here is the teeny tiny turntable you can
find this at
barnes and noble urban outfitters
it's also on
amazon probably lots of places
it says it includes three lps to play
it costs
12.95 in the u.s. in 16.50 in canada
it says audiophiles and classic
collectors can let those records spin
with the teeny tiny turntable this
charming kit
includes a miniature record player three
mini
lps each with a printed sleeve and 30
seconds of music
printed stickers for customizing your
lps
and a 32 page book full of fun facts
about the best records of all time
ages 7 and up
and it's made by the running press
I believe this has been around since
2017 so it's not a brand new item but
you can still find it
it's the deluxe mega kit
and it really is teeny tiny because you
can see it compared to the size of a
typical
suitcase record player so let's open it
up
there's the turntable itself
those are the stickers
some uh... looks like just warnings
and
the sleeves or those...
no those don't have the records in them
and there's the book well it's a stiff
binding on this book
but you can see some of the records it
talks about
david bowie queen elton john bob marley
let's see what was number one
number one is jimi hendrix so
basically all classic rock
although they include madonna here's the
turntable itself and those are the
records that come with it
and that looks like a 1970s dual
turntable they basically copied the
styling of one of those except
it's obviously missing a cartridge on
there
so in case you haven't figured out yet
this does not actually play
actual records like I know these are not
any kind of standard size because even
the three inch records you can buy these
days
I don't have any of those but here's a
three inch cd for comparison so you can
see it's smaller than that
and there are some actual... I know there's
one
inch records that play like 10 seconds
of music
it's possible to make a record this small
actual grooves in it
that are played by a stylus but these
are not that these are just plastic
discs
that i'm having a hard time getting out
of this bag
there we go
i'm guessing these metal
contacts
tell it which song to play in its
internal
memory that's how this works because
there's a little speaker on the bottom
there's a battery for these pull tabs
I think I could just pull that out
and now it should work it's an lr-44
battery
fake wood grain plastic
but they did put at least a little bit
of detail into this thing because you
get
a dust cover that opens the platter
rotates
not very smoothly but it does rotate and
you can move the tone arm although I
don't believe that actually does
anything
and then we get these three records
with different contacts on them
so I guess the position... yeah they're
actually numbered
two three and five
so I don't know if there's other records
besides these that
could exist for this player so I don't
know if there's other editions of this
or what
maybe for different markets they include
different records but this one has
classic rock
70s funk and jazz band I don't know how
you're supposed to tell which is which
unless you just play it and find out
what it sounds like if you did have any
of those three inch or 8ban records
they would actually fit on this
turntable
this is a three inch cd and it does fit
on the platter although obviously this
would not
be able to actually play those here are
the instructions simply raise the hinge
lid
place a record down on the platter spin
and the music will play
when you're ready to hear a new song
switch out the record for a new one
so let's give that a try just put on one
of these records
spin it
uh
obviously it doesn't need the record on
it to keep playing that just starts it
that's rather harsh sounding there's no
volume control
all right let's try another one that was
pretty harsh sounding
I guess this one is the 70s funk
and that first one was probably jazz
band
and here's the last one
didn't we hear that already
they gave me two of the same thing
so the way it works is these discs which
are
about two and a half inches or six and a
half
centimeters in diameter have
magnets on the bottom of them
you can see if I place a metal object on
it sticks to it
and for whatever reason even though
these two have different numbers on them
one is number five and one is number two
on both of these the magnets are the
same distance apart
so that's why they both play the same
thing they both play the jazz band
well this one they're wider apart and
this one
plays the 70s funk I would assume they
should all come with these three
different discs
but for some reason mine did not initially
I thought there might be a selection of
six different
possibilities but it looks like three of
these
are the genres and the three other ones
are just
random sayings to put I guess on the
other side
of the record here's the way they intend
these records to look once you put the
stickers on it and put it in the sleeve
this is what they call 70s funk even
though it sounds more like a
1980s casio keyboard but
there it has the stickers on it
and it goes into the sleeve like that
what I did to try to make my own
replacement for this missing classic
rock record
is I measured the distance between the
magnets
on the jazz and funk records
they were 36 millimeters apart on the
jazz record and 57 millimeters apart
on the funk record so I split the
difference between the two of them
and that's my guess that the rock record
has the magnets about 46 and a half
millimeters apart
so I took one of the duplicate jazz
records I was able to punch out the
magnets from the other side by poking
this
very small screwdriver through it and
popped out the magnets then I taped them
back on
into that distance
of and a half millimeters
so let's see if this works it's gonna be
a little bit lumpy because the way
I taped it on but
let's see
no okay let me fiddle around with this
and see if I can manage to get to work
rather than trying to go through trial
and error to find the correct
position of the magnets for the classic
rock
record I decided to just take this thing
apart there's only one screw holding it
together
and then it pops open
and it only needs one magnet to activate
the circuit
there's the center of the spindle and
you can see the positions
of the sensors and I discovered that the
classic rock one is this one which is
the closest
to the center so if I take any of these
records
and hold the magnet above that
we hear our classic rock or what they
call classic rock
later I'll try to tap into this and give
you a direct hookup of how these
records sound on this little what is
this
8 ohm 0.25 watt speaker
the last classic rock now this one here
plays the jazz
there's no way to stop it let me see if
I triggered another magnet
switch yeah it does
so I can switch it anytime
I was able to tap into the output going
to the speaker
so I can give you a direct hookup of
what each of these three records sound
like I hope they're all
royalty free music they certainly sound
like it
so hopefully these won't generate any
copyright
claims
this probably uses the same circuitry as
an electronic greeting card
the kind that plays a little musical
tune as soon as you open the card
same kind of chip on this it just uses
these magnet sensors to
determine which of the three songs it
plays and there are no secret
songs on this it's just the three
choices it comes with or
what it's supposed to come with if yours
doesn't mistakenly come with two of the
same records like mine did when I had
this open I measured the distance
between the center spindle and the
sensor for the classic rock record
it turns out it's about seven
millimeters away
from the center spindle or about 14
millimeters in diameter
if you had both of those magnets on
there it only needs one to actually play
it
so I was able to position it correctly
unfortunately that means I can't put the
sticker on this side
because if this was manufactured that
way it would be flush and I would be
able to put the sticker on top of it but
in this case since it's sticking out
it wouldn't work so well but now I do
have a properly functioning
classic rock record for this player
so that's the teeny tiny turntable
obviously it's just a
novelty toy but nonetheless I had fun
playing around with it
taking it apart and learning how it
works even if it did
mistakenly come with two of the same
records and I appreciate how close they
were able to get this to look like a vintage
1970s dual turntable I just wish they
would
add something to have that tonearm to make
it look like it actually has a cartridge
on it
otherwise they did pretty good job with
this