austrian brand made in the Czech Republic and the biggest-selling brand of quality turntables locally. The cartridge is an Ortofon OM10. The more expensive Plus carbon edition gets Pro-Ject's carbon tonearm and an Ortofon 2M Red cartridge, a nice combo.

There are separate woofers and tweeters built in for left and right channels. The woofers are compact nine-centimetre drivers developing decent bass from long-throw aluminium cones. Each is driven by a 35-watt class D amplifier. The tweeters are 2.5cm soft-domes each driven by a 15-watt class D. Maxed out the sound level has been measured at 110 dB, certainly loud enough for a party.

But the big attraction is connectivity.

First there's an RCA line-out from the pre-amplifier in the unit, which means you can connect active speakers or an external amplifier to power a serious pair of passive speakers. You can also hook in a subwoofer. The speakers within the Plus can be turned off when you do so.

And there's an optical digital input and Bluetooth for playing music from external sources, as well as USB input and output connections so you can rip vinyl to your PC or Mac. The Plus also has an automatic signal sensing line input and a five-volt power supply, and integrates with Google Chromecast. There's a 3.5 mm minijack auxiliary input and a headphone jack.

Plus Audio currently offers a range of radios that look a lot like the Model One from Henry Kloss, not surprising given two of the four senior executives at the company worked alongside him during its development.

The Plus 'is coming soon' to the US market. Pricing there will be $US999 ($1278) with the carbon edition at $US1199. That means if it gets to Australia it will be cost about the same as a basic turntable, amp and speaker system. So it ain't cheap, but it is simple.