What We Like
- A very compact, portable, and lightweight design.
- Puts out a good amount of volume for its size.
- Vinyl to MP3 recording is a really useful feature to have.
What We Don't Like
- Not much in the way of bass response.
1byone may not have one of the best names you’ve come across, but it’s a name you can trust nonetheless. Inspired by a commitment to quality, affordable products, they operate across a diverse range of sectors, from lighting to medicine.
Design
The design ideals of this particular turntable would best be described as classic. 1byone has worked hard to make this turntable look as if it fell right out of the pages of a novel set in the golden era of vinyl, or has been unearthed in an attic alongside boxes of old records. This turntable is also surprisingly small, which is something the photos fail to capture through a lack of comparison. In fact, it’s the smallest turntable 1byone manufactures, and is barely larger than the vinyls it plays.
But for the shiny silver dials and buttons, the majority of the device is finished in a pleasant and unassuming matte black which while hardly eye-catching certainly looks the part. The front panel is home to almost 10 separate dials, switches, and inputs, and may look a little busy for those who prefer a more stripped back, relaxed aesthetic.
Features
This turntable comes with all of the features you’d expect of a device in this kind of price range. A headphone jack means you can plug in your own earphones and enjoy a solo listening experience rather than blaring the audio out for the whole room to hear. Perfect if your particular brand of nostalgia doesn’t quite align with a modern tastes or, in other words, if you’re a little embarrassed about your record collection.
A pitch dial is included which, as the name would imply, allows you to manage and control the record’s playback speed and pitch of the sound on the fly. You can also make use of a USB input to listen back to MP3s via the turntable’s internal speakers should the fancy take you.
The killer feature here, however, is one which 1byone has included to strongly differentiate this offering from the competition at this price point: vinyl to MP3 recording. If you’re worried about preserving that iconic, warm vinyl sound, then this may just be the turntable for you. Simply plug in a USB stick (of no more than 32GB, for some reason), spin up your record, and you’ll be able to record the performance straight to the disk. It’s a really useful feature to have, and means you can always count on having a second copy of your entire collection.
Performance
Audio quality through the internal speakers was sufficient, and had a bit more power and volume than we expected given the relatively compact size of the turntable itself. This was a nice plus, and meant that you didn’t have to worry too much about the placement of the device itself as even in the corner of the room it was able to fill the majority of the space to a satisfactory level. One criticism which is essentially true of all turntables at this price range, however, is that the bass response is noticeably lacking in punch and weight. This is primarily a factor of the size of the model itself, so it isn’t necessarily a criticism of its design.
USB playback worked seamlessly, which is not always the case with these kinds of features, and provided a nice option when we’d run out of vinyls to test. The headphone jack is well placed to allow for a comfortable listening experience. And the vinyl to MP3 recording system was extremely easy to use and just worked. All in all, a very satisfying performance.
The Rumble:
1byone have pulled out all the stops with this turntable and have managed to produce a device which is incredibly compact and portable but also packed to the brim with useful features. The sound quality is also pretty good.
