I’m going to call it as one of my best gadget purchases in a long time! Wireless record player with 12-hour rechargeable battery. Best of all, they haven’t skimped on quality and it’s user serviceable (can change the rechargeable battery, stylus, belt when they wear out, so rare with electronics these days!).
Only gripes I can think of is that it doesn’t have a dedicated volume knob, so your Bluetooth speakers/headphones need a way to dial up the volume. My AirPod Pros are OK in a quiet environment, but I wouldn’t mind them louder. Also, my Mac isn’t seeing it as a Bluetooth sound source for some reason so I can’t figure out how to get the audio input into my Mac (I’ll need to mess around with that more, advice welcome). Also, no wired headphone jack, but it does have line out (some sources are saying wired headphones work if they have volume controls).
It sounds great through my regular Bluetooth speakers and I have a big sound bar for my TV with Bluetooth capability so that works great to fill my place with sound.
It’s cute as hell, and I think Audio-Technica deserves serious props for delivering a quality product in the age of manufacturers skimping to maximize their bottom lines! The original was meant to take on the Walkman in the early 80s, and that didn’t happen of course, but I hope they succeed in bringing vinyl to the current generation.
Vinyl with no cables or plugs somehow feels like magic. I would have gotten that limited edition red one if I had a choice, but I’m happy with the yellow one. Reminds me of an old Walkman.
(although my personal opinion, looking at the way it operates suspended and with a fully open gate, there’s probably little chance of record damage unless the arm’s counterbalance gets out of wack, but that’s probably the same with any (most) record player(s).)
I don’t think I’d put anything rare in it. And practically speaking, I have a good place for my AT1240. This thing would be harder for me to use so it would end up going in the closet so I can sell it for $50k in a decade to help pay for my next sailboat.
Decent quality needle and I read that the amount of force applied is not enough to damage the record. There are videos where people have tested the amount of pressure. I’m not worried.
Does anyone know how to get the Mac to see a Bluetooth audio sound source? I have my Studio monitors connected to my Mac, so would love to be able to stream to the Mac, but I guess the Mac is not designed to do that other than maybe through things like Airplay. Is there some kind of USB Bluetooth receiver dongle I could buy or an app? It’s not the end of the world if I can’t get it to work, but it would be nice. Googling has not yielded any good results.
The Mac doesn’t seem to recognize it, similar to it not seeing my iPhone as a source I guess. Sending audio to your Mac via Bluetooth doesn’t appear to be a standard thing.
(Edit: a Bluetooth transmitter/receiver that plugs into my audio interface isn’t going to do it for me. Maybe if there was something over USB).
Shame about overseas availability. I saw some in person at the record shop here in Tokyo last weekend, but the yellow ones were sold out, so I ordered online (Amazon?), and everything was still pretty widely available here (aside from those limited edition red ones of course). Hopefully they will pop back up soon, as it’s pretty great. There are a couple of things I would have wished for, but still amazing. In fact I’m listening to some records on my lunch break now:
For those still interested in Burgin’ it up, I was able to snag one of these in black from B&H for the proper MSRP. Seems like stock is trickling in day by day.
fwiw, I like it, but I had perhaps too high hopes about the sound quality, I was hoping it could replace my main turntable (a Stanton t-80 with a Shure M-35x, perhaps this was never a realistic hope ).
It does sound miles better than my other portable turntable, a PT-01. So that’s good!
Congrats! I’m curious did you compare over line out as well as wirelessly?
Also, FWIW, I’ve found it sounds a lot better over my home theater system than over a little Bose wireless speaker I had. The difference is so great that I mainly use it in my living room now.
I previously had Techics and used Shure White Label cartridges. It’s been years though since I sold my old decks, and I’m sure that setup would sound a lot better, but I think this sounds pretty good through my home theater system and the portability and wireless aspect just make it so nice to use. I haven’t actually tried it via line out, but it’s nice to have for sampling. Definitely experiment with different wireless speakers if you can.
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