Is the Newmark PT-01USB a decent turntable?

[butterknucket]

I know absolutely nothing about turntables, but I want something decent which I can connect to my stereo, as well as transfer vinyl to my iPod. Does anyone here have experience with Newmark turntables? Are there other brands I should consider?

[6ftabovsealevel]

It depends on what you already have and how much money you're willing to part with, but I don't think I'd want to set about digitizing my vinyl collection with that thing.

 

Numark is not one of the better quality brands out there whether you're talking about just dj equipment or the turntable market as a whole, so that's a red flag for me right off the bat. It has all sorts of toys on it for a cheap price which means that it probably doesn't perform any of its functions particularly well. It's also built to be portable so it's lighter, and that's usually not a good thing for turntables. But it does have things that normal turntables don't which are needed to do what you're talking about.

-USB output from a built-in converter to change the analog signal to digital.

-Built in phono preamp to boost analog output to line level and allow you to plug it into any stereo input you have. (At least it looks like it has this)

 

Those are handy, but if you dont need them in one all inclusive, portable box there may be better ways to accomplish the same thing, and you may already have them.

 

If you have a stereo receiver with a phono input, it means you already have a phono preamp that is probably just as good if not better than the one in that turntable. Likewise, if you have a decent sound card on your computer you've probably already got a pretty good digital/analog converter that you could plug your stereo into. This would make it possible to just spend the money on a higher quality turntable and some recording software that you get to choose instead of just dealing with what comes in the box.

 

How good the final digital product is depends on the quality of the original analog signal, how well it is converted to digital, and the rate at which your software can capture that digital information. If you want decent quality sound out of those recordings I'd expore other ways to do it, as expecting one cheap box to do all those things expertly isn't very realistic. If your receiver has the phono input that's big, and let us know what you've got on your computer already so we can give you more suggestions.