Portable Record Player

So you think you would like to get into a portable vinyl record player and you’d probably want the best. Or do you know for sure ? well with all the hype about “the old Vinyl” let me put my two cents worth in.

I‘ve been playing vinyl since I was 4 or 5 years old, yep I was allowed to use the old radiogram with a 3 speed velvet action turntable and back then  and my favourite record was a Burl Ives – Jolly Doctor Dolly Well –  ahh!  the memories – anyway wrenched back to reality, I’ve had a few turntables.

The new wave of vinyl revival that’s going on at the moment is fantastic as far as I am concerned. It’s bring out of the woodwork a multitude of old albums that haven’t been press for years because it was profitable enough for the record companies to be bothered dragging out their old masters and dusting them off.

Basic Turntable Technology

Now the basic  turntable technology really hasn’t changed that much over the years. It still has a platter that goes round, it’s driven in some way by a motor and it has a tone arm with a needle on the end. The needle sits in a groove in the record and bumps up and down to change mechanical movement into electrical energy – sheer magic. . . particularly when you listen.

The question about what is the best portable record player can be as individual as every person that has ever listened to a great album that they love on a vinyl disc. It comes down to personal taste and budget and your technology needs. Portability by its very nature is going to mean that compromise is the order of the day.

Compromise Your Portable Turntable ?

For some the portability of a turntable will mean that they have some issues with having to give up something in order to achieve a goal. This is to be expected and will result in some downgrading of these types of portable turntables. Some will have expectations that are technically not probable or even possible. So sound quality due to small speaker size for example is a compromise that is caused by the fact that the box in which the turntable has to fit in has to fit in with the expectation of portability.

Anyway the upshot is that to find the best portable record player at the cheapest price you may have to forgo some of your expectations. Sound quality is likely to be one of them.

The main feature of a portable turntable is how easy is it to pack up and take with you. This should be the primary reason for buying a portable record player the ability to make your vinyl collection somewhat like an mp3 collection that you can take with you as easily as possible. The player should be relatively lightweight and not awkward to pick up and move. It should have handles that enable you to do that and your tonearm should have the ability to be locked down so that it does not get damaged whilst in transit.  I have a personal preference for a turntable that allows you to store records inside the player but there seem to be precious few of these in a truly portable turntable format. Battery operated turntables are seemingly hard to find I believe that is because it adds to the weight of the turntable excessively however they are available. Even the models that do have battery the play time available is not great generally a couple of albums are all you can from a set of batteries but as I said earlier compromise is the order of the day.

Connect Yourself Up

Connectivity is one of the things that portable record players do very well after all there must be some upside for the compromises that you need to make for them. USB connection will generally mean that you are able to connect up to a computer and turn your albums into MP3s this can be a very handy if you have old records that are precious or very valuable and that you may not want to risk any chance of damaging.

Bluetooth is another connection option found on portable turntables this enables connection to phones and other devices.  The ability to connect these devices and use the turntable as a music centre is more common than being able to connect to a Bluetooth amp or speaker system but even to use the player as a music system is very useful. Just bear in mind that Bluetooth does have a negative effect on signal quality.

RCA connections enable a high quality connection to and amplifier or active speaker system. If connecting to older amplifiers with a RCA Phono plug or input  you may find that they are designed to hook up to the older high impedance turntables with a direct connection to the cartridge in the turntable. The new portable turntables that we talk about on this website will usually have a line output and will probably not be compatible or matched. If you plug in to an older amp Phono input and find the sound is badly distorted or you just get squealing type noises from the amp don’t use the Phono input. Instead use one of the others probably there will be a Line Input RCA plug for you to connect to. This will be much better and match the impedance of the portable record player giving you the nice sound that you were looking for.

Portable record players will often have an Auxiliary Input (Aux In) this will allow a connection to the Player to use it as a music center for your media player or MP3 player, Phone, IPod, IPad or Android device. Often this will use the standard 3.5mm cable that can be purchased very easily. Having this connection just makes it the portable record player so much more useful.

In Conclusion

I would like to point out that many of the portable record players that are now available are slanted toward the low priced end of the market. I believe that is due to the bulk of us that want to collect play vinyl records are dictated by the few Audiophiles around that think of these devices as junky low quality equipment.

Not everyone wants to sit in a room with a turntable amp and speakers that were worth the cost of a new car that has such high audio specifications where we can hear one of the cellists in the third row turn the page on his music sheets whilst playing.

If you are just starting to collect records and are new to this tactile music system and would like to be able to share the experience  with others a portable record player could be exactly what you are looking for to kickoff.