PSA - The cheap record player mechanism to avoid

This £5 component (or variants of it) is used in most novelty budget record players. That’s fair enough when you’ve paid only £30 for a player to listen to some worn old records as a bit of fun. Perhaps not so great when this same £5 component forms the heart of your £100+ record player bought to play new limited edition £25 vinyl albums.
It’s your choice how to spend your money - but it’s also nice to know exactly what it is you’re paying for and just how much care and attention as well as respect for you as a customer has been put into making the thing you’re paying your hard earned money for.

This video originally formed the end of this review of a budget 'DJ' Record player

[Techmoan]

This £5 component (or variants of it) is used in most novelty budget record players. That’s fair enough when you’ve paid only £30 for a player to listen to some worn old records as a bit of fun. Perhaps not so great when this same £5 component forms the heart of your £100+ record player bought to play new limited edition £25 vinyl albums. It’s your choice how to spend your money - but it’s also nice to know exactly what it is you’re paying for and just how much care and attention as well as respect for you as a customer has been put into making the thing you’re paying your hard earned money for.

[nslouka]

Techmoan moaning about tech, I can finally rest in peace.

[redgrain]

Me, looking over at the mechanism on my record player: ...Uh oh.

[AmEvfam]

"The record that they bought is worth more than the record player that they put it on."

That's LPL levels of savagery.

[warci]

got stung on this one: gave my sister a record player for her birthday and didn't want to cheap out so thought I'd spend a little money. 200€ later this piece of garbage arrived in a shiny silver housing with a dead brand name on it. I wish this video existed a few years ago because I still curse that plastic joke every time I see it at her place.

[kalleguld]

Good idea to have this as a separate video, so it's easy to send a link for it.

[arthurwight]

Heavy tracking weight, el cheapo ceramic cartrige not good. But the disaster that awaits is more subtle. One of the ways that makers pull cost from these units is to fit a sapphire tip to the cartrige rather than a diamond. Diamond = expense, sapphire = cheap alternative that initially performs just the same. However, a sapphire tip can exhibit noticeable wear after only 20 hours of use and slowly turns from a smooth groove rider into a sharp edged chisel for vinyl. Back in the 80's these sapphire equipped units were derisively known as cheese graters for their terminal effect on anything played on them. There is no easy way for a average punter to distinguish easily what tip is fitted so best to assume the worst. Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.

[ordinosaurs]

4 minutes of unedited rant, what a wonderful treat !

[catfish]

The vinyl-playing cousin of that one last cassette mech. Pops up everywhere in a ton of disguises, always the same crap inside.

[mattgreen]

I love Matt's withering distain for poor-quality stuff. As others have said, this is a PROPER MOAN. Great stuff!

[bansheemania]

My dad was Going to Buy one..He has All Original PRESSINGS. I was Like NO NO NO NO... Ended up finding a decent one with a Set of Speakers. 89usd

[andreasu.]

Two Techmoan videos in one day. 2021 is bound to be a good year!

[russputin]

Good rule of thumb is avoid ceramic / piezo pick-up cartridges. A moving magnet cartridge (usually evidenced by the two retaining screws in the head-shell) really is a minimum standard.

[bald_engineer]

Segment at 3:11 was the best thing ever! Still laughing out loud.

[htgaines]

i remember the old cheap 70s compact stereos that would include a relatively inexpensive phonograph mechanism from BSR, but they were worlds away better than this. Thanks for making people aware.

[AKADriver]

These cheap players remind me of the Fisher-Price record player we had as kids. It was a real record player and built to about this level of quality, but it was explicitly marketed as a toy. Now they're being sold to adults who want to get started collecting vinyl and are too young to remember the Fisher-Price record player. :)

[HerbstaMagus]

"This record player mechanism is rubbish! I bought ten of them to demonstrate..." hhaha

[sbrazenor]

Vwestlife made a similar video about these previously. He did mention part of the problem is the cartridge. They're like a cheap ceramic, which there are old pre-amps for, but they otherwise sound like crap with the imcompatible pre-amp.

[Andystonemusic]

Thank you. I have reposted it on my fb page to warn people adding that: if you are on a tight budget is to buy some thing second hand ANYTHING but of of these! (Even the autochangers from the 50s &60s were 10x better!)

[TransistorBased]

I've got one built into a suitcase with Bluetooth functionality. Sound quality and speakers are all right for just listening to music while cleaning or doing stuff around the house. What I did like though is that you can adjust each of the records speeds individually. So I was able to get it dialed in by just pitch correcting a record against a digital version of the song.

It's definitely not hifi but it does the job.