I recently reviewed this budget turntable that I thought gave good value for money.
Now, at the end of that video I went off in a bit of a rant about another
turntable mechanism that you can see in a lot of budget record players, ones
that will cost the same amount as this, but it will give a much lower level of
performance because it's really designed to cost just a few pounds to manufacture.
So it's all right if you stick it a 30 quid turntable, like a
toy, but you can see it in things that cost an awful lot more.
So I just wanted to point out what it looked like to tell people, just
to watch out for it and be careful.
Now, a lot of people said I should put that as a separate video in its own right.
So that's what I've done here.
So here's my rant or PSA about a particular turntable mechanism.
Okay now a few of you might remember when I put this kit together, this cardboard
box record player, and I was disappointed because the whole turntable mechanism
was preassembled and that's because this whole thing is a unit that's used
in a lot of different record players.
So it's very easy just to build anything around this, but the problem
is that this unit here it's rubbish.
It's garbage.
Now I bought one separately to show you from China.
This cost I think it was about £10 to deliver to the UK.
The vast majority of that cost was the postage and packing.
The thing itself probably costs about the same as a coffee in Starbucks.
And yet a lot of record players are built around this cheap, nasty mechanism
and If you indeed search on Amazon for record player, the first, perhaps
three pages of your results, almost all of those things, all the sponsored
ones and all the companies that have used names that have died years ago
and they've badged it on their stuff.
It's all this mechanism from China, this horrible piece of rubbish.
Now don't get me wrong.
I mean your smartphone more likely than not has been made in China and it's decent
quality isn't it, but they can also make rubbish and these things, in my opinion,
and rubbish, now, some people say, Oh, they're not that bad, but it annoys me the
fact that you can buy like a record player
that's like £100 and it has one of these things in it.
And of course, this is the record player, this, everything else
that goes around it is just a box and some speakers and things.
And people sometimes will send me a link and say, Hey Mat, you should review one
of these, and I'll click on it, and it will have one of these things in it.
and I think, doesn't everyone know what these are and how cheap they are?
And I don't know if they do.
I mean, I find them really easy to identify.
I mean, just look at that.
If you see that in the top of something, I would suggest running a
mile, away from it, not towards it.
This arm here.
Always this same arm with this same red cartridge on it,
dead straight piece of metal.
Always with this little plasticy thing that faces the wrong way, so
it's difficult to pick up your arm.
I mean, it is really just rubbish.
Now I remember record players that my sister had and stuff back in the
1960s, you bought your singles on 45s and you had your little cheap record
player and everyone was quite happy,
But nowadays I think the market has kind of shifted.
You know, the whole thing is supposed to be that vinyl is this super-duper
quality and stuff, and people get their records and they'll spend like
£20, £30, whatever, for a record.
And they get it and they're being very careful with it, and then they go and
put it on one of these flipping things.
I mean, it's ridiculous.
The record that they bought is worth more than the record
player that they're playng it on.
So yeah, if, if I just want to get one bit of information across, this is a toy.
There's no adjustable tracking force on here.
I mean, there might be some weird screw or something, but
there's no weight on the back.
There's no ability to adjust the anti-skating.
I can imagine all these people who get hold of these record players,
they're quite excited about Oh I've got a record player and they get one of
these things in it and they're probably going to be pretty disappointed in it
and they'll go, I don't know what all the fuss is about with record players.
It's because of this thing, go and spend a little bit more money.
I mean try and save up a bit, especially if records themselves are
costing like 20-odd quid a piece.
But if you're really on a budget, I'd suggest your budget has to reach
to about this level to get something that you're going to be happy with.
Spend less than this and you're probably going to be disappointed.
So that is it for the moment.
as always thanks for watching.