Morning STW,

After some advice for a new set up for playing vinyl. After selling most of it a few years ago, like everyone else now, I want to repurchase it.

I have been bought this: https://www.clasohlson.com/uk/Ion-Air-LP-Bluetooth-Record-Player/18-8484

and ideally would like a nice small set of speakers and assume an amp is required to go with it. What would be great would be an amp which had several inputs so I could also plug my phone in etc.

I have no idea what I’m doing. Budget is not high, so cheap but functional is all I’m after.

wrong forum, mods please move!

Given it’s Blutetooth and has no Phono output the best solution might be an integrated bluetooth amp/speaker combo?

I believe it does have an audio output, the red and white inputs?

sorry, you’re right the RCA ones too.

Richer Sounds always used to be a good source of cheap, good audio equipment.

A mate of mine after downsizing plugged his turntables into some active speakers – they were Mission – surprisingly good sounds – looks like Tesco do them for £130

and ideally would like a nice small set of speakers and assume an amp is required to go with it.

you can just pair it with Bluetooth speaker or speakers which doesn’t need an amp, or use the RC jack’s to plug into a hifi amp if you wish.

This really depends on how much you want to spend and is very open ended.

For what its worth.. You really should have separate turntable, amp and speakers. You can get integrated versions of all of these but i wouldn’t bother. Most amps have multiple inputs and an connector from the back to a 3.5mm jack for your phone is abut £3.

As has already been said, the best place to go is a local hifi store or Richer Sounds. Explain your budget and see what they have.

I have a turntable plugged into a pre-amp which is then plugged into the rca sockets on a ruark R2. But if yours has bluetooth you could just connect to a bluetooth speaker as mentioned above.

Budget is not high, so cheap but functional is all I’m after.

So yes, Bluetooth speaker(s), no idea what the quality of sound will be like tho. What’s your budget?

If you are transmitting via bluetooth you are converting analogue vinyl to a digital signal to play it, so why bother with vinyl at all and just put a CD on?

If you are transmitting via bluetooth you are converting analogue vinyl to a digital signal to play it, so why bother with vinyl at all and just put a CD on?

very good point. I’m not after bluetooth likely anyway, as the sound quality for the price just won’t be there compared to non-bluetooth.

My thoughts were tunrtable, into amp, into speakers. Amp having several inputs and the ability to select which input is used.

Budget ideally below £150. may pop into richer sounds, thanks for the advice.

Speakers likely bookcase type.

You should be able to get all that from Richers, and usually with some solid advice.

as above, with upto £150 to spend you’ll be much better off for sound with amp and speakers.

Northern tom. Your on right track but you may struggle getting it all under £150. My stepson got a reasonable technics set up on ebay recently. But as vinyl is back the prices are rising by quite a bit.

Haven’t checked the details of this turntable, but worth bearing in mind that the audio out from most turntables isn’t at line level, so may need an additional preamp stage. Most hifi amps used to have the additional preamp stage built in and a dedicated “phono” input with an earth strap, but plenty of amps came without when turntables fell out of favour. Not sure whether this is getting reintroduced these days…

That said, given that this has a bunch of electronics built in to handle bluetooth and whatnot, it may already be outputting at line level, so this may be a non-issue. Worth checking tho.

If you are transmitting via bluetooth you are converting analogue vinyl to a digital signal to play it, so why bother with vinyl at all and just put a CD on?

my gut feeling was that it might be a converted signal anyway for the reason as per Hopkinsgm . Don’t know tho.

Most hifi amps used to have the additional preamp stage built in and a dedicated “phono” input with an earth strap

Apart from the obvious what’s the earth strap for, I’ve never connected the one on my pre-amp.

Gary_M – Member
Most hifi amps used to have the additional preamp stage built in and a dedicated “phono” input with an earth strap
Apart from the obvious what’s the earth strap for, I’ve never connected the one on my pre-amp.

IIRC, it’s because you’re dragging a synthetic crystal along a groove in a piece of vinyl, think of rubbing a balloon on your sweater…

If you are transmitting via bluetooth you are converting analogue vinyl to a digital signal to play it, so why bother with vinyl at all and just put a CD on?

Digitising the analogue signal won’t make it sound like CD. It will still sound like a record with all the advantages and disadvantages that people like to apply to the source.

I got a Project Debut 2 turntable for £40, amazing condition, a technics amp with remote and phono input for £47, some small Gale speakers off Freecycle and a Sony CD for nothing. All in £87 and the guy who sold me the turntable also gave me a load of vinyl and about 100 CD’s for free!

Digitising the analogue signal won’t make it sound like CD. It will still sound like a record with all the advantages and disadvantages that people like to apply to the source.

mostly disadvantages…

All this clamouring to get these cheap record decks seems like a real step backwards – before record decks went out of fashion is pretty well recognised that you needed a significant investment in a record deck to get decent performance, whereas even a cheap CD player offered better performance – and CD players are better nowadays than they were.

TG – the popularity of CD’s came at the same time as when vinyl pressings were starting to get worse and worse. So the difference was much bigger than it should be. Not saying that CD wasn’t better in many ways but vinyl is easier to sound good when the source material is as it should be.

Ah but “sound good” is subjective.

TG – the popularity of CD’s came at the same time as when vinyl pressings were starting to get worse and worse.

vinyl pressings were pretty poor from before the advent of CD.

but vinyl is easier to sound good when the source material is as it should be.

really cannot see that – £100 would get you a pretty decent CD player nowadays – or a pretty poor record deck.

then you have all the other deficiencies of a record, like noise, compression, limited bandwidth, distortion, wow and flutter in the record deck, it just goes on.

I have a decent deck myself so I have some experience 🙂

£150 will get you a Cambridge Audio amp and a few different speaker choices from Richer sounds no problem.

I bought an A1 from there about 13 years ago and its been a workhorse. My last set of speakers were 25 quid and they’re not half bad at all. Will be upgrading those to Klipsch at some point, but they’ve lasted well for 10 years.

If you got given the turntable, then I’m sure you don’t want to go daft with super expensive nonsense you don’t need. Report back when you get something

You can replicate the sound of vinyl fairly readily by playing a CD whilst frying chips.

I can see a simpsons style lynching crowd composed of STW vinylphiles at this rate Cougar.

£150 will get you a Cambridge Audio amp and a few different speaker choices from Richer sounds no problem.

I think the problem is that my aspirations are a lot higher than that 🙂

calling records ‘vinyls’ just about sums it all up really, and the next step is to litter facebook with posts showing an album cover by your set up with ‘now spinning’ typed in the content.

records are lovely on decent kit, but really digital and cd are better with cheap stuff.

if you want to play records and have a ‘budget’ buy used, far better value and quality.

calling records ‘vinyls’ just about sums it all up really, and the next step is to litter facebook with posts showing an album cover by your set up with ‘now spinning’ typed in the content.

records are lovely on decent kit, but really digital and cd are better with cheap stuff.

Apologies for not using your terminology, I also don’t use facebook but feel free to try and find me. I am not knowledgeable in this area, hence requesting advice, so your input is really appreciated.

Everyone else that has actually been constructive, thanks for your help. I will head to Richer sounds on saturday to see what’s best.

@gavtheoldskater – don’t worry, i may add a ‘now spinning’ photo onto here once my vinyl (record) set up is working.

I will head to Richer sounds on saturday to see what’s best.

You should be able to get all that from Richers, and usually with some solid advice.

I think ‘usually’ is the wrong word here, a better one might be unusually…

A Cambridge Audio amp might be a decent shout but if going 2nd hand you could look for an old NAD 3020 amp.

They were ubiquitous back in the day and they have a really good knack of making things sound good. And they have a phono stage in case you wanted a better record deck later.

Something like a Dual 505 was a popular choice for a fuss free turntable of about the same standard as the amp.

You can pick up a bluetooth adapter from Amazon (from Neet) which would let you stream that deck to it, or your phone.

Keeping on the age theme Mission 70s used to be a very popular choice of speaker with amps like that, and should be cheap second hand.