WONDER HOW GOOD THIS IS.

If it only costs $16 it's a Record Player... Turntables cost Hundreds, Thousands, Tens of Thousands and sometimes even Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars. So There & Their & They're.

I still might buy one though.

I bought this the last time it was on woot. Piece 'o crap! Quality of transfer is terrible, ceramic cartridge damages your records and sounds bad, and playback sometimes stops before the side is over. Worst of all, when you use the RCA output, the speakers don't shut off! You can't even turn the volume off. This is a scam! Even a used record player (eBay approx 60-80 bucks) sounds much better.

I bought this on Woot about a month ago maybe? It's a piece of crap. I mean, if you have some old already destroyed records you don't mind risking getting scratched to pieces then you can use it. The needle isn't real. It's ONLY USB powered. The lid doesn't cover an entire 12" when closed. Do NOT DARE put any new or valuable vinyls on this player if you do decide to buy it. Also the software that comes with it is of course out of date, so you will need to go and download Audacity yourself. And even if you're half way decent with using Audacity and/or Audition, it's still very difficult to get a good stream recording. And I am saying all this without being a completely audiophile. It's just a bad, shotty product. This is the definition of you get what you pay for. Luckily I needed a printer cable at the time, and the USB that came with this worked with my printer. Score!

codeseven wrote:I bought this on Woot about a month ago maybe? It's a piece of crap. I mean, if you have some old already destroyed records you don't mind risking getting scratched to pieces then you can use it. The needle isn't real. It's ONLY USB powered. The lid doesn't cover an entire 12" when closed. Do NOT DARE put any new or valuable vinyls on this player if you do decide to buy it. Also the software that comes with it is of course out of date, so you will need to go and download Audacity yourself. And even if you're half way decent with using Audacity and/or Audition, it's still very difficult to get a good stream recording. And I am saying all this without being a completely audiophile. It's just a bad, shotty product. This is the definition of you get what you pay for. Luckily I needed a printer cable at the time, and the USB that came with this worked with my printer. Score!

Woot gave you a lemon and you made usb lemonade!

pupyluvr wrote:If it only costs $16 it's a Record Player...

If it only costs $16 it's a Record Destroyer.

If you want to transfer some beloved pop records from your childhood into the digital age, this is just fine. No, it won't give you great fidelity but then again, neither did most pop records from your childhood -- even when they were new. Nor is it great for repeated playing. It's made for a specific purpose for a specific demographic, not for snobs or audiophiles. If you know what Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs is, then just move on. And at $16, it's a bargain.

The only thing holding me back from getting this for my parents is that it doesn't play 78rpms. My parents have some very old 78s from my grandparents that they'd love transferred. The "fidelity" is already crap so no record player can make it worse. And yes, I know that 78s should be played with a sapphire needle mounted at a specific angle. But that's only if you want to preserve the 78s, which we don't. They're going in the garbage after a one time transfer, We just want to convert the disks as cheaply as possible and be done with it. I guess we'll have to spend a few more bucks and get an Ion.

Lighten up people! It is a record player. It's just a record player, although if you want to use it as a stand alone, you'll need to plug it into a USB wall power adapter.

And complainer's about it having a ceramic cartridge as opposed to having a MM or MC turntable cartridge apparently have had no experience with ceramic cartridge systems.

As a young boy I played all my LP's and 45's on ceramic cartridge systems such as Fisher, Telefunken, Grundig and those systems all had big name brand "record players" Dual being one of them. Never had a problem with them and their saphire needles. Of course I did play them at high volume levels, but never noticed any undue distortion at those levels.

Last time this was up I defended the idea that not everyone needed superduper turntables, I was unaware that it wasn't worth the money at all.

The item shipped to me was different than what was advertised.
Woot! came to the rescue there and got me a unit that had all of the advertised features... but I was so turned off by the first one I've not unboxed the "right one" yet.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, take some old records I had laying around and mp3 them.

What I got was some plastic thing that fails to play 45's to the end.

I'm not going to tell you how its going to destroy your albums, kick your cat, isn't audiophile approved... I'm going to tell you to save your money and wait for something else.

I am sure other Wooters who bought this last time will be along soon with other horror stories, maybe even some success stories... but my experience is I was unimpressed with this unit, it failed to play a 45 to the end... seems like its full of fail.

Will this work with my Apple(record)?

sdc100 wrote:The only thing holding me back from getting this for my parents is that it doesn't play 78rpms. My parents have some very old 78s from my grandparents that they'd love transferred. The "fidelity" is already crap so no record player can make it worse. And yes, I know that 78s should be played with a sapphire needle mounted at a specific angle. But that's only if you want to preserve the 78s, which we don't. They're going in the garbage after a one time transfer, We just want to convert the disks as cheaply as possible and be done with it. I guess we'll have to spend a few more bucks and get an Ion.

78's have a different groove shape so normally require a 78 needle, even with an ION TT. btw, my ION used software to convert digital recordings to 78 rpm speed, so read the fine print.

sdc100 wrote:The only thing holding me back from getting this for my parents is that it doesn't play 78rpms. My parents have some very old 78s from my grandparents that they'd love transferred. The "fidelity" is already crap so no record player can make it worse. And yes, I know that 78s should be played with a sapphire needle mounted at a specific angle. But that's only if you want to preserve the 78s, which we don't. They're going in the garbage after a one time transfer, We just want to convert the disks as cheaply as possible and be done with it. I guess we'll have to spend a few more bucks and get an Ion.

Don't throw them away! There are a million cool things you can do with old 78s. I saw a home improvement show where they dissolved broken 78s to make shellac. You should make shellac with them!

cubbiemi wrote:Last time this was up I defended the idea that not everyone needed superduper turntables, I was unaware that it wasn't worth the money at all.

The item shipped to me was different than what was advertised.
Woot! came to the rescue there and got me a unit that had all of the advertised features... but I was so turned off by the first one I've not unboxed the "right one" yet.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, take some old records I had laying around and mp3 them.

What I got was some plastic thing that fails to play 45's to the end.

I'm not going to tell you how its going to destroy your albums, kick your cat, isn't audiophile approved... I'm going to tell you to save your money and wait for something else.

I am sure other Wooters who bought this last time will be along soon with other horror stories, maybe even some success stories... but my experience is I was unimpressed with this unit, it failed to play a 45 to the end... seems like its full of fail.

Was your replacement also a VIBE unit? If so, did it come with the clear dustcover lid? 78 rpm mode? Or was it a different brand entirely?

Thanks

I got one of these when it was on the regular woot, and honestly, the only issue i've had with it is the built in speakers being crappy but I think that was a given. No this isn't an incredible record player, but it does what it's meant to do. and for the price, you really can't argue. and for the record, it does not destroy vinyls, and the lid shuts just fine with them in.

kevo911 wrote:WONDER HOW GOOD THIS IS.

I bought one the last time around. It will not spin the empty platter, pulls down the USB power supply until it dies. The platter is stiff and doesn't spin freely. Never worked right out of the box. Mine was, and still is junk.

At this price I was thinking of buying but there are just too many horror stories.
This is actually my first post ever and it is because of a specific horror story not related specifically to the product.
It's the horror of not caring to destroy old vintage 78s and to then garbage bin them. And the only response is to melt down perfectly good 78s. Ugh, erg, oooohh! I'm no audiophile but still...
Sell then to someone who'll appreciate them or even the local library system.
And one more thing, what's the problem if all you want are mp3s? Anyone concerned about quality is going to be making FLAC and ogg files, plus they'll be proud of not only a superior file type with better compression, better sound quality but also that they're open source and all the goodness that entails.

rootnull wrote:
Sell then to someone who'll appreciate them or even the local library system.

I meant/mean to give/donate to the library, not sell to the library.

Goodness! Don't throw out your old 78rpm records. There are a lot of people who have the old record players that they were played on and seek out those records. Donate them to a thrift store (VOA, Goodwill, etc.) People like myself will be really happy to find them.

russwjohns wrote:Was your replacement also a VIBE unit? If so, did it come with the clear dustcover lid? 78 rpm mode? Or was it a different brand entirely?

Thanks

The replacement was a HYPE HY-2004-BCT Briefcase USB Turntable.
No clear cover, it looks like a small briefcase, and the top opens as such.
If you search Amazon you can find it, but mine did not have the power adapter shown in the pics on amazon.
It appears it has some sort of built in battery as well.
78, 45, 33 setting and the rubber to place on the turntable, and the extra "needles".
It wasn't shipped to me from Woot! but from the vendor who managed to botch the offering.

The original was the Vibe VS-2002-SPK which looks sort of like the picture on this one but the speaker covers are black and the top was dark plastic and an inability to actually play 45's to the end.

Oh almighty ThunderThighs...
I find myself confused, the images here do not match the images on Amazon for this model number.

The Amazon images match the unit I got the last time these were up, with the dark plastic cover and nonsilver speaker grills.

Could you use your mighty nerf hammer of squeaky goodness to find out which images correctly represent the product for the Wooters?

http://www.amazon.com/VS-2002-SPK-Turntable-Archiver-Built-Speakers/dp/B005A9ZYI4

I trust you, I do not trust this vendor after the last time.

mossygreen wrote:Woot gave you a lemon and you made usb lemonade!

kevo911 wrote:WONDER HOW GOOD THIS IS.

It's a Vibe,it's $16,so I'd say not very.

The silicone pads the record rests on leave irremovable residue on the record after playing. Remove them before use.

These things aren't even worth the very low price plus shipping cost.

If you want to read more about why, then do yourself a favor and read the following.

http://dak.com/Reviews/2020Story.cfm

Yes, the DAK site isn't pretty but they are correct about the information.

There is a lot more to recording your old beloved records than getting a cheap USB turntable and plugging it into your PC.

:-)

TheRaven wrote:These things aren't even worth the very low price plus shipping cost.

If you want to read more about why, then do yourself a favor and read the following.

http://dak.com/Reviews/2020Story.cfm

Yes, the DAK site isn't pretty but they are correct about the information.

There is a lot more to recording your old beloved records than getting a cheap USB turntable and plugging it into your PC.

:-)

Holy cow - I thought Dak went out of business 20 years ago!

TheRaven wrote:These things aren't even worth the very low price plus shipping cost.

If you want to read more about why, then do yourself a favor and read the following.

http://dak.com/Reviews/2020Story.cfm

Yes, the DAK site isn't pretty but they are correct about the information.

There is a lot more to recording your old beloved records than getting a cheap USB turntable and plugging it into your PC.

:-)

Wow! Didn't know that Drew Kaplan's outfit was still around, or is that just old copy.

But really! That page is just a sales pitch for one of Drew's packaged products. Hardly objective. And look at the price differential. Sure, one can spend hundreds of dollars more to do it better.

russwjohns wrote:
And complainer's about it having a ceramic cartridge as opposed to having a MM or MC turntable cartridge apparently have had no experience with ceramic cartridge systems.

Nothing wrong with them as long as you plan on throwing your records out after playing them a few times. OK, maybe a dozen times.

It's about how hard you have to jam the stylus into the groove to make it work and what that does to the groove. (HiFility of the tracking aside.)

russwjohns wrote:Wow! Didn't know that Drew Kaplan's outfit was still around, or is that just old copy.

But really! That page is just a sales pitch for one of Drew's packaged products. Hardly objective. And look at the price differential. Sure, one can spend hundreds of dollars more to do it better.

Sure, it's a sales pitch. But they aren't wrong about cheap USB turntables and Ceramic cartridges which is exactly what this product is. :-)

Besides, wouldn't you have a turntable still if you had a bunch of records? I do. So all I do is run two long cables from my audio system to my PC sound card and record.

In reality, it's too much trouble anymore for me. I just try to find the album already converted from the tons of sites available on the net and re-purchase it. My time is valuable, I don't want to waste it or my records fiddling with a product like this.

There's nothing wring with cheap USB turntables in general, but trust me, this is without a doubt the worst product I've ever gotten from Woot. And I've gotten three Bundles of Crayons...

TheRaven wrote:Sure, it's a sales pitch. But they aren't wrong about cheap USB turntables and Ceramic cartridges which is exactly what this product is. :-)

Bought one last time. it seems to only spin at 45 or 78. Can't get it to slow down. Great for chipmunks, but not for 70s rock anthems.

When I was a kid this is what we called this a record player. Those record players were a little easier to use because it didn't require a USB port for power. We could just plug them into the wall outlet.

I think I'm gonna get it. I need to transfer FOUR songs off of vinyl into my music library for my Dad. I'm gonna have to buy FOUR records off of ebay to get the songs I need to transfer for him. Apparently his taste in music got left behind & is permanetly stuck in the '70s.

Surely this Vibe can handle that?

I should be happy I'm not in the market for an 8 track tape converter. Yet.

This is my first time posting as well. As so many have stated, it didn't play the record all the way through. It just stopped with the needle sitting on the record 3/4 of the way through. I expected the sound quality to be bad but come on....I have an old Close & Play that at least plays the whole record.

DON'T DO IT ! No matter how bad the quality if the whole song can't be played its totally useless.

What if I just have to play ONE song? It can't make it all the way thru ONE 45?

Or just one song on a 33?

Minbe arrived playing too slow, I found that the drive belt had slipped down the spindle-- fixed it and now I love it! Listening to my old records now