Onkyo Equipment Is Good (or The FSS Save Japan)
When I was growing up in the 80′s I discussed stereo with my Dad and I learned from him a couple things:
1. Any good song sounds 10 times better after 5 beers.
2. Japanese stereo equipment sucks.
Yah, I’m sorry if that sounds bad, but there it is. So for Christmas one year I asked for a tape deck and I received a huge Onkyo TA-2000. “ What the fuck is this Jap nonsense?” I asked. Not out loud though, cuz I wasn’t stupid. But, as I hooked it up and popped in, I don’t remember, maybe whatever the current Ratt album was at the time, it quickly became obvious that Onkyo stuff most definitely did not suck, even in an era when the market was flooded with gaudy, amp overestimating, pieces of shit from both sides of the Pacific. Onkyo made good, affordable stereo then and they still do. Hit them up. Also, give money. Japans a fuckin’ mess. – P-

Thin Lizzy – Every Damn Thing They’ve Done
So last month Gary Moore went to his untimely and ugly, ugly grave. And it was just Saint Paddy’s. So here’s a word or two about Thin Lizzy. They were simply the very best of a very bad genre. They made Kiss look like a Black Metal Menudo. Which, now that I think about it, they might actually have been. They made dueling lead guitars almost okay. Almost. They wrote songs about drinking and fighting and being back in town and jail breakin’ and kickin’ dames. And I’m not a fan of misogyny. It just makes for good Rock and Roll. So hopefully you enjoyed the day and put some Thin Lizzy on the jukebox. Nobody saw that coming, you fucking obvious bastard. -P-

The Hookers – s/t EP
A little while back. I wrote about this band from Kentucky called Hookers. Just Hookers They were a retarded, retarded band. I liked them a lot. But I’m not talkin bout them right now. The Hookers , emphasis on the THE, were basically Murder City Devils minus a couple people. They put out one album a little back on Cold Crush Records. Sounds like it was recorded in a bathroom. It rocks so bad it should be in detention. -P-

Lee Scratch Perry – Every Damn Crazy Thing He Done Did
Wanna hear a story? So Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records, he invites Lee Perry over to his palatial Jamaican estate to talk about buying the rights to Scratch’s discography. So Blackwell leaves Scratch alone in the living room for a minute, comes back to see little smiling Lee Perry sitting on the leather couch and a steaming, smiling pile of Lee Perry shit in Blackwell’s cut-crystal bowl on the coffee table. Lee Perry once wrote a letter to the government to get Paul McCartney loose of a drug beef. Lee Perry shacked up with a Swedish royal for a period of time. Lee Perry invented Hip Hop in one afternoon on a Wednesday. Lee Perry is like 5 foot nothing, very trim and yet weighs 6,00 pounds. Lee Perry is not sure what year he was born in, but he was present at your conception. Lee Perry invited Andrew W.K. to co-produce his album. Lee Perry lives in Switzerland and freaks all the Swiss out. Lee Perry built a studio with his own hands. Then he burnt it the fuck down. Cuz Fuck You, that’s why. -P-

Yo La Tengo – Prisoners of Love
I went to a Mexican restaurant a few years back and they were playing Yo La Tengo on their PA. Either the name confused ‘em or Mexicans are big indie rock fans. If like me yer also a confused Mexican, Yo La Tengo are a 3 piece Jewish rock band from Hoboken NJ. Despite their eternal hipster cred they’re easily the best thing about Hoboken next to Maxwells and a certain Op Ivy song. If yer not sure, start with the 2 disc “Prisoners of Love” (some versions even come with a third disc called “A Smattering of Outtakes and Rareities”), but I garuntee you’ll end up buying ‘em all soon there after. -T-

X-ray Spex – Germfree Adolescents
I read recently that Poly Styrene has cancer. A bummer I know. I listened to this the other day in the car and it only made me bummed me out more. Everyone knows or should know punk staple Oh Bondage, Up Yours (shit the afore mentioned Yo La Tengo even covered it) but this album is chock full of hits from Identity to The Day The World Turned Day-Glo to I Live Off You. Get better soon Poly. -T-

Tomahawk – s/t
With members of Faith No More, Helmet and Jesus Lizard innit this can’t not be good. When you listen to as much music as I do it’s hard to say this person is my favorite guitarist (cough J Mascis) or that person is my favorite bassist (cough Mike Watt) or so forth but I can say with great certainty that Mike cough Patton is my favorite singer. Not all his side projects are winners but when they’re good they’re unbelievable. Check this one or the followup “Mit Gas”. You should probably avoid their American Indian inspired album “Anonymous” like a smallpox covered blanket tho. What? Too soon? -T-

Born Against – The Rebel Sound of Shit And Failure
I know P covered this one before but I had it on my phones the other day and felt compelled to echo the sentiment that this may be the best hardcore album ever made. Just brutal shit that will make you lose yours. Also one of the best album names of all time.  Also one of the best album intros of all time (Hello, shit? We’re Born Against so suck my fuckin lizard.”).This band got a bad rap for awhile cause they were funded by the buttload of money one of Sam McPheeters’ relatives left him after kicking off. I gotta say tho that there wouldn’t have been a more righteous way to blow the money. Few other bands charge me up like this one.  Few other bands hate as much shit as I do.  Face the flag son. -T-

Afghan Whigs – Gentlemen
Since 1993 this has been and will always be my favorite album of all time. I’m still figuring out how to tattoo the lyrics of My Curse somewhere on my body. The fine folks at High Speed Soul just reissued it on 180 gram vinyl. A product of the 90s I like to think this one stands the test of time. If you disagree I don’t know that we can get down.  If you’re not sure buy the vinyl now and see what I’m talkin’ bout.  -T-

Inspector 7 – Live at Court Tavern, Hub City, 2/19/11
My lovely wife found out about this show the day of. We’re about 20 minutes from New Brunswick so it was an easy decision to go. Plus Inspector 7 only plays a show once every 5 years or so these days. There was a time tho when you could have seen them weekly round these here parts. They teased a new album in the works this last time. Kids are shaving their heads in anticipation already. -T-

D.I. – Richard Hung Himself (song)
I don’t own anything by this band but I always dug the song Richard Hung Himself and the bands performance of it in the movie “Suburbia”. My friend pointed out to me the other day that the singer was just arrested for doing drugs in front of his kid… cue the  I LEARNED IT FROM WATCHING YOU DAD!!!!!! psa. -T-

Punk Rock Item Of The Week That Isn’t Necessarily Punk Rock – Back To School
Yeah I know this movie has more to do with 80s New Wave than Punk… Yeah I know Oingo Boingo is not punk… yeah I know going to College or owning your own Tall and Fat Stores isn’t really punk either… but Rodney Dangerfield is a punk and I’ll go to the mat on that one. He dedicates buildings to himself, calls President Truman a pussy, makes really large meatball sammiches, and tells Kurt Vonnegut to fuck himself. I watch this one every time its on. -T-

Husked Du / Green Day – Record Store Day 2011 Split 7″ (FSS exclusive advance review)
Yeah I’m not fucking buying this. How’s that for your exclusive advance review? Fuck you Billie Joe. There’s a reason your initials are b.j., and I wont let you and your shitty band ruin Husker Du for me. Not now. Not ever. So let’s recap… fuck you again Green Day, enjoy your shitty Mellissa Etherage Broadway bullshit and Pepsi sponsored arena tours. I’ll be just fine sitting here now listening to “Candy Apple Grey” and “New Day Rising” back to back. -T-

Jawbreaker – Dear You
I just re-bought this on double 12″ vinyl. It’s really hard to say which Jawbreaker LP is my favorite. If you put a gun to my head though I might argue for this one. It’s a little more polished than the others, but lyrically there’s tracks on here that slay me. The 12″ reissue comes with a bunch of bonus tracks they did with J Robbins. A must own. Oh yeah did I mention Christopher Walken is on this one? He is so fuck you. -T-

Faith No More – The Real Thing
“Angel Dust” is their best album. It’s in my top ten at least. So why am I talkin bout this one instead? Cause I listened to it over the weekend and jammed the shit out to it. Billy Gould’s bass sounds so fucking killer on all these tracks. And if I didn’t already mention it (I did) Patton can sing like no other. Yeah Epic may have been an overplayed hit and yeah some of the other tracks surely sound like a product of the time but Surprise! You’re Dead makes me flip hard. Ah-hahahahahahaha IT NEVER ENDS!!!! -T-

The World Inferno Friendship Society – The Anarchy and The Ecstasy
I dig this one. The song Sick of People Being Sick of My Shit speaks to my soul. Look this one isn’t as dense as their last heavy concept work about Fritz Lang or whatever the fuck it was about but sometimes I don’t want to think too hard when listening to music I just wanna enjoy it. And I really enjoy this one. Catchy as fuck. Chunksaah mail-order wax is gorgeous and yes on the download code. -T-

Heidecker and Wood – Starting From Nowhere
If you read us often you know were big Tim and Eric fans here at FSS HQ. This album may be the oddest thing Tim Heidecker has ever done and that’s saying a lot. This is straight up crazy. Paired with Davin Wood (the dude responsible for Awesome Shows awesome music) the pair do kind of a Seals & Crofts / Hall & Oates type thing. Cept they go so hard and so straight faced if you didn’t know any better you’d think they were serious. They’re not. If you watch even 5 minutes of Tim and Eric you’ll know they’re obsessed with dads so it’s no surprise there’s a song about dads on here. There’s also songs about desert islands, weddings, and cross country skiing. And thankfully the bonus track Christmas Suite will round out uncle T’s 2011 Xmas mix nicely. -T-

Social Distortion – Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes
Oh Mike Ness. Self professed ex-convict. Friend to tattoos. Phenomenal guitarist. Eye liner err…supporter. Antiquing enthusiast . When will you stop writing such dumb lyrics? The gospel singer backups only make this album worse. Mobsters? The dust bowl? The worst album cover art ever? Christ. Me and P’s brother E spent the greater part of a morning commute together LOLing hard at this one and trying to come up with other clichéd sayings and nursery rhymes to sing to the music. Seriously picture Ness earnestly singing “you step on a crack, you’ll break you’re mothers back” and try not to laugh (not an actual lyric but might as well have been). And yet still I plan on seeing Social Distortion the next time they come round. I’m such a sucker for nostalgia sometimes. -T-

Reagan Youth – Live and Rare
Reagan Youth are one of my favorite Hardcore bands of all time and also one of my favorite New York bands of all time. You can download this one on the innertubes gratis if you look hard enough (wink). The live version of New Aryans on it is fucking amazing. Versions of USA, Go Nowhere, Reagan Youth, and that song from Airheads are all also amazing… I watched a documentary about Ronnie Reagan on HBO recently that almost painted him in a good light. This band would probably disagree. -T-

Buying a new turntable or a first turntable can be a daunting task.  You can literally run yourself ragged on the interwebs reading reviews and user comments.  You will read a bunch of pompous douches waxing philosophical about things like timber and distortion.  No matter what you choose to get there will be a bunch of snobby audiophiles out there saying it’s a piece of shit.  I’m serious.  Look up any piece of stereo equipment for as little as a couple hundred dollars through to equipment in the range of a few thousand and there will be boring dicks with large vernaculars telling you why they feel the sound is inferior to something else that another snob also incidentally finds inferior.  Rarely do these idiots agree.  What they agree on mostly though is that you need to spend large sums of money to get the sound you are looking for.  Really I’d love to find out what some of these people do for a living that they can afford all this equipment.  Part of the reason I am writing this right now is to combat these audiophiles, so the next time someone like myself looks up reviews on the Debut III they don’t have to wade through a ton of bullshit for a simple opinion.

The Pro Ject Debut III is by no means cheap. Yet Stereophile magazine considers it an entry level budget piece of equipment. Their words not mine. They suggest you get this record player if you are a young kid looking to get into stereo culture. Again their words. Really. I don’t agree with any of this nonsense. Almost 4 bills is not budget but it is money well spent, and compared to what’s out their it’s worth saving up for. When I was getting into stereos I had to get whatever old ass record players my family had lying around their basements for free. As soon as I got my first job the first thing I saved up for was an amp and turntable.  There’s something to be said about the value of earning something. Even at my age now I had a save a little to be able to buy this turntable.  But it was worth it, as I told Brother P last week it’s the single nicest thing I own right now. Maybe ever.

Looks aren’t everything, but for a moment let’s pretend they are. The Debut III is sexy. Damn damn sexy.  Simple. Elegant.  All you need.  It comes in a variety of colors to suit your style.  Apparently Untle T’s style is blue.  Setup was a breeze.  Half hour to an hour including un-boxing. Balancing the tonearm was the most tedious part.  Also the anti-skating weight was extremely delicate and I was a little worried I’d fat finger it and somehow mess up the fishing line it came attached to.  The care you have to take when setting this table up is a reminder of how intricate and amazing turntables are.

The only minor gripe I have is the way you change speeds. You have to lift the platter up and off the base and gingerly move the belt from one groove to another. It’s not hard but if you will be listening to a smattering of 33 1/3s and 45s in a sitting it might get annoying to have to constantly do this. You can solve this problem as well as improving the overall speed stability by buying the Speedbox II (also made by Pro Ject). It’s a little box the plugs into the back of the player and switches the speed electronically with the push of a button. This will run you a little over a hundo alone ($159) though so you might just want to save it for a later upgrade.  You can also upgrade to get this thing to play at 78RPMs but I’m not gonna get into how to do that as i’m pretty sure it’s irrelevant to most of our readers.  It is to me anyway.

Another upgrade Pro Ject offers is an acrylic platter. Again this is over a hundred ($129) and not immediately necessary but something you might want to consider as a later upgrade to an already solid piece of equipment. I’ve read on a bunch of sites that the acrylic platter improves the sound noticeably and cuts down on static. I can not personally attest to this as I didn’t compare the two but for the cost it surely should anyway.

Will a more expensive record player sound better? Probably. Is this the best sounding record player I’ve ever owned? Definitely. Any better is overkill and you’d need to be a snob to notice anyway. The FSS are not snobs. Assholes maybe.

I’ve listened to a shitload of records on this thing over the past couple weeks. I am continuously blown away. Over the years I’ve ended up with a few records that skip on me so much so that I never play them. They’re not scratched either, so I don’t know what gives… like my copy of Bad Religion’s “Stranger Than Fiction”. For the sake of science I threw it on the Pro Ject the other day and not only did it not skip once it sounded fucking amazing. I must’ve listened to this album a thousand times over the years and this felt like I was listening to it for the first time. Also surprisingly my 2x LP copy of  The Descendents’ “Somery” sounded equally amazing. If I haven’t mentioned this before Bikeage may be my all time favorite punk song.  Top 3 at least.  No this will not make all your records sound great. Shitty recordings with poor production will still sound as shitty. I played a couple Murder City Devils 7″s where you could tell they were recorded on the cheap. Not complaining just trying to let you know that 400 bux won’t create quality production that didn’t already exist. Again though if you are a loyal FSSer and a loyal punk rawka this shouldn’t matter much or come as a surprise. Bands like The Mummies are supposed to sound like shit. It’s their charm. But take for example any of the 180gram stuff Sub Pop has reissued of late and throw that on and you’ll see that the ones that are built to last will really shine.

The Pro Ject is outfitted with an Ortofon om 5e cartridge. The fine folks at Needle Doctor told me it was a good cartridge and that there was no need to immediately upgrade. But again as with the Speed Box II and acrylic platter it’s nice to know you have the option of adding to your investment over the years without having to buy a whole new record player altogether.

Last night as I sat at home paying my utilities bills (I told you suckas we got bills) I threw in the 180gram  reissue of “We Have Come For Your Children” by The Dead Boys and Stiv sounded alive once more.

I should probably mention that I have this running through a Marantz PM5004 Integrated amp with a pair of Polk TSI500 speakers.  Both of which are also considered “budget” and “entry level”.

I cannot say enough good things about this player. Ignore the Stereophile nonsense about it being an entry level player. That’s consumerist propaganda made to trick people into thinking they need to spend more money on something better. Remember too that these Stereophile folks listen to pure garbage. Read any of their benchmark tests where they mention the music they utilize and you will be astounded that all that money is being put into horrible taste otherwise.  They’re more concerned with the quality of a recording than with whether or not they actually even like the music. The FSS is all about the music. We jam econo.

(A Shitty System Photographed By A Shitty Camera Phone)

We here at The FSS have great respect for music. We feel that it should be played, no matter the format, through the best possible system. Possible. And we hope to be reviewing components, good, decently priced, well-designed components for you, our three readers. We hope to get those earnestly manufactured gadgets free as fuck as well, cuz that’s why we started thing nonsense to begin with anyway. And we may actually in the future receive free electronics to review. Possibly. But that time is not now. And goddamnit, when it is not possible to get good, decently-priced stereo necessities, you have to grit your teeth and do what is necessary, because silence is just not an option. Sometimes you just got suck it up and get some heinous heinous bullshit.

Like I did this past weekend. There was a BBQ around my way this past July 4th and I needed something, anything that would play music. Having a little over 44 dollars my options were painfully limited. To make a long story short I ended up dropping my last 44 dollars on a Memorex desktop CD player. With a remote Control. It is a righteous piece of shit. Holy fuck, it is bad. I think it actually hates music. And pretentious, it shines a weird blue-light as it queasily, grudgingly plays my lovingly chosen selections. There is a smell of ozone and death that comes off the thing when it is turned on. It has a clock but the 3rd number never changes and the remote control will only fast forward or reverse, not stop or change the volume. And it is cracked, I guess to save me the trouble of doing it myself. It sucks so fucking bad, but I need and it works (badly).

So now I’m gonna give ya’ll a brief list of shitty, shitty audio that has made a difference in my life. Because I know at some point some garbage walkman, some retarded radio or some Mongolian ass-backwards CD-player has straight saved your life.

Yellow Tape deck (MAKE UNKNOWN)
It was yellow as fuck, tiny and shaped like a Pringle crossed with Venetian blinds. I played my first U2 tape on it till the tape snapped. What a piece of shit.

Pioneer Shelf system
I actually dug this out of my basement in the late 80’s and no one claimed it, so it became mine. The tape player only half-worked and was actually vomited on twice by two different people.

Studio 44 (?) Setup
A friend of mine from grammar school was given this monster for Christmas, his parents had gotten it from Steve around his block who dealt in dubious merchandise. The bass in one speaker didn’t work and the actual make of this silver monster all-in-one system (tape deck, record player AND 8-track) was aggressively scratched out and red stickers put to replace them saying STUDIO 44. Utter trash.

Some European Walkman with tiny speaker adapters
My friend brought this feces back from the Old Country. I remember listening to a Sex Pistols tape on it through the criminally bad mini speakers you could plug into the thing. It sounded like The Pistols were playing in a sewage tunnel and we were 4 floors up listening through a toilet.

Anything by Coby
I lived in Iceland for awhile, Coby owns the shitty electronics market over there. I don’t know how many marathon parties I have destroyed my liver in while getting down to the miserably replicated sounds of Coby. Nicely played, gents.

Any port in a storm, that’s what Popeye used to say. And noise, by any means necessary, beats the quiet of your stunningly boring life.

Minims 7 Speakers

My father was as serious an audiophile as you could be while being completely and hopelessly broke most of the time. But back in the 80’s, when he was really chasing the perfect sound, he went through a lot of amazing speakers; some alien looking Advent speakers that I hated, a nice pair of Dynacos that are  around the house I grew up somewhere still and 2 amazing speakers made by a company called Creek. When I was 11 I was told I was gonna be able to cobble together a system from his cast-offs. I got an Onkyo tape deck, a loud-ass Dynaco receiver and some shitty Japanese turntable whose make I forget now. No speakers. So I had to wait for my birthday for the only brand new component of my set-up.

I open up the box on my 12th and what I get are two heavy black little speakers. I hooked them up and shook the whole house from my little attic room. I was probably rocking White Lion or something.

The Minimus 7s, like a lot of great things, are a complete aberration. They were made by a ridiculously shitty company, namely Tandy, marketed under the crumby stereo brand of Realistic,  to be sold through Tandy’s crappy retail wing Radio Shack to broke people who don’t really like music so that they could slap them onto their shelves and play bad music to nobody. By some miracle the Tandy technicians got tired of churning out depressingly retarded computers and dinky amps and actually made a quality product.

The speakers are crazy small.  The woofer is four inches and the tweeter only one but their efficiency and accuracy are weirdly on-point. As long as you take care to position these things correctly; get them floating, get them away from the amp, place them near walls if you want more bass, the speakers are bar none the best speakers you will ever buy for under 50 dollars.

Which brings me to my next point. The Minimus line went into production in 1978 and only went off-line a few years ago when RCA bought up a lot of Radio Shack’s holdings. These speakers have developed a cult following like Trekkies or fans of old porn stars. There are sites dedicated to refurbishing these already superb speakers, ( I put new crossovers in mine, they improved slightly) which is great but with the hipster cache comes a rise in prices for what were originally cheap-as-free boxes. Look for them at yard sales, a lot of people had them, and pick them up. If you go the Ebay route don’t spend a dime over 60 dollars and send a nasty email to who ever is trying to jack you. But if you are lucky and have them in your basement, dust them off, hook them up to any decent amp and fuckin’ blast them. I suggest a later period White Lion selection.

Sonic Impact T-amp

P’s Take:

This thing looks like a bad-joke. It cost me 40 dollars and it can run on batteries and as soon as I saw it I was pretty sure I had been had. The “breakthrough” of the t-amp technology is that they are supposedly remarkably efficient for size, which is great efficiency is what you need you need in an amp. But when I checked out the Sonic Impact’s T-amp the word “efficient” did not come to mind. The word “bullshit “ did.

S.I’s T-amp rates at 15 watts per channel so I opted to run my old Optimus shelf speakers because they don’t need much power and also because I didn’t have anything else. I hooked up an RCA discman and hit play.

I don’t understand the black magic behind the Tripath Chip inside the T-Amp that makes it work and I don’t care. We here at the FSS are concerned with results not methods, we’re the Machiavellis of stereo, suckas. What came out of the speakers when I switched on that stupid looking T-amp was nothing short of amazing. The sound is full and pretty accurate and will more than do for a nice desk set-up or a make-do main system in a small room if you are broke. And you can take the damn thing camping if you want. I have since hooked up record players and tape decks through this thing. The results there are less astounding but still way better than the T-amp has a right to be. Get one, if not two. For real.

T’s Take:

I am constantly amazed at the performance of this little guy. There have even been a few instances where it’s pulled sounds from a recording that I’ve missed on my more expensive Pioneer amp downstairs and my Alpine Car Stereo. The first being the sound of running water in the background of Pavement’s “Wowee Zowee” opener We Dance and the second being the sound of airplanes in the background of Morphine’s “Cure For Pain” track Head With Wings.

The sound is also really clean. I can turn the volume to 11 and there’s barely any hiss or distortion to be found. Just how exactly this thing sells as cheap as it does is beyond me. But who cares! Just buy one. We found ours at Think Geek so start there first.

One of the few downsides to this suckah would be its lack of inputs. I’m currently using the Audio Out on my old Sony Amp for the purposes of a splitter. Also, my CDs definitely sound better than my Vinyl through it, lacking a small amount of needed punch. Otherwise, this comes with high praise and recommendation. You’ll even like the adorable little blue light around the volume knob. Awwww.

audio-technica turntable

I just recently returned to New Jersey from overseas with my family and I’m bad broke. Ridiculously broke. But I need to listen to my vinyl and my old standby didn’t survive the trip (fuckin’ baggage handlers). So I went on-line and searched for the rare combination in a turntable, or in anything for that matter: cheap and good.

I came up with the ATL-PL50 by Audio-Technica. Because it was refurbished I got it for 30 bucks. I said I was broke. When it arrived I was not expecting anything, I figured it would serve me for a month or two till I got some cash together to get some decent second-hand table. Right out of the box the thing made me nervous, it is plastic as hell. You can’t change the cartridge but you can change the stylus (I consulted some experts and they said it wouldn’t help enough to bother). It has a preamp built in so you can just plug it in and go, another aspect of it I found suspect. It just looks and feels shitty all the way round.

But it doesn’t sound bad at all. Don’t get me wrong, it is not gonna to pull everything out of your albums that’s there and it is not gonna knock your socks off by any means. But you turn it on, put a record on and the damn thing works, hour after hour, day after day and it sounds pretty alright and it’s ridiculously cheap. Which only goes to show that AT still has some respect for what they do and what the customer needs.  And how many companies is that still true of?

ion portable usb turntable

As much as we love listening to vinyl at the FSS, it always made me crazy that when the cassette walkman became obsolete, I couldn’t easily take my records on the go anymore. Digitizing records to MP3 will never be the same as the days of analog and magnetic recording to cassette tape.

For the past ten years or so I’ve been going nuts trying to find the perfect method for digitizing my record collection without compromising sound or making things overly complicated. Nothing I’ve tried has been without some level of headache and heartbreak.

Currently I have been using the Griffin iMic to connect my STR-D315 Sony receiver to my Mac, and I can say that thus far this is the best method yet in terms of ease of use and quality of results. So that begs the question, “Why did I go and buy a USB Turntable anyway?”. Maybe I thought it’d be the penultimate method I’ve been searching a decade for, maybe I couldn’t pass up a 50% off deal on Woot.com. Maybe the idea of having a portable turntable had me thinking I could carry this thing everywhere and not have to digitize my music in the first place. Maybe I was wrong.

The bottom line is I wasted my money. Do not buy this model and search other reviews if you are looking at different models. It’s a cheaply made and poor sounding with one built in mono speaker. It takes a whopping four D batteries (so much for portable). And the software it comes with is straight up whack. Making things even worse I have yet to get this thing to work with my computer on any level. This was not worth the $50 I paid for it, let alone the $100 retail mark it usually carries.

I had such high hopes the day this came in the mail and I first tore into the packaging, only to find what amounted to a Fisher Price record player with a new coat of paint to make it look more sophisticated. If I still had my Incredible Hulk 7” and Muppets LPs maybe I’d be more okay with it.

The only use I could imagine getting out of it is throwing it on my deck in the summer, but even at that the internal speaker’s sound is shoddy at best and probably wouldn’t fill the space adequately. I’d rather just keep with my current boombox and forego the vinyl.

The plastic and parts used to make this thing feel like they came out of a 99 cent store. I’m not even sure you can change the needle if it gets warn out (although since I’m not using it, that won’t be a concern anyway).

It comes with two separate programs for your computer. The first, EZ Audio Converter, is painfully simple and limited. Hit record and go. And the second, Audacity, is the exact opposite, complicated and far from user friendly. But who cares, I was never able to get either program to work with my computer and record sound anyway. In fact, both times I plugged the Ion into my computer I lost sound entirely as it took over my computer’s sound card and continued to hijack it even after I unplugged it to the point where I was forced to do a hard restart.

Currently I’m back to using my iMic and its Final Vinyl Software and happy once more. The Ion now has moved to the corner of shame in my basement, next to my MiniDisc player, VCR, and Dreamcast VMUs.