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ION USB Turntable at Bed, Bath & Beyond

Discussions about vinyl records: rarities, obscurities and collectibles, promos, mixes, etc. DJ-related discussions are welcome as well as techniques for recording & restoring vinyl records to CD/MP3.

ION USB Turntable at Bed, Bath & Beyond

Postby British » Mon Nov 22, 2010 4:20 am

I only bring this up since I saw it for $50 on sale. It has a USB output. Yes, Bed, Bath & Beyond is selling turntables. This must be the "Beyond" part.

I'm wondering if this is even worth my time, even though I have a regular DJ turntable. I mean, if the volume levels are actually balanced on this thing & it plays fine, is it worth it? My regular turntable's a bit off-balance.

What I don't know about the turntable is if you can change the cartridge. Supposedly it's light. But hey, if I don't have to fandangle with a pre-amp or 200 different volume settings, this might be worth it for vinyl ripping.

Any thoughts?
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Postby coop41 » Mon Nov 22, 2010 6:55 am

highly recommended, extremely easy, I do all my vinyl rips on them, convenient and simple anbd for $50 can't be beat
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Postby British » Wed Nov 24, 2010 2:05 am

I just bought it. Couple things:

1. Their proprietary software REQUIRES Itunes. I don't want to be railroaded into having it integrate into Itunes. Want to clean up the MP3s, tag 'em & such first before it ever hits my library.

2. Tried it on my Thinkpad laptop. There's no way I could find to just stream the output raw. What if you wanted to listen to it casually without recording? I fandangled with the "USB audio out" drop-down menu setting(The sub-device is called "mic array"), but might need further experimentation.

2a. The only way to listen & have it output to speakers is to have it record in Audacity with the "play while recording". There's about a 1.5 second delay.

3. Recording quality seems to be pretty clean, depending on how old/aged/dusty your vinyl is.

4. It auto-stops at the end of the record. Not even my Technics can do that.

5. To just have the turntable spin so you can run a brush over the record is a bit tricky. You have to put the tonearm in the zone, but have it raised. Wallah.

6. This is the low-end model, so no RCA outputs

7. Right channel is a bit more lively(ie a bit more dynamic range), just like my Technics. Ugh.


The big question is, can the cartridge be replaced? It looks kind of replaceable. I saw no mention if it in the docs.
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Postby coop41 » Wed Nov 24, 2010 5:14 am

[quote][i]Originally posted by British[/i]
<br>I just bought it. Couple things:

1. Their proprietary software REQUIRES Itunes. I don't want to be railroaded into having it integrate into Itunes. Want to clean up the MP3s, tag 'em & such first before it ever hits my library.

The big question is, can the cartridge be replaced? It looks kind of replaceable. I saw no mention if it in the docs.
[/quote]


What kind of turntable is it? My cartridge can be replaced as I have done it.
Shoot me an email if you'd like, I can "recommend" some software that eight6 "recommended" for me that is awesome, you could maybe even try it out before deciding to buy[;)]
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Postby obs » Wed Nov 24, 2010 4:36 pm

[i]1. Their proprietary software REQUIRES Itunes. I don't want to be railroaded into having it integrate into Itunes. Want to clean up the MP3s, tag 'em & such first before it ever hits my library.[/i]

I've read that when you plug the turntable in, it shows up as a USB Audio Device, and Windows will install generic drivers. There's no need for their software at all.

You might want to give this article a look. It's for Audacity, but it should apply to pretty much any wave editing software:
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php? ... turntables
Pay special attentio to the "Alternative Solutions" section [:o)].
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Postby British » Wed Dec 01, 2010 5:32 am

I'm using Audacity right now(with all the weird usability quirks), but it woulda been nice to use it as just a casual turntable, directly piping audio through to the system without any recording needed.

I saw a similar deal for a Jensen USB turntable with more features(FM radio, sd card slot, some knobs & stuff), but it got real bad reviews on amazon(scratchin rekkids) proably due to the ceramic needle.
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Postby eight6 » Thu Dec 02, 2010 6:24 am

[quote][i]Originally posted by coop41[/i]
<br>[quote][i]Originally posted by British[/i]
<br>I just bought it. Couple things:

1. Their proprietary software REQUIRES Itunes. I don't want to be railroaded into having it integrate into Itunes. Want to clean up the MP3s, tag 'em & such first before it ever hits my library.

The big question is, can the cartridge be replaced? It looks kind of replaceable. I saw no mention if it in the docs.
[/quote]


What kind of turntable is it? My cartridge can be replaced as I have done it.
Shoot me an email if you'd like, I can "recommend" some software that eight6 "recommended" for me that is awesome, you could maybe even try it out before deciding to buy[;)]
[/quote]

LOL. Nicely put.
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Postby coop41 » Thu Dec 02, 2010 9:41 am

[quote][i]Originally posted by eight6[/i]
<br>[quote][i]Originally posted by coop41[/i]
<br>[quote][i]Originally posted by British[/i]
<br>I just bought it. Couple things:

1. Their proprietary software REQUIRES Itunes. I don't want to be railroaded into having it integrate into Itunes. Want to clean up the MP3s, tag 'em & such first before it ever hits my library.

The big question is, can the cartridge be replaced? It looks kind of replaceable. I saw no mention if it in the docs.
[/quote]


What kind of turntable is it? My cartridge can be replaced as I have done it.
Shoot me an email if you'd like, I can "recommend" some software that eight6 "recommended" for me that is awesome, you could maybe even try it out before deciding to buy[;)]
[/quote]

LOL. Nicely put.
[/quote]

[:D] for that sir, I am forever grateful!
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