Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)TDK Life on Record 77000015378 USB Belt Drive Turntable
I am old enough to have a collection of 400 vinyl records and also a 25 year old turntable. When I saw the opportunity to try out a modern turntable with USB connectivity, I jumped at the chance. My Technics SL-5 still works well and can serve as a comparison. It has no idea what USB is and we won't compare that feature to it.
First, the packaging of the turntable is quite good. All the parts are secured in foam or boxes and well protected for transport. That said, there are a lot of parts and assembly is required. No tools are needed but you will have to follow the directions carefully to get it all together and working. If you want an open the box and plug it in experience, this may not be for you. In following the directions I found a slight error that may confuse some. In setting up and balancing the tone arm, the docs make not of the weight having a "3" marking. Well, there isn't. The markings start at zero "0" and circle around back to the zero where the 3 should be. Getting past that and continuing on the tone arm was relatively easy to balance and set to the required 3 grams, for the included cartridge. The 3 gram setting is the signature of a less than optimum cartridge. Get ready to spend more and get a cartridge needle combination with a less than one gram requirement. That will put your vinyl through less wear than the included one. Still, it's good enough to get you started. My Technics tracks at well under one gram.
Now we get to the $100 upgrade of this player. The USB output and Cakewalk recording software. To say I am frustrated is an understatement. The software is far from Plug `n Play. It installed OK on my Windows 7 64 bit version. It just doesn't work very well. After much trial and error I was able to get one song recorded from an album. It only took three hours to accomplish that. There's no easy way to choose that you want to record from the player. It keeps finding other sources on my system to record from including my web-cam. I've gone through the help system and the web site, there's just not much there to help. This should be much easier, it is not.
I consider myself fairly technical, yet I feel overwhelmed. This should be an easy item to setup and record from. Sadly it just isn't for a person who like me would have a vinyl collection they'd like to digitize. It will be nothing but a giant frustration. I will continue to fight with this thing and amend my review as I discover what is wrong and why it's so difficult to use. Maybe there will be a software update?
Click Here to see more reviews about: TDK Life on Record 77000015378 USB Belt Drive Turntable
The TDK Life on Record turntable delivers the precision performance, premium surfaces and features needed to truly enjoy the experience. This advanced belt driven turntable supports both 33 1/3 and 45 RPM playback speeds as the "floating" design isolates the platter and needle from external vibrations. An innovative visual equalizer embedded in the gloss black surface gives your music a visual heartbeat while the integrated pre-amp, USB output and included software let you import/convert tracks to a PC in MP3 format. The uniquely designed and crafted tone arm with integrated surface lighting gives the freedom to use almost any stylus and cartridge from standard to truly premium through a universal connection.
Click here for more information about TDK Life on Record 77000015378 USB Belt Drive Turntable
0 comments:
Post a Comment