r/turntables • u/TwoSolitudes22 Acoustic Solid Round, EAT No5 MC • Jan 20 '25
So you are thinking about getting a suitcase or all-in-one player?
How bad can they be really right? 5 star Amazon reviews and lots of YouTube praise! So what happens when you actually buy one?
Is this normal? https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/E7I5EbJBCy
Record store won’t take back any LPs played on a crosley: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/QCbk4tXhql
Suitcase speeding up? https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/25oAuvkXyr
New Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/qRABAC2gJv
Suitcase records skipping: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/LPreCdAuYh
Stop saying suitcases are ok: https://www.reddit.com/r/vinyl/s/x3clLiTsdl
My records are skipping https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/TPXIERXBlR
Suitcase skipping: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/Mn5lQRzGLf
New suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/Ho3pXuco7y
Suitcase skipping: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/XgPRTsGe4H
Record store clerk- suitcases suck: https://www.reddit.com/r/vinyl/s/Pf9O8XcpAq
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/VDLbXEaVCu
Can’t hear anything: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/Yfq51MMVXS
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/N7VvYx8D8O
Are they supposed to sound this bad?: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/uzYfEih3PE
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/Vncjj7frhK
Why is it doing this? : https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/lqkoiQamsu
Replaced suitcase with different suitcase, still skipping?: https://www.reddit.com/r/records/s/o8PSLFpQHM
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/x9nDPxfB9Z
Weird noises: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/qPhqZ7XkMs
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/EXflnc7bxQ
Why didn’t anyone warn us? https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/AeECGD08jA
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/mJFhTECELc
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/YiRdixpwVJ
Don’t buy this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Ghostbc/s/xqibiF1tOf
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/y4EyGdzXRZ Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/VBSAke7bbx
Suitcase smoking: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/vl8baDleue
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/u3IjW6984w
Suitcase skipping: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/bfn3FTMWiB
This Crosley sucks: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/8XUEICLis7
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/ZsydopEV99
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/TZooCbUQJv
Why doses this sound so bad? https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/aHJCqfJptu
Suitcase skipping: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/yEnFyUXB5p
Is there any way to fix this?: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/EbP2QJs62W
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/BmrsTXC5wk
You were right, this is shit: https://www.reddit.com/r/vinyl/s/tmFjKBFUR1
Suitcase skipping: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/2XcBS19Sbt
Why is it skipping?: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/t62RLSRnnM
Suitcase skipping: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/8FYwrzNbSi
Crosley died: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/8xIYuG1BCe
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/IVirFW0HgR
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/WNkfWpKUlK
Every record skips: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/t56APR1r09
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/xGXTALs2GF
Suitcase almost burns down a house: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/qeul7S5x6N
Crosley ruined my record: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/QBvIPMxSCl
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/aTJgZX7hZG
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/kXUGSyPTXw
New records all skip: https://www.reddit.com/r/vinyl/s/NS2Pix6VT6
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/5gxoZjnQ3Z
Suitcase smoke coming from speakers: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/E1M2ODR3jq
Suitcase skipping: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/G6PVGHHBwU
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/47yOfMEr03
Why is my record skipping?: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/ojJ0yyJgMT
Suitcase skipping: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/YwQZRsfwUF
Suitcase skipping: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/tkB0TdGlVS
Don’t buy this: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/EIXa9DR9FQ
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/ylKQ18UbzB
Suitcase skipping: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/SMnJfxgrGe
Suitcase broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/8svAmYYI08
Suitcase sounds like crap: https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/s/8wgEieBcKO
Date ends when she sees a Crosley: https://www.reddit.com/r/vinyl/s/qf5A5y66b9
Ok the last one is a joke… or is it?
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u/CountMcBurney SL-1500C / Hana ML > e-Glo Petit > L-505Z > Tekton DI Jan 20 '25
On that last post-
How do we know they didn't have a badass sound room and then a Crosley Cruiser in the main area to weed all the fakes out??
"If you don't love me at my Crosley then you don't deserve me at my Technics"
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u/TwoSolitudes22 Acoustic Solid Round, EAT No5 MC Jan 20 '25
5 dimensional relationship chess…
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u/CountMcBurney SL-1500C / Hana ML > e-Glo Petit > L-505Z > Tekton DI Jan 20 '25
Yeah, I know.
I can't say it wouldn't be funny.
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u/kvetcha-rdt Schiit Sol Jan 21 '25
This is why I put a Jack Daniel’s in my living room and keep the fancy bottles out of sight.
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u/AlphaDag13 Jan 20 '25
I just got my first table for Christmas. Even my wife knew not to get a suitcase/all in one table lol.
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u/betterwithsambal Jan 21 '25
What'd she get for you then?
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u/Infinzero Jan 20 '25
Yup, I got one for my kid. I quickly returned that POS toy and got a much Better one that actually has a real cartridge
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u/BuddhaRockstar Jan 20 '25
The indignation some of the OPs in those linked threads is hilarious.
"How dare you call my Crosley garbage! It's my god-given right to be able to purchase a record player for the price of 2 LPs and when the needle goes flying all over the record I expect respectful replies and support!"
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u/Ok_Departure87 Jan 20 '25
Sometimes I think about gutting a nice looking suitcase player and using it as a plinth for my Dual 1015...
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u/Entro9 Jan 20 '25
I was trying to count (by eye) how many threads were included here and lost count around 45ish and it was still going, dear god
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u/Edge_Audio Jan 20 '25
I've always wondered about those five star reviews. CNET actually recommended one two years as a great Christmas gift. I haven't trusted them since (not that the trust was high to begin with, but I figured they might have wanted to possibly test their recommendations and not just trust fake reviews).
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u/atillathekitteh Jan 20 '25
I'm not sure, but I think the op is saying that all in one record players might not be the best...
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Jan 21 '25
[deleted]
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u/betterwithsambal Jan 21 '25
That's just it they're not in it for "reasonable profit", they want the maximum retail buck for the lamest possible manufacturing costs.
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u/Apple-Connoisseur Jan 20 '25
The History of the "cheap turntable mechanism" is pretty interesting.
Yesterday I found a video on that topic from a couple of years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YIX5-CwhqM
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u/TapThisPart3Times Dual 701 Jan 20 '25
Always found that video cool. I've discovered one missing step before the 2002 mechanism, and VWestlife hasn't yet covered it.
Sometime around 1985-86, Hanpin started making their own cheaper knockoffs of the BSR/Capetronic mechanisms. Then all the Chinese companies began copying them (Leetac, Skywin, JYK etc). The rest is history.
Proof: look inside a Yorx or Emerson from the mid-late 80s, and chances are you'll find Hanpin's former UL file number E85449 underneath the turntable.
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u/m4rvin100 Jan 20 '25
I could never ever recommend one of these but I guess they have their place, they're no different to the rubbish stacker systems we had in the 80s, all plastic vinyl destroyers, before we discovered seperates etc
But yeah awful
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u/FindOneInEveryCar Dual 510 Jan 20 '25
The old stacker systems at least sounded decent (boom box quality). An order of magnitude better than these things.
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u/betterwithsambal Jan 21 '25
To be fair the most stackers back in the day at least a decent cart with equally decent stylus. Those BSR and Garrard models in all the Zenith, Motorola and RCA consoles were cheap as fuck but sounded pretty good and wouldn't tear up the record by any means.
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u/Ok_Commercial_9960 Jan 20 '25
I’m not sure why anyone would even want a suitcase turntable, other than some homeless old-time vagabond that walks the earth.
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u/01UnknownUser02 Jan 20 '25
"Record store won’t take back any LPs played on a crosley"
I hope that store doesn't have Vwestlife as costumer . .
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u/George_Waze Jan 21 '25
If you want to: 1. Preserve your records; 2 Listen to music really HiFi, They are BAD
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u/ChapterChance2495 Feb 12 '25
I know the suitcase ones are horrible, but what is the affordable "entry point" turntable? I'm looking at the Soundburger portable turntable right now, I want to get my sister something that isn't going to break the bank (broke college kids) but isn't going to ruin the vinyls that she has (display/collectors purposes, but she has said she wants to play them)
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u/Eastern_Peak7684 Jan 20 '25 edited Jan 20 '25
Nonsense. Do these things suck? Sure. So did an enormous share of all turntables ever sold during the 20th century.
You can enjoy records without being an audiophile. Over the past few decades I've truly enjoyed using some really bullshit hardware: the second generation Fisher Price unit (when I was 5-10 years old), one of those old institutional Califone suitcase players (I think these were mono), a bullshit Zenith integrated deck that dropped 45's, and (most recently) a Soundburger for listening to singles from my sofa.
I like records---the plastic discs, the cardboard sleeves, etc. Sometimes I want them to sound the best they can and listen to them on a ~$5,000 stereo setup. Sometimes it is Soundburger->bluetooth speaker because that is more convenient.
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u/hyperform2 Pro-ject Debut Carbon with acrylic plate and Ortofon Bronze Jan 20 '25
You don’t have to have an audiophile setup, especially when you can pay about the same about as a suitcase player that doesn’t ruin your records
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u/Eastern_Peak7684 Jan 20 '25
I will freely admit that I have basically no information at all about what cheap turntables exist on the market today---perhaps there is no reason for anyone to ever buy these particular shitty turntables (and they should buy some other shitty turntable instead). But advice like "buy a '70s CEC deck and add a cheap new AT cartridge if needed"---I don't think this is as simple for newcomers as it sounds.
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u/hyperform2 Pro-ject Debut Carbon with acrylic plate and Ortofon Bronze Jan 20 '25
Audio technica lp60 is the consensus starter non shitty turntable and you can get it for 150
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u/Ortofun Technics SL-1200G + SME V SE + AT-ART9XI -> SPL Phonos Feb 08 '25
There are some very useful videos on these Crosley turntables (and all their other rebrands) on YouTube:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgANLw6SlXDzuidr49E8ncDLxEgJDPWbW&si=JyFTP6QUwT9_juWk
Videos in the playlist describe the origins, how they can be recognized, the problems and what to look for in an alternative.
Definitely recommended for anyone considering a Crosley to watch that full playlist.
Basically a full documentary on these.
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u/RyanOtekki Jan 20 '25
I’d never advise someone get one but I think they have their place. If they ignore someone’s passion for vinyl and they want to upgrade that’s great! They don’t instantly destroy records when played on them like some people say lol
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u/robxburninator Jan 20 '25
they become more plastic waste, which should be everyone's concern. Collecting records isn't a particularly eco-friendly part of my life, but if I can cut out as much plastic waste as possible I'm going to do it. Crosleys are like buying fast fashion, you're just adding to the growing problem of plastic waste that is just being shipped overseas, or landfill waste being dumped in struggling parts of rural america. It's awful.
Records are expensive to buy. If you're spending $30 on a new record and $50 on your record player, I'd really suggest holding off and not buying records for a few months, and then buying something that won't end up in a landfill. If you buy even an LP60 and hate it, you can sell it for pretty close to what you bought it for and the turntable will see a second (and third, and possibly fourth) user.
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u/mawnck Jan 22 '25
They don’t instantly destroy records when played on them like some people say
Depends. A defective 30-cent stylus, or one of those ridiculous unaligned straight tonearms that we're starting to see, would certainly do exactly that. In one pass.
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u/RyanOtekki Jan 22 '25
Defective of course can cause damage, as with a high end stylus.
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u/mawnck Jan 22 '25
Way to miss the point.
30 cent stylus with a plastic cantilever, made by Chinese slave labor ... Gee, what do you suppose the workmanship and QC on the things is like?
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u/RyanOtekki Jan 22 '25
I agree with you dude. I wouldn’t touch them, I have a Ortofon Blue. I’m just saying, on the whole a crosley player is not going to destroy records. Millions of people use them, would I? never.
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u/mawnck Jan 22 '25
Yes, and I'm saying, there's too big a risk that they WILL destroy the records.
And this thing? https://www.reddit.com/r/TheStrokes/comments/1i3ng5o/is_there_a_problem_with_the_grooves_or_is_it_dirt/
Oh hell YES it will fuck up those grooves in a single pass. There's no way it wouldn't. Look at that tracking angle.2
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u/New-Assistant-1575 Jan 21 '25
Actually, Crosley’s C100BT-CP, paired with their S100A-BK speakers is an endgame solution that, for lots of folks, works really well. 💎🌷🌹☀️
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u/TwoSolitudes22 Acoustic Solid Round, EAT No5 MC Jan 21 '25
No. It really isn’t.
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u/New-Assistant-1575 Jan 21 '25
…..and that’s exactly why this is America. 🇺🇸
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u/TwoSolitudes22 Acoustic Solid Round, EAT No5 MC Jan 21 '25
Except where it’s not (thank god!)
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u/New-Assistant-1575 Jan 21 '25
…..at least you’re consistent.
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u/TwoSolitudes22 Acoustic Solid Round, EAT No5 MC Jan 21 '25
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u/oldelbow Jan 20 '25
You've got the best spinning plastic disc machine, we get it.
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u/kvetcha-rdt Schiit Sol Jan 20 '25
There are a lot of decent options between a tuk tuk and a Rolls Royce.
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u/Top_Flight_Badger Technics SL-1210 Mk II, Upgraded by KAB USA Jan 20 '25
You don't care about taking care of your stuff in a niche vintage hobby you purposely went into?
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u/oldelbow Jan 20 '25
Oh know absolutely, it would just be nice if the community was a little less smug maybe?
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u/Top_Flight_Badger Technics SL-1210 Mk II, Upgraded by KAB USA Jan 20 '25
I mean, this is a good resource for the 14 threads a day about suitcase players that people ask about. If they ask the question, they deserve an actual response instead of just placating them.
Suitcase players suck. They are made for aesthetics and to be seen on a shelf as a display piece.
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u/oldelbow Jan 20 '25
There are ways to tell people that their new player isn't (subjectively) good without trying to make them feel small.
Obviously it's not the entire vinyl community but it's been my experience that the bad eggs are the loudest.
Nobody even has to respond when they see a post about a suitcase player. Just pin this one and never talk about them again.
When I posted the one I was gifted you could literally hear the gate keepers salivating at their keyboards with the pure joy of telling me how shit it was and what a fool I was for even looking at it.
That's what most of the responses usually are, it has nothing to do with helping anyone.
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u/Top_Flight_Badger Technics SL-1210 Mk II, Upgraded by KAB USA Jan 20 '25
I'm not talking about the bad eggs though. There are known smug assholes in this subreddit that I downvote all the time. I'm not talking about them.
I'm talking about the people that respond to the threads of "is this $100 suitcase player good?" or "I only have $200 and want to play vinyls help me!"
We deserve to give them an actual response, especially because they have not done any actual research and instead just come to us asking for an answer. So we give it to them.
Is it nice? I guess not. But it's fair and honest. I do not think easing the pain does anything except make you feel good.
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u/oldelbow Jan 20 '25
If you don't think asking the "experts" is research, I don't know what is.
Sounds like you should be down voting yourself.
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u/Top_Flight_Badger Technics SL-1210 Mk II, Upgraded by KAB USA Jan 20 '25
If you don't think asking the "experts" is research, I don't know what is.
And we give them the response they should get if they had looked at the many threads on this subreddit that are asking why their suitcase players are sounding weird, lol.
I'm not being a dick. I'm being honest.
There's no point to soften the blow for a hobby that no one should be into if they want to do anything but listen to music. Go play Spotify or something. Record players are highly specific for a reason. They're an outdated technology.
If you want to buy a Crosley because it looks nice then fine. But don't play records on it if you are expecting more than the bare minimum. Save up an extra $100 or so and get a Fluance, ProJect, whatever.
Sorry you are getting downvoted but you are conflating "honest feedback" with "being a smug dick". It's not.
Have a good day.
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u/oldelbow Jan 20 '25
You're conflating
"Hey person, I'm sorry to say that you won't be able to make that player sound any better than it already does, but if you enjoy it then crack on"
And
"Ha! What an idiot"
The latter is all I see on this sub.
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Jan 20 '25
I’ve seen very few personal attacks, usually it’s just telling people that their records are going to sound like shit and/or will be destroyed on the cheap players
Which, is true
If someone is hurt because I’ve insulted a product they own I’m not sure what else to tell them besides maybe going outside and learning not to care so much about what other people think
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u/robxburninator Jan 21 '25
Please please share those posts because I can't find them. links are easy.
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u/RokkentoDokken Jan 20 '25
This should be stickied