I've wanted one of these turntables for a long time now, but the price is always a little more than I can afford
But it turns out that Audio Technica has introduced a new version of it
which has built-in USB, which I don't really care about, but more importantly they lowered the price
So I was finally able to get one and I actually got it in a store
I shopped online for the best price, and I found that one of our electronic store chains here in New Jersey called
Electronics Expo
had the best price
So I called up my local store, and they actually had one in stock, so I just went in picked it up
So here it is
This is about as close as you can get to a clone of the Technics
SL-1200, but at only about a third of the price of the real thing and
it has a couple benefits, too: it has 78 RPM speed and a built-in pre-amp
So let's take a look at it
Well, there it is with the protective cover which I won't be taking off anytime soon
Because whenever I use it, I'll just remove the entire dust cover
So here is the Audio-Technica
AT-LP120 USB
The previous model was the AT-PL120
which was basically the same thing except without the built-in USB
otherwise it's
virtually identical. All the specs are the same; they just added USB, and
lowered the price a little bit. It's a direct drive turntable
It has
33, 45, and 78 RPM speed
You get a strobe and it is quartz locked,
unlike my Pioneer
So it will stay on the correct speed without constant fiddling with the pitch control to get it up
to the correct
speed
But you do get a pitch control if you so desire, either
10% and 20% off of the correct speed or
even if you have it somewhere like that you can just hit Quartz, and you'll drop back to the correct speed without
needing to move the slider back to the middle. You can go backwards as well as forwards which is kind of neat
Here's the fancy tonearm. It's a real
professional-grade
tonearm setup, nothing cheap or plastic about it. You get an S-shaped tonearm for better tracking and
I can tell right away when I was playing some LPs that the inner groove distortion is much much
less than I've had with
any turntable with a straight tonearm. So it's a definite improvement
The only thing that's not really up to par is the is the cartridge it comes with. It's a little
weak on the bass and the stereo separation is not really as good as it could be
but I'm working on getting a better one and
I actually tried
one that came with a cheap
plastic Stanton turntable
and this one does have better bass otherwise, it doesn't sound as good so I just really
took this out for comparison purposes
So I'll be working on an upgrade and also a correct size
stylus for playing 78s. So let's turn it on here. You just
twist that you can see the strobe light come on and
this is fully manual
So if you move this around it doesn't react and there's no automatic return at the end. You have to
do everything manually
Here's the reverse playback
It's probably not good to do that while it's spinning, but it does it does have an electronic brake
So if you're going at 78, look how quickly it stops
So that's like an electronic brake
You get a pop-up light here
for helping you put the stylus down if it's dark you can see it better and
you get your or all your controls here for adjusting tonearm and the stylus pressure and everything
You get your anti-skating and your counterweight adjustment
The cartridge it comes with is rather heavy tracking -- the manual says 3 to 5 grams is recommended
which is another reason to upgrade it. Right now I have it set to
right around 3 grams. Which is at the lower end of its rating and
you get a little holder here for a second headshell assembly, so if you want to swap cartridges, you can just
swap the whole headshell in it. That's a lot easier than changing out
the cartridge itself with those screws and everything and the wires
and you get your typical hole for the 45 adapter. It comes with a thick
metal one but I just prefer the plastic ones
And speaking of thick metal this thing is a tank
The base of must be made of solid cast iron or something because it weighs a ton. I mean it's extremely heavy
compared to
anything I've had before. On the back you get the
USB output and the switch to turn on or off the built-in preamp and
of course the power cord and
under the thing here, it's actually under the platter, you do get a real voltage selector switch
So even though this is a 110 volt model, you can run it on 230 volts just by changing the switch
which is kind of nice. Another nice feature is that they give you various adapter cords
including this one which is perfect for connecting my
attenuation cable
which I made a video on so I can just plug this into the cable and then this into the camcorder and
that's how I'll demonstrate some music on this turntable
Here is a dirty and scratched up 99-cent thrift store find, a Reader's Digest
dance album and
it's really nothing special, but I just I was
playing it I came across this song that was impressed at how the the highs really come through on this turntable
compared to my previous ones, so I'll give you a little sample of that
Just a plug in the cable here and cue it up
[music]
So that is the audio technica
AT-LP120 USB
Direct Drive professional turntable
which looks like a
Technics 1200, but at a third of the price. So a
definite good deal to look out for if you're in the market for a new turntable