Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/11/19/this-hi-tech-turntable-brings.html
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BB gets a cut of sales on items they promote - and I’m all for supporting BB. The problem here is: this is an awful turntable, fit only for a child or someone who is fine with a mediocre vinyl experience. The cartridge, the part that contacts the record’s surface is super cheap with a needle that is compromised by the inclusion of being able to play 78 rpm (ancient shellac) records. This needle will greatly accelerate wear on your 33 1/3 and 45 rpm records. Also, no turntable should have speakers built into it as the needle which reads the wiggles in the record groove also picks up the resonances in the cabinet from the speakers, much the same way that a microphone feeds back when too close to the speaker. If you’re afraid of buying a good quality but vintage turntable or don’t have a friend who can help with the set up, buy this cheap but cheerful and much better bluetooth turntable:
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I totally agree. This is far from a “hi-tech” turntable. This is a midleading advertisement with no basis in reality. Vinyl can sound better than digital with the right equipment. This is not the right equipment. Please enter me in the “dissapointed with boing boing” file…
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Oh man! That is hi-tech. /s
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I paid $200-250 for my Lenco L-133 turntable with Grado cartridge in late 1978. It still works, though I replaced the drive belt at some point.
First, I’m not dazled with vinyl. You have to clean tye records every time yiu play it. Each use adds a bit of wear. Some wobble, I remember taking records back becahse they were too warped. You get about 20 minutes per side, really gets in the way of Grateful Dead or live Allman Brothers recordings. You have to get up and turn the recird over, or change the record. Records are big, lots of trouble bringing them home
My turntable is still set up, but I’ve not used it in a long time. Too much trouble. I’m slowly replacing the recirds I do like with CDs. Last year I suddenly had an urge to hear Buffy St. Marie, there was a biography out. I decided it was time to buy her on CD, but then at a used book sale I found two best of CDs for fifty cents each. Giod CDs are now being dumped. Good CDs are still in print, I got a CD this year, new but under $20, that gives three Richard and Mimi Farina albums, so I don’t have to dig the records out. Some CDs are expensive, but there’s a lot of repackaging where multiple original albums are collected for as little as fifteen dollars Canadian.
That said, if people are really excited by the vinyl hype, this is an awful turntable, as others have said. If it can be discounted by that much, it can’t be much of an item to begin with. It’s not a “turntable”, it’s a “record player”, something cheap to play records at a party or for the kids to use, wearout the records but hi-fi isn’t the requirement. Hence the built in speakers, likely lousy sound (small speakers in a plastic case) and feedback from those speakers to the cartridge.
Have you checked the Wikipedia entry for AltecLansing? Once a name for better quality, it’s been bought and sold a lot in recent times, and likely the name means nothing much anymore. Certainly this item reflects that. So the name is not a selling point…
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That’s how just about all turntables work. It would be silly to convert from analog to digital just to convert to analog again. Then again I can see a gizmo like this on the BB store being pushed like it was a good thing because it’s so “hi-tech”.
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Back in the day we called this a record player. Clearly not a turntable.
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Nothing about dragging a needle over a piece of plastic is hi-tech. Also, what you call “warmth”, I call distortion. I do not understand the vinyl thing. Digital music doesn’t wear out, is cheap to store and play, and is way more accurate in terms of reproduction. And if I want “warmth”, I can use DSP. But whatever, people still use standard transmissions and film cameras, too. More power to them, I guess.
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Mine had a denim motif!
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Vinyl never went away.
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Friends don’t let friends buy record players with ceramic cartridges (aka needles).
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Only tangentially OT: for you audioheads reading, I’m having a problem with some records on a system I inherited. Some records, particularly Beatle records, cut out on one side. In other words, you can only hear some instruments, or lead vocals, but not backing, and so on. All these records sounded fine on my old system.
I checked the speakers, and they all seem to be working fine. Likewise, the stylus is new and good quality. I’ve tried every setting and can’t seem to fix the issue.
I know older records were mixed this way (harsh left-right divisions). On cheapo turntables you can pan right to hear part of the track, pan left for the other. But if it’s in the centre it sounds fine – not great, but you hear everything.
But on this system I can’t adjust it to hear certain things and some records, mostly from before 1970, can’t be played.
What’s a possible cause of this? Would a pre-amp help? Is it simply that my receiver is crap? Strangely, googling for help comes up with nothing, as if no one has ever had this problem.
Any tips would be helpful. Thanks!
You could probably implement the RIAA curve in an FPGA.
I have a pair of Altec speakers, for the price they rock, one issue the base is not as robust as some may desire, but the price is awesome. Cheap and cheerful.
So long as there is a phono nput, you don’t need a preamp. And that wouodn’t cause your problem.
Yes some records have weird mixes so instead if blended somewhere in between, there’s a strong distinctiin between channels. But I’m not sure tyat’s common, especially on good albums. I did get CD of souk songs that has some weirdness, not sure if it was the CD mastering or original recording.
My first thought was that you have a bad connection. If tye cartridge isn’t grounded right, it can affect where tye sound is coming from. Same if the speakers aren’t grounded right. Tye result in both cases is that the two channels of the cartridge (or speakers) are in series and tgat changes where tye sound comes from.
Or, the polarity of tye speakers can affect sound. Yiu want bith pushing out at tge same time. If the wires get reversed one speaker is pushing while the other is pulling, and that changes where tge sound comes from.
The problem is yiu say it’s only on some records, which suggests it is the record, or an intermittent.
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Interesting. I’ll try some of that and hopefully it helps. Thanks.
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I’m wondering if it has anything to do with the Beatles not caring about stereo mixes until the later albums. As far as they were concerned most of their fans were listening on mono Dansette style record players, so most of their effort went on the mono mix.
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Two reasons to like vinyl:
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Vinyl releases are often cut from a different master than the digital release of the same album. The digital release often has excessive dynamic range compression. So while digital is of course capable of producing as good or better sound than vinyl in theory, in practice the vinyl release often sounds better. (I have known people with digital collections of vinyl rips for this reason.)
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It’s just fun, ok? There’s something relaxing about the ritual of putting on a favorite record. Same reason I have no interest in buying an automatic coffeemaker, or sometimes shoot photos in manual mode, etc.
For casual listening and discovering new music I use digital streaming. When I find an album I love, I get it on vinyl. It’s nice to have a small collection, enjoy the large printed cover art, and have a slightly special experience when listening to those favorite albums.
I would never subject my collection to this record player though…
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