Denon’s DP-200USB turntable converts, encodes and saves MP3 files directly to hard disks or thumbdrives inserted into it: no computer necessary. Be sure to read the sole review, however, from an S. Trudgen of California, who writes, “My first impressions of this turnable have been mostly favorable….the “autosplitter” function breaks up your music into tracks [but there are] things that are really annoying/dumb.”
Denon DP-200USB Fully Automatic Turntable with MP3 Encoder [Amazon via Cool Hunting]
Of course you can do the same thing with any turntable, a preamp, your existing PC sound hardware and widely available cheap/free software.
What would tempt me would be a high-quality 78RPM turntable. I still want to dub off some of my grandfather’s old records, not to mention the demo disk my father once cut.
I’m skeptical. This seems a lot like the “photo editing” features commonly built into cheap digicams or the direct camera-to-printer connection features common on the nastier HP photo printers. The process is likely to be inflexible, and the results poor(mp3 is a poor archival format under the best of circumstances, a cheap, fixed-function encoder isn’t the best of circumstances, and things like track splitting, and any sort of filtering or processing should be done before lossy encoding. Not to mention the fact that ID3 tagging is way, way easier on a device with a screen and keyboard).
The only real appeal of such a mechanism is that it allows people to get lousy results without having to know anything about computers. I can definitely see the appeal in turntables with integrated preamps, since line-level signals are much easier for modern hardware to deal with, or even an integrated ADC set up to allow the turntable to show up as a USB audio device; but this just seems like a near-worthless gimmick.
(captcha: “disapprov- lustily”
Yeah, I’m sure it’s not going to be that great: just convenient to get the job done if you’re not too bothered about quality.
I wish we could set our captcha to “Use only suggestive words.”
Actually this type of unit is likely to be a better solution for the majority of users. In order to get the best signal/noise and dynamic range out of analog-digital conversion the level of the analog signal has to be carefully matched with the input of the analog/digital conversion circuit. Mismatch results in hiss pickup or in very bad noises when the ADC is overdriven. When you do this with a line in on the computer connected to a line out on a stereo, you have to make guesses and compromises. A turntable with the A/D conversion built in can be optimized for this parameter much more closely than most users would be able to do. I like the idea.
So Wat’s the final verdict here. I have been thinking of getting a turn table for casual use. Not a huge Audiophile but record remind me of my dad playing music when I was a kid and think the novelty would encourage me to listen more.
@RedShirt77: I doubt that this is the unit for you.
Since your aim is nostalgic, the convert-to-mp3 function is probably low on your list of priorities. If you don’t need that, you can get an ordinary turntable for rather less than $250(or a nicer turntable for the same money). Most lower-end modern turntables have integrated preamps, so you’ll be able to plug them into most any stereo without anything more sophisticated than a couple of RCA cables. I suspect that your purposes would be better served by heading in that direction.
Get an old Technics from the thrift store for $10, clean it up and put a new needle on it.