Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsReally poor drive belt setup
Reviewed in the United States on June 6, 2019
I was really disappointed in this. I never even got to play it. When I tried playing it, the platter did not turn because the belt had come off. On most turntables, this would be a minor thing to fix, but on this turntable, it’s not. There’s no access hole in the platter for setting the belt, like there is on many/most other turntables. Instead, there’s a really dumb arrangement in which you have to remove the turntable, stretch the belt over a pin on its underside, then replace the platter and rotate it first two turns clockwise and then two turns counterclockwise, which is supposed to cause the belt to jump from the pin to the drive spindle. Except that in my case, it broke the pin, making it impossible to mount the belt and therefore impossible to use the turntable.
If you’re thinking of buying this turntable, be sure to search for “belt” in the Questions section of the Amazon page and in user reviews. I failed to notice the problem when I was researching this turntable. Mounting the belt is so tricky that one owner in the Questions section wrote, “it is easier to pull your nose hairs with an adjustable wrench than placing that belt again". So true!
The plastic pin that broke must be really fragile. This astonishes me. I was just following directions. I’m careful and experienced. I’ve been building my own computers for over 25 years and I've been taking apart and assembling electronic devices since I was a kid. I’m careful. That pin should never have broken.
One other problem: it didn’t come with the 45rpm adapter that’s supposed to be included. I didn’t care because I only planned to play some 1940s family 78’s to convert them to digital, but now I’m hoping that when I return it, I don’t get dinged for not returning what I never received.
I never was able to use the turntable, so I can’t comment on its performance, but I did see two really atrocious design features. One is that the power is in the rear, making it awkward to turn it on and off. The other is that there's no power indicator, so there's no way of telling whether it's on or off by looking at it. If the power button were in front, then there would be a way to know whether it was on.
On the positive side, it is good looking and the software was easy to download and install (it comes on the included CD, but I downloaded it to be sure I had the most recent release). I just wish I’d gotten to use it.
I hate writing negative reviews, but there’s nothing else I can do on this one.
