Week 5, 2015: Portable record players, Audio-Technica Bluetooth Turntable
Sound Advice
By Don Lindich
Week 5, 2016
Q. I want to buy a record player for my granddaughter. She likes the blue Crossley at Target, but the reviews are terrible. She will need something compact, a suitcase type and I would like it to be easy on the vinyl as the records she will use are mine. In college 50 years ago I had one with good sound that treated records well. Does such a thing exist today?
-Joan G., Pittsburgh, PA
A. It does not exist, at least if you want to buy a brand-new one. The portable, suitcase type record players currently on the market use ceramic phono cartridges, which typically have heavy tracking force, a stiff cantilever (the part that holds the needle) and low quality diamonds for the stylus (needle.) This deadly combination will wear out your records much quicker than even a very inexpensive magnetic phono cartridge. (One audiophile message board called it “shaving your records.”) If you want to use one to play kid’s records you find at a thrift store I think it would be OK, but I would be hesitant to play good vinyl on one. Lots of the inexpensive USB turntable on the market also use ceramic cartridges, so buyer beware!
Good quality turntables are precision instruments, so putting one in a suitcase and toting it around is kind of contrary to the mission. When you were in college 50 years ago vinyl was pretty much the only music media source in widespread use so you had a lot of variations in turntables, including some good quality portable record players. I’ve seen some interesting vintage ones myself, but hunting down a vintage record player of this type is not practical and could be very expensive.
Some turntables can handle being moved around better than others, and fortunately one of them is also the most affordable. I’ve long said the $99 Audio-Technica AT-LP60 is the only turntable under $100 worth considering, and nothing has been introduced that changes my conviction about this. If you lock down the arm and remove the platter you will be able to move it around without much problem.
It’s just a turntable, though, so you need to connect something to make the sound. Last year I wrote a column describing how to combine the AT-LP60 with a $69 Dayton Audio speaker-amp bundle to get a nice-sounding vinyl record system for under $170. I have a special page on my website at http://tinyurl.com/lp60system that describes this system and how to set it up.
You could also connect a portable Bluetooth speaker to the output of the turntable with a miniplug connection. This would get you even more flexibility because you can play sound from the turntable as well as from Bluetooth. The $30 OontZ Angle 3 would be a good one to try if you want to keep things portable and inexpensive. You can see it at www.theoontz.com.
Finally, at the Consumer Electronics Show last month I saw a Bluetooth version of the Audio-Technica AT-LP60 called the AT-LP60-BT. It has the wired output as well as Bluetooth so it can be used directly with Bluetooth speakers or headphones, or streamed to audio receivers with a Bluetooth connection. It will sell for $179 and based on the buzz around it, it could well end up a smash hit. www.audio-technica.com
