Saturday, August 27, 2011

Jensen Turntables, Good price overall.

By Kevin F. Smelley


Since my old Jensen turntable stop working one or two years back I had been looking for something tiny and budget so I could continue duplicate my LP's over to MP3. I thought I would take a bit of a chance on this one. It was budget and had a headphone jack which would make it straightforward to get to my Computer.

I should admit that at first I was disappointed in the sound quality coming from this small unit. After setting up the unit on my kitchen table, (which took all of 2 minutes) I placed one of my favorite albums on the turntable and turned on the power. The sound was very bad coming from the on-board speakers. Tinny and with extremely low fidelity. So next I tried it with headphones and external speakers. (There is a small switch on the back to switch off the internal speakers.) I was awfully surprised and happy with the sound from the headphone jack and external speakers. Obviously the sound problem is due to the on-board speakers. Use external speakers and the sound is great. Headphones also sound excellent.

The turntable is manual and motion starts when you move the arm over the record, and stops when you move the arm back to the rest. The turntable isn't stop at the end of the record. (So if you nap listining, you may wake up to the repeating click-shoosh sound of the needle in the last groove.) My unit has plenty of power to spin full sized LP records. There is no pull and The speed is consistent. LP's do hang over the edges but this might not truly a difficulty unless you push or bump the album although it is playing.

It has 3 speeds and will handle 45's and 78's. (I did not have any 78's to try but the 45's work well.) The player is terribly light-weight making it easy to store in the closet and only bring it out when needed. The radio works, and does all the normal radio stuff. The tuner is a little touchy, making it a bit complicated to tune up your station, however it works OK.

But just listening to music wasn't my main reason for buying this unit. It was to record my LP's to MP3 so I could hear them on my portable player. And for this it works extremely well. (I use Spin-It-Again, also sold on Amazon.) This is a great, cheap way to save all your old vinyl music.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment