Just send me $20, it'll work out better.

Hear the sounds and scratches of over 200 comments for this turntable, at the previous woot (and the wootoffs also had it at $15.99):

http://www.woot.com/forums/viewpost.aspx?postid=5086508

The # of comments should tell you something,... and it wasn't totally one-sided, if that's your guess.

whatever , sure why not. so. wooted that.

Hearing people get into hysterics about these is honestly one of my favorite parts of woot.

whatsamattaU wrote:Hear the sounds and scratches of over 200 comments for this turntable, at the previous woot (and the wootoffs also had it at $15.99):

http://www.woot.com/forums/viewpost.aspx?postid=5086508

The # of comments should tell you something,... and it wasn't totally one-sided, if that's your guess.

I got one from the last woot. I've had no problems with it. The speakers sound great on it and it works well with the computer too. You might need to read the instructions for the software but I found it easy to operate. In regards to it "not sounding loud enough," which was a concern when I read the last comments, there's a little plastic white bit by the needle. Pop/slip that off and the sound is fine. I don't know if that's something they knew to do or not... Didn't scratch any of the records I put on there, I have some old My Little Pony records from the 1980s so I was able to put those on the computer for my children to listen to (should I have any) just in case the records break. That... and it was just awesome listening to the record. I might be buying some more to listen to!

does the needle flip over to reveal a different needle on different speed playback?

I just snagged two, both of them as gifts for other people. I didn't even bother to read the comments here first. I hope they don't suck!

ThunderThighs wrote:I sense... I dunno... Sarcasm?

The force is strong with this one. :D
I tried to like this unit, up until it was unable to play 45's to the end.

I also got mine when there was an "issue" with the listing of the item vs reality, so that didn't help my perceptions much. It was made right but left feeling meh towards it.

TT - Can you confirm these are the correct pictures of the product being shipped?
There are 2 offerings with the same stock numbers from the vendor.
One has the pictured clear top/silver speaker grills.
The other has the smoke colored top/flat black speaker grills.

I'd just like to say I bought this the last time on woot and it works great. Doesn't by any means damage my records, and is great for converting to mp3. Don't be scared of it's cheap price, great deal.

flightsuit wrote:I just snagged two, both of them as gifts for other people. I didn't even bother to read the comments here first. I hope they don't suck!

Blind consumerism.. excellent

The speakers on mine dont work.

I don't care about windows compatibility, I assume that. Does anyone know if this is Linux compatible?

Will it play Bacon.

This turntable SUCKS...for playing purposes anyways. Probably ok for just transferring records to computers. My phone speakers are louder than this thing.

Can someone tell me why every version of Windows besides XP is listed? Could that actually be true?

You guys need to start buying these so Woot can get rid of them and stop selling them. I paid twice as much for mine on Amazon and I'm very happy with it. $15 is a steal. I had an in-depth (quality (!!!)) post about it in a prior thread that I don't feel like looking for...so just trust me, this is the best thing you're gonna find for under $100, let alone under $50.

Does this think only write to 128 mp3 bitrate? No wav or better quality? That would suck.

markdandresen wrote:Does this think only write to 128 mp3 bitrate? No wav or better quality? That would suck.

The software that comes with it, if there is one other than audacity (ion for example uses EZ Vinyl converter) would only do 128...however Audacity will let you do any bit rate you want. If you care about quality, you use audacity (or any other music recording software for that matter, but audacity is easy) to do the conversion.

I'm considering this as a gift for a friend, any one know how the stylus and tone arm are? I've tried some similar products that are bad about skipping. Obviously, I'd hook up external speakers - so that's no concern. But if there tends to be skipping, I'm out.

Just get a higher quality turntable that happens to include a USB port:
http://www.amazon.com/Technica-AT-LP60USB-Automatic-Driven-Turntable/dp/B002GYTPB8/ref=sr_1_11?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1348339761&sr=1-11&keywords=usb+turntable

Much lower chance of ruining your records (vinyl).

This will have your vinyl sound like a cellphone voicemail but with less treble. A perfect companion to a pair of 1" subwoofers. A ceramic cartridge makes your vinyl sound just wonderful! Too bad my magnetic cartridge cost me $150 installed in a REAL turntable.
I'd rather play my vinyl with a nail in a paper cup than this PO$.

Is

britpj wrote:I did red the specs in a comment about compatibility. However, I am a firm believer that you never know unless you ask....even a silly question. Is this pretty pirate hat compatible or what ever that phrase is?
Thanks in advance for your patience with a non-nerd who greatly admires nerds.

Why

Dose0017 wrote:The software that comes with it, if there is one other than audacity (ion for example uses EZ Vinyl converter) would only do 128...however Audacity will let you do any bit rate you want. If you care about quality, you use audacity (or any other music recording software for that matter, but audacity is easy) to do the conversion.

I'm considering this as a gift for a friend, any one know how the stylus and tone arm are? I've tried some similar products that are bad about skipping. Obviously, I'd hook up external speakers - so that's no concern. But if there tends to be skipping, I'm out.

If you are going to use this turntable you will not be happy with any bitrate. Anything over 32kbps would just display more of the shortcomings of this unit. Anyone wanting to remaster their vinyl should use a decent turntable with either a stereo reciever with phono input or get a magnetic preamp (they are cheap and all over eBay). Then use an external USB soundblaster, and an audio software (I happen to like Cool Edit). You can make some really amazing digital vinal copies.

britpj wrote:Why does it say something about a pirate hat? I don't need to ask; of course it looks pretty on me. What I want to know is about Big pretty pirate hat's at McDonald's that include apples.

Oh my

Ringo4422 wrote:Anyone wanting to remaster their vinyl should use a decent turntable with either a stereo reciever with phono input or get a magnetic preamp. Then use an external USB soundblaster, and an audio software (I happen to like Cool Edit). You can make some really amazing digital vinal copies.

Relevance Dude. People interested in this item should obviously know that they could spend several hundred/thousand dollars to get what you are suggesting. But this item is just what it is; a record player that can be used to digitize some records they have access to and will do a decent job doing so if they explore the software capabilities. If they were audiophiles they would look elsewhere.

Are you commenting based upon your own personal experience with this item?

Ceramic cartridges and sapphire styli don't damage records, people damage records.

One caveat for those getting these - check your shipment to be sure everything is included. Mine was missing the turntable mat pictured.

russwjohns wrote:Relevance Dude. People interested in this item should obviously know that they could spend several hundred/thousand dollars to get what you are suggesting. But this item is just what it is; a record player that can be used to digitize some records they have access to and will do a decent job doing so if they explore the software capabilities. If they were audiophiles they would look elsewhere.

Are you commenting based upon your own personal experience with this item?

Ceramic cartridges and sapphire styli don't damage records, people damage records.

One caveat for those getting these - check your shipment to be sure everything is included. Mine was missing the turntable mat pictured.

Anyone who still owns vinyl knows the difference. This is a piece of junk that will without any doubt ruin the vinyl in ONE play. For those like you that probably never owned vinyl have no idea how good vinyl sounds and as many, complain about scratches, skips and pops that vinyl does. Well vinyl doesn't unless it wasn't taken care of. As far as spending thousands, ummm... no. Again, if you really don't care about quality and just want the novelty to say you copied vinyl to digital, well go for it.
A "sapphire" "needle" is merely a marketed synthetic piece of stone poorly ground that will somewhat play vinyl. Do I know what I am talking about? Yes I do. Do you? No.

catbeastaisha wrote:I got one from the last woot. I've had no problems with it. The speakers sound great on it and it works well with the computer too. You might need to read the instructions for the software but I found it easy to operate.

In regards to it "not sounding loud enough," which was a concern when I read the last comments, there's a little plastic white bit by the needle. Pop/slip that off and the sound is fine. I don't know if that's something they knew to do or not...

Are you referring to the opaque white plastic stylus shield (protector) which slides off forward when playing records?

Ringo4422 wrote:Anyone who still owns vinyl knows the difference. This is a piece of junk that will without any doubt ruin the vinyl in ONE play. For those like you that probably never owned vinyl have no idea how good vinyl sounds and as many, complain about scratches, skips and pops that vinyl does. Well vinyl doesn't unless it wasn't taken care of. As far as spending thousands, ummm... no. Again, if you really don't care about quality and just want the novelty to say you copied vinyl to digital, well go for it.
A "sapphire" "needle" is merely a marketed synthetic piece of stone poorly ground that will somewhat play vinyl. Do I know what I am talking about? Yes I do. Do you? No.

Oh a flaming retort? I probably know more about this topic than you do sir. And since you don't actually have this item, then you are talking from no actual personal experience with it and not simply from an orifice I won't mention here.

And yes, one can spend over a thousand dollars just for a manual turntable with a moving coil cartridge as opposed to the magnetic cartridge you mention. Good vinyl should be cleaned each time before playing, and one should also clean their stylus tip periodically. Naturally one holds vinyl by the edges to avoid fingering the grooved surfaces.

Claiming that a single play with a ceramic cartridge will ruin a record is total paranoid BS! Do the terms conical, bi-radial, elliptical, shibata mean anything in reference to stylii? What's the hardness of sapphire? Check a Moh's scale. Duh.. what's that? I thought not. However, if I have wrongly accessed your elitism I humbly apologize. ;^)

russwjohns wrote:Oh a flaming retort? I probably know more about this topic than you do sir. And since you don't actually have this item, then you are talking from no actual personal experience with it and not simply from an orifice I won't mention here.

And yes, one can spend over a thousand dollars just for a manual turntable with a moving coil cartridge as opposed to the magnetic cartridge you mention. Good vinyl should be cleaned each time before playing, and one should also clean their stylus tip periodically. Naturally one holds vinyl by the edges to avoid fingering the grooved surfaces.

Claiming that a single play with a ceramic cartridge will ruin a record is total paranoid BS! Do the terms conical, bi-radial, elliptical, shibata mean anything in reference to stylii? What's the hardness of sapphire? Check a Moh's scale. Duh.. what's that? I thought not. However, if I have wrongly accessed your elitism I humbly apologize. ;^)

Currently using Luxman C-120a preamp with HK Citation Twelve, Infinity RS 2.5s , Technics SLD2 w/ Ortofon VMS 20e. I have been doing quality audio for as long as it existed, sir. Yes, I do have a tube power amplifier as well, a HK Citation 2.

If I can use this to transfer my entire collection of 45s, 33s and 78s to digital (all hail the terabyte storage stack) I'm in for one.

If not, I'm not.

Ringo4422 wrote:Currently using Luxman C-120a preamp with HK Citation Twelve, Infinity RS 2.5s , Technics SLD2 w/ Ortofon VMS 20e. I have been doing quality audio for as long as it existed, sir. Yes, I do have a tube power amplifier as well, a HK Citation 2.

A nice setup. I too am partial to Infinity Ref Std speakers even though I've blown out one EMIT tweeter in the past. Clearly as an audiophile, this VIBE offering would not interest you, but this product does offer something to those with less exacting needs and will do so satisfactorily. Hope you keep those tube sets well ventilated unless you use them to warm a small room/closet. ;^)

Ringo4422 wrote:Anyone who still owns vinyl knows the difference. This is a piece of junk that will without any doubt ruin the vinyl in ONE play. For those like you that probably never owned vinyl have no idea how good vinyl sounds and as many, complain about scratches, skips and pops that vinyl does. Well vinyl doesn't unless it wasn't taken care of. As far as spending thousands, ummm... no. Again, if you really don't care about quality and just want the novelty to say you copied vinyl to digital, well go for it.
A "sapphire" "needle" is merely a marketed synthetic piece of stone poorly ground that will somewhat play vinyl. Do I know what I am talking about? Yes I do. Do you? No.

vinyl sounds good? That is very subjective. I don't believe that there is any objective evidence for that comment. I remember pops hisses and wow and flutter from vinyl.

kb9qcd wrote:vinyl sounds good? That is very subjective. I don't believe that there is any objective evidence for that comment. I remember pops hisses and wow and flutter from vinyl.

cuz u come from the low-fi world. analog recordings has the ability to carry signals well below the noise floor. In the digital world, the noise floor might be low, but if your signal starts approaching it, it will start sounding less and less like the original sound. And the brick cutoff at 22khz? To resolve that, all the filtering they implemented causes more problem than they fixed. If you had a proper stylus, it would have played in a section of the groove that your fisher price cactus needle phonograph did not get to scratch up.

Ringo4422 wrote:This will have your vinyl sound like a cellphone voicemail but with less treble. A perfect companion to a pair of 1" subwoofers. A ceramic cartridge makes your vinyl sound just wonderful! Too bad my magnetic cartridge cost me $150 installed in a REAL turntable.
I'd rather play my vinyl with a nail in a paper cup than this PO$.

why did we need to know that??

The piece of crap literally broke the second I opened it. The cover wasn't attached correctly at the factory. I've used this model before. I hoped it up and ***POP*** plastic flies everywhere.

The turntable arrived with a bad rattle inside. Opened it up and a speaker (hot glued in) had come loose. I reattached the speaker and the turntable works fine. No problem, as I did not expect professional quality for such a low price. The included Audacity software is an older version, but I prefer to use Roxio Media Creator, as it will copy records direct to CD and separate the tracks as well and do a nice job of cleaning up the sound quality. All in all, this is an excellent value for the price and will do a good job of copying my whole cabinet full of vinyl records into a small box of CDs, freeing up lots of storage space. It doesn’t have to be audiophile quality, as I just want to occasionally listen to my old record collection and the quality is fine for that.

jas2124 wrote:The turntable arrived with a bad rattle inside. Opened it up and a speaker (hot glued in) had come loose. I reattached the speaker and the turntable works fine. No problem, as I did not expect professional quality for such a low price. The included Audacity software is an older version, but I prefer to use Roxio Media Creator, as it will copy records direct to CD and separate the tracks as well and do a nice job of cleaning up the sound quality. All in all, this is an excellent value for the price and will do a good job of copying my whole cabinet full of vinyl records into a small box of CDs, freeing up lots of storage space. It doesn’t have to be audiophile quality, as I just want to occasionally listen to my old record collection and the quality is fine for that.

Thanks for checking in with a review!