Hence, you could play the A-side and B-side automatically without turning the record over. Released in 1980, the 3000 used ‘AutoDisc’ technology marketed by Sharp with the phrase “Play Both Sides” adorned on the chassis.
It not only came with a pair of speakers but also a radio, twin cassette player, equaliser and remote control. Normally, I wouldn’t touch Lord Sugar’s Amstrad with a sonic barge pole but this category of turntable is not sound quality-centric so the SM104 makes it into the list.
#Vertical turntable full#
Featuring a built-in speaker, the sound quality is very poor, speed stability is highly questionable, the arm skips grooves like Evel Knieval (ask your dad) and the volume is as loud as a monk with a mouth full of Spam. An excellent example of bandwagon jumping without any sense of design or planning, I can only imagine that the budget for this turntable project was somewhere around a fiver. In general terms, the relatively new ION has been included here to show what to avoid. Released around 1983, the sound is, well, ‘ok’, let’s say that. You could also fine tune the speed options using rotary wheels. This two-speed, belt-drive, fully automatic turntable with parallel tracking tonearm was also available with a built in tuner/amplifier. In a change for many designs of this type, the Technics linear tracking system was run via a direct drive, quartz-locked system and was relatively light, being half the weight of the typical Mitsubishi model, below. Finally, vertical turntables are just plain fun and a great talking point at parties. Many of the older models still work while the new models have the advantage of new construction materials giving some of them an attractively aesthetic quality. If sound quality is not your priority, then sure, why not? Some of the older, original models can be bought for not very much money. Should you buy one? For sound quality reasons? Probably not. It’s intriguing that, with vinyl popularity now back on the table, we are once again seeing manufacturers address this design option. With the first flush of vinyl fever, there were many turntables out there and vertical mounting was just one way to stand out from the crowd. What possessed them? Well, you’ve got to put yourself in their shoes at that time. The notion that gravity is pulling either on the arm (although there are ‘solutions’ to that one, as you’ll see below) but, more importantly, on the record itself as it swings up against this natural force, is a tremendous negative before you’ve even lifted a finger to design your deck to address the other 10,000 other issues that this configuration creates.Ī turntable is a delicate and precise piece of engineering, it seems obvious that positioning the record in a vertical manner would be problematic and yet some manufacturers did exactly that.
When it comes down to it, if you wanted to build a turntable of audiophile quality and you were brainstorming ideas with a bunch of colleagues around a table and one chap suggested, “I’ve got it! Vertical turntables! We’ll tip the entire record on its side!” The boss might come back with something like, “Bob? How’s your garden doing these days? Why don’t you spend more time trimming your roses? Let’s me ring a taxi for you…”
Well, look, we’re not talking the ultimate in sound quality here. The turntable is available in black matt, red matt or white matt col-our.With two new vertical turntables unveiled in the last few months, we asked our tech head Paul Rigby to take a look at the curious world of vertical turntables and whether or not you should actually bother playing records on them. Tracking force and anti-skating are carefully set. The fastest installation process is made possible, because it comes pre-adjusted out of the box. The VTE turntable can be positioned on a table or mounted on a wall. This good sounding belt-driven deck offers 2 versions for left– and right-handed users.