here i go again defending more cheap record players
recently i've seen some reviews of the anabas gp-n3r which is a battery-powered portable record
player that is based on the design of the columbia gp3 which was sold in japan for many years
and has somewhat of a cult following over there and by all accounts this new version which has
been significantly upgraded over the original actually works pretty well and sounds very good
but the problem is it's only sold in japan over there it sells for 19800 yen which is
equivalent to about 179 dollars u.s and you can get one imported to the u.s. but by the time you
pay for the shipping and import fees it ends up costing around 260 dollars which is a lot of money
to spend on what looks like a cheap plastic toy even if it does actually sound very good
but there's another battery-powered portable record player you can buy here in the u.s.
and i'm sure other parts of the world as well for less than half that price
it's the numark pt-01 and is currently available for 119 dollars
but as is typical for this channel i didn't spend that much because i found this one
at a thrift store it's in perfect working condition
however it's missing the lid and the latch that clamps the tonearm in place
so i went on ebay and i found this the ion version of the same thing because ion
and numark are owned by the same company and many of their products are very similar
this version has been discontinued but you can still find used ones quite easily
this one did come with the lid it has a latch to secure it in place or you can slide it over to the
left to allow you to open it and this one also did include the latch to hold the tone arm in place
this is the ion ipt-01 but aside from the name it's identical to the numark version
so let's take a look around these record players and i'll show you what makes them different than
the typical suitcase style portable record players from brands like crosley and victrola
there are some similarities such as this undersized platter which is the perfect
size for playing 7-inch records but if you put on a full-size 12-inch record
it'll hang off the edge however there's no need to worry about your records getting damaged by
that because the platter is covered with this soft felt material and it also has these felt
pads around the edge which the record should not normally touch when it's an operation
but just in case the record is excessively warped it'll slide smoothly across these felt pads
instead of getting scratched by the surface of the player
there's also a single built-in speaker which is obviously only mono but it sounds a lot better
than those suitcase style players and i'd rather have one good sounding mono speaker then two
tinny sounding stereo speakers which are only about a foot apart so you can't really hear any
stereo separation from them anyway so it's no big loss that this is only a single speaker built in
especially because all the other outputs are in stereo you get two sizes of headphone
jacks the larger quarter inch plug and a smaller eighth inch or 3.5 millimeter plug
you get stereo left and right line level outputs
and on the current version of the numark pt-01 you also get a usb output for transferring your
records into your computer however this older original pt-01 does not have the usb output
on the front you get a speed selector switch for 33-1/3,
45, and 78 rpm so it supports all three speeds in addition you get a pitch control adjustable
to minus or plus 10 percent with a center detent position at the correct speed you also get a tone
control for the built-in speaker and headphone outputs and finally you get your volume control
as i mentioned these players can run on batteries you get battery compartment for six d cell
batteries which are quite large and heavy but they should power the turntable for a good long time
it can also run on a 12 volt power adapter
it says ac 12 volts but i've used it with a dc 12 volt power adapter and it works perfectly fine
so you could actually hook this up to a car battery if you rig up a cable for it
and you may think this is the same kind of cheap plastic tonearm
and ceramic phono cartridge that you've seen on those suitcase style players
from crosley and victrola however there are several major differences with these players
first of all this is actually a real counterweight this part at the back of
the tonearm is not just an empty plastic molding it actually has a metal counterweight in there
and in addition the tonearm uses a spring that is what actually supplies the tracking force the
counterweight just balances out the tonearm and then the spring applies the correct tracking force
the advantage of that tonearm design is that these record players can play records at any angle
including vertically or even upside down as i demonstrated in a video a couple of years ago
another important difference is that while this looks like your typical cheap ceramic cartridge
with the red stylus on it this is actually a genuine japanese made chuo denshi cartridge
not one of the chinese clones of it and the tracking force is around 4.76 grams which is
pretty much identical to that anabas record player with the audio technica cartridge
that might sound heavy compared to what you're used to but as i've explained in my previous
videos vinyl records were originally designed for a tracking force of five to six grams
in fact back in the 1960s warner brothers records used to print directly on their lp labels stylus
pressure not to exceed six grams so these players are comfortably below that limit
i just wish these players had that same design as the columbia and anabas record
players where there's a raised edge to prevent you from accidentally scratching your stylus
against the top of the record player as you can see accidentally happened to this
one but for what it's worth this plinth is actually made of metal not plastic
now that's all well and good about the design of these record players but you may be wondering
how good do they actually sound well first i'll give you a brief sample
through the built-in speaker as recorded using this sony ecm-ms908c microphone
do you still shop for vinyl quite often i i as a matter of fact i seek out vinyl very selectively
my first uh aim is to try to replace the collection
that i so foolishly uh offered it now in the getty collection archives
through michael ochs but most people just take it to a thrift store yeah
you're listening to the exciting music of the bermuda islands
by the famous entertainers featured every day on the bermuda island cruise
are you ready for another sound story now close your eyes and try to see a backyard with someone
playing beside a wading pool can you see the water in the pool the first sound you hear is
the sound of a bouncing ball listen now and see whether you can tell what happens to the ball
the one practical benefit of this tonearm design which can play at any angle without skating
is that means it inherently has anti-skating as i can demonstrate with this record which
has a blank side if i put it down you'll see it does not swing towards the middle
because this tone arm design inherently has anti-skating
now i'm testing the speed accuracy of a strobe disc where the tip of my marker is
pointing is the strobe for 33-1/3 rpm and with the pitch control centered you can see the dots
are moving slightly to the left which means it's running a little bit fast but
of course we have a pitch control so if i adjust that a very little bit to slow it down slightly
i can get it to be almost perfectly at the correct pitch
and here's the strobe disc test at 45 rpm i didn't cut the center hole of this
piece of paper exactly where it should be so that's why it's kind of dancing around but you
can see again it's running a little bit fast with the pitch control at the center detent position
and finally the strobe disc test is 78 rpm
just like the two other speeds with the pitch control centered it runs a little bit fast
but of course you can easily adjust the pitch control to get that perfect
next i'll do a direct sound quality comparison between this crosley cruiser suitcase player
and the numark pt-01 first playing through the built-in speakers as recorded using this sony
ecm-ms908c microphone and then recorded directly from the line output jacks of both record players
so the pt-01 is not an audiophile turntable by any means but it's certainly much closer to full
range than a typical suitcase player both through the built-in speaker and through the line output
and these little record players have become very popular with DJs
especially those who do turntablism or what is more commonly known as scratching
and these numark and ion players have a cult following among those DJs
they've developed an extensive range of modifications for these record players
including a replacement tonearm which can accept a standard half-inch mount magnetic phono cartridge
and a preamp to go along with that as well as a fader which they use for their scratching effects
and numark has actually released a specific version of the pt-01
for those who do scratching the pt-01 scratch which has a built-in fader but
if you're just going to be playing records normally then obviously you
don't need that model you can just use the regular and less expensive pt-01
i know there's going to be people asking why would you
buy one of these record players when you can get a real turntable like an at-lp60x
for around the same price which will deliver much higher audio quality
and they do have a point i wouldn't recommend buying one of these just to play records at home
but if you have a specific need or want for a battery powered
portable record player or you just want to impress your friends by playing records
at any angle or even upside down without spending almost three hundred dollars on
one of those japanese imports then i think the pt-01 is worth buying
and after all if the DJs were right about the technics sl-1200 being a great turntable
maybe they're right about this one too
dick is still trying to learn how to call the hogs
and grandfather still says it's easy all you do is put your hands to your mouth and go like this
can you call hogs? dick hopes he can someday