Sony USB Turntable

[kurohinge1]

[SIZE="4"]Review: Sony USB Turntable[/SIZE]

Sony USB turntable
Price $299 (AUD)
Rating 4.5 out of 5
http://www.sony.com.au

I bought my last turntable in the late 1970s and in less than a decade it was made obsolete by the compact disc. So it's an odd time-shift to be setting up a shiny new turntable and even stranger to be connecting it to my PC.

The reason for this Jurassic Park moment is Sony's awkwardly named PS-LX300USB turntable, which is based on its appealing PS-LX250H sibling but adds a USB port so it can be hooked up to your Windows computer (alas, Macs are not supported).

Then, with the aid of the supplied Sound Forge Audio Studio software, you can spin your 33s and 45s and have them recorded into modern digital MP3 files. These can be burned onto a CD for more convenient playback and, of course, loaded onto an iPod or other digital music player.

Armed with a stack of favourite '60s LPs, "Operation Vinyl Revival" began.

The biggest hurdle is the cumbersome software that is intended for advanced audio editing and production. The interface is cluttered and overwhelming for the average user, and Sony's rudimentary instructions didn't help - I couldn't even hear the LP play through the PC's speakers.

For some reason Sony makes you do things the hard way, because lurking under the software's Tools menu is a "vinyl recording and restoration" feature.

This isn't mentioned anywhere in the flimsy manual but it's exactly what you need: a simple step-by-step guide designed specifically to turn an LP into a CD or MP3 with only a few clicks and to listen to the album while it's being recorded.

This includes being able to run filters to clean up pop, crackle and hiss, as well as "normalise" audio peaks.

The only shortcoming is that each side of an album is recorded as a single audio file rather than divided into tracks.

This won't matter if you don't want to skip between CD tracks or add individual songs to an MP3 playlist.

But, if you're willing to roll up your sleeves, you can use the Sound Forge software to edit the recording into individual tracks.

[pheyton]

Yea, now Sony will add DRM to your record collection!

Aside from that, what kind of POS turntable comes without pitch control?
http://www.panasonic.com/consumer_electronics/technics_dj/prod_intro_sldz1200.asp

That was a beautiful machine. CDJ 800s & 1000s were beautiful as well, but when it comes to vinyl record players, the Technics 1200 is still king.

[Charles]

Aside from that, what kind of POS turntable comes without pitch control?

Who says it doesn't have a pitch adjustment? That's on every turntable ever made. This isn't a DJ turntable, it's for recording to disk, so it doesn't need big adjustments, just accurate fine tuning.

[Yokohammer]

So ... the entire raison d'être of this thing is to digitize your record collection?

Cool and fair enough, but what happens when you're done digitizing?
I suppose you could start on your neighbor's record collection, but I'm guessing a heck of a lot of these things are going to end up on fleabay.

[soulboy]

buy a good record player and listen to your records !!!! Amazing. Japan is vinyl heaven... so much good and interesting stuff....

most record players don't have pitch control... only decks for DJs have that stuff on.

[mieko1970]

Yeah... I've seen these all plastic USB turntables and shake my head.
I love my vinyl and love even more transferring them to digital. I certainly
don't have the money to get some ultra high end audiophile rig but
i re-wired my Pioneer PL-300 turnable w/ Orthofon Concorde cartridge
and NAD PP-2 phono pre-amp and then input to my PC through a Audigy 2 ZS
soundcard and edit with Audition 2.

Any moron who would be stupid enough to buy one on these cheap pieces of crap deserves to get crap sound.

[prolly]

you dont actually use them to play records with - you use them to scratch (and digitially record it) so you can mix that into stuff later. that's the primary reason the usb turntable was invented.

of course you can also just play lps or sps and record it into an mp3 file, but that's just stupid and you're throwing your money away on a useless p.o.s. if you don't plan to scratch or if the item isn't designed for it. (like the reviewed item above.)