Quote:
Originally Posted by radiotvnut
I bought this for $5 at a flea market, just to play with. They said that the turntable would not turn and that's why they were selling it for $5. Really, it wasn't worth $5 when new. The reason the platter wouldn't turn is because the tonearm has to be pulled back to the right in order to activate the motor that drives a belt driven all plastic turntable. The turntable has an auto stop mechanism at the end of the record. It plays 33, 45, and 78 rpm; but, a special 3 mil stylus is needed for 78 rpm. There is no headphone jack for private listening; but, you really don't need one because the amplifier does not have enough power to bother anyone in the next room. The amp has a little tiny output IC that probably delivers 100 mw/channel. Oh yes, this thing is stereo; but, the tiny speakers are so close together that one can't tell much stereo seperation. And, either the motor is on it's way out or it was a poor running motor to begin with. The motor is noisy, I can detect some wow and flutter in the audio, and I can even feel the motor vibrations when I touch the tonearm lift. And, there's a lot of hot glue in this thing. And, you guessed it, it's made in China. It also runs off a 12 volt wall wart; which, is something else to lose in transit. Since this is a portable, you'd think they would have used a self contained power supply with a non-detachable power cord.
For these things to be so cheaply made, they sure cost enough when new. I think a '50's "one tube wonder" would be a better unit.
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I hate to say this, but this unit is
not stereo, and to make matters worse, the build and (from what I have read in these posts) the sound quality besmirches the name of Powel Crosley (founder of the TV and radio manufacturing firm of the 1950s which bore his name) several hundred times over. (My folks' second TV was a 1955 Crosley "Super V" that was built
much, much better and more solidly, and even sounded better due to the large speaker in the base of the cabinet, than the "Crosley" phonograph we are discussing here.) Take a look at the photo of the innards. It has two speakers, but one of those speakers is simply connected directly to the other via two unshielded leads, with nothing in between. There is no stereo balance control, either, another tipoff that this is just mono with two speakers. I think this unit is one of those cheap things that is advertised as "stereo" just to be impressive, and to raise the price insanely high. Even if this were a true stereo phonograph, the speakers, as has been noted, are not spaced nearly far enough apart from each other to achieve any degree of separation. It was probably intended for children or teenagers with tin ears, who do not care beans about sound quality -- all they care about is that the unit will play their favorite records (this was obviously marketed some time before CDs made vinyl all but obsolete). With a tiny IC amplifier putting out 100mW at most, I'm sure this will not satisfy anyone who likes listening to music at eardrum busting volume; however, again, there is probably more than enough distortion at maximum volume to make any teenager happy, as most rock is just noise anyway -- the more distortion, the better.
I wonder myself why this phonograph was built without an internal hard-wired power supply, but I guess I shouldn't, considering how cheaply made the unit is. I doubt if it could run on batteries (I did not see a battery compartment anywhere inside the cabinet), as the phono motor itself (let alone the amplifier) probably draws enough current to sap a set of batteries after just one or two records. If this were a quality-built system, it would have been designed, as noted, among other things, with an internal power supply -- not a 12-volt detachable wall wart which, also as noted, is all too easily misplaced or even lost. The phono motor in the one we are discussing may well be a cheap Pacific Rim import as well, with soft metal bearings that will wear out after just a few plays (it may be no wonder there is so much pitch distortion in this one), and the plastic turntable -- oh, please! Don't try to play expensive records on this thing unless you want to see them ruined in a hurry. It's bad enough the electronics are little better than a cheap transistor radio, but to put an uncovered hard plastic turntable in this ... I can't see it. However, you get what you pay for. This phono probably isn't worth much more than the $5 the OP originally paid for it, and it certainly isn't worth the price it probably sold for when it was new, three years ago.