Category: Product Reviews
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Fluance RT81: The Sweet Spot Between Cheap Record Players and Serious Setups
At one end, you have the cheap all-in-one players that are simple, small, and easy to buy. At the other end, you have turntables like the Fluance RT82 that feel much more serious, but also ask you to think about extra gear like phono preamps, amps, receivers, and speakers. The Fluance RT81 sits right in…
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Vinyl Record Cleaner: Most People Need Less Than They Think
Look around the internet or social media, and you’ll find a lot of advice for cleaning a record. Most will tell you to design a near-lab-like process for your collection. The reality is that most people don’t need anything so complex. The right vinyl record cleaner depends on what you own, how often you spin…
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LEGO Record Player: Is It Real? And Why It’s Blowing Up
The truth is, all of our feeds over the past two years or so have been inundated with pictures and videos of LEGO record players. Whenever one of these super aesthetic shorts hit my feed, I wonder, what am I actually looking at? Does this LEGO record player actually play music? Most of the time,…
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The Best Vinyl Record Holder for Any Setup
There is a trend that has completely taken over the online vinyl community. And it’s not so much about the music… or the nature of physical media… oh no. It’s about aesthetics. Your setup as an Instagrammable moment – that you can make happen cheaply and easily. It’s the vinyl record holder. One record, facing…
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Audioengine A2+: The $300 Desk Speakers Everyone Thinks Are “Enough”
It may seem like there are unlimited speaker options when you’re getting into vinyl…and yeah, technically, there are. But in our opinion, there are only a handful you should be picking from when you’re building your first setup. That’s because your first vinyl system isn’t going to live in a finely tuned, perfectly treated listening…
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The Best Record Player Stand: Make Your Setup Feel Expensive
It probably started with a single vinyl record. You grabbed it at a thrift store, yard sale, your parent’s attic, or even just saw it scrolling your feed, but what you didn’t realize at the time is that what you really found was the magic of physical media. A few months later you grabbed a…
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Enter the True Hi-Fi Zone: The Fluance RT85
Everyone begins with the same normal, reasonable question: Do I really need to spend this much on a turntable? But then you see what comes with it: All the beautiful bells and whistles. The acrylic platter. The Ortofon 2M Blue. The heavier plinth. The adjustable tonearm. All the comments saying this is the last turntable…
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1 by ONE Record Player Review: A Rare Win for All-in-one Turntables
This is where we are going to start: “will wreck my records?”If you’ve ever asked that, you’re already ahead of most people trying to get into listening to vinyl. All-in-one turntables get a bad rap. Some, ok maybe most of it’s deserved. Most are cheap plastic boxes that sound thin and chew up the grooves…
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Sony PS-LX310BT Review: The Turntable for People Who Hate Setup
Buying your first record player can already be confusing. But it is kind of crazy how setting up a manual turntable can feel like defusing a bomb. You probably pictured the fun part. Picking out a record. Putting it on. Dropping the needle. Hearing that warm, analog sound magically fill the room. But what nobody…
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Crosley Record Player Review: Hidden Gems You Probably Missed
Two friends started collecting records around the same time. One grabbed a Crosley Cruiser from Target, plugged it in, and threw on a Fleetwood Mac reissue. The other waited, saved up, and bought a setup three times the price. Fast-forward a year: the Crosley friend was still spinning every weekend-same suitcase record player, same built-in…