Record Player Reviews

Welcome to Mushelix, the turntable reviews website

Hello my fellow vinyl lover. I’m glad you found our website and I think you’ll be glad too because we are going to make your turntable research a lot easier and your shopping experience a much better one.

My name is Francisco and I’m here to help you find the right record player for you. I know how much time it takes to research a product on the interment, reading tons of reviews and user guides, asking questions in forums and reading through blogs. I’ve been there, I have some vinyl albums that did not make it to the digital era. I needed a turntable to transfer my favorite vinyl albums to my computer. I had to research turntables and took me a while to decide the right one for me. I want to share my experience with you. That is why I created this website, so that you don’t have to go through all that hassle.

In this article I’ll explain how we write our reviews, what criteria we follow and the sources of information we use. If you need more detailed information, you can consult our turntable buying guide.

Why buy a turntable?

There are many reasons why you may want to buy a turntable:

• Maybe you are a music collector and want to listen to one of you favorite old vinyl records.
• You may be looking for a way to rip and digitize that rare album that you can’t fin on CD or MP3.
• Maybe you are nostalgic about the old fashion way of listening to music and you want to live that experience again.
• You are intrigued by your audiophile friend’s claims that vinyl records sound better than CDs and you want to perform your own listening test. Your friend also told you that vinyl mixes are far better than the modern digital ones. Is it true? Go ahead and judge for yourself.
• You were born in the digital era, have never listened to an LP before and you simply want to have your first vinyl experience.
• You are one super awesome DJ that still spins real vinyl records.
• Who knows, maybe you found your dad’s vinyl collection in the basement and you want to know how those LPs sound like.

The truth is that vinyl records are reemerging, and turntable sales are in the rise. Artists are releasing new albums in LP format. Would vinyl become a new trend? In any case, we are here to help you choose the right record player for you. Researching a product online can consume much of your valuable time. We’ll do all that hard work so you wont have to spend endless hours hopping from one site to another looking for information and reading boring user guides full of technical stuff.

How we put together our detailed reviews?

All the products we review are well researched. We read through the user manuals in their entirety. We also read and compile tons of user reviews on the web and present them to you in a detailed, clear and friendly way. We also provide you with a nice table that helps you easily compare the different prices and features.

The prices for a turntable range from around $50 to approximately $5000 and more. Thus, it is very important to choose the right product to avoid unnecessarily expenses. For example, I wouldn’t suggest you buy a $600 turntable if you just want to listen to your music without bothering with calibration, tonearm balance, speed adjustment and other advanced features. Neither would I suggest to buy a $50 player if you are an audiophile that cares a lot about high fidelity sound. We are committed to give you the best advice possible to choose the phonograph that better suits your particular needs.

Our review criteria

Price

As stated earlier, turntable prices range from about $50 to thousands of dollars. The low budget players are below $100. Some call them “plug-and-play”. These turntables are usually ready to use but the sound quality is not great. Most of the ones from $100 to $300 are also ready to play and with better sound quality, few of them have features of more advanced turntables and can be adjusted. From $300 to $500 you can find great players with good sound quality. They are adjustable and can generally be upgraded. These are great if you are a beginner audiophile. Above $500 you can find awesome super high quality record players with great precision and performance. Of curse you need to know how to adjust them properly to get the most out of these gems. These come in many different and absolutely beautiful designs.

Sound quality

The sound quality produced by a record player depends on many different factors. You may have a high end turntable, but if you don’t adjust it properly, the sound quality may not be as good, and you may damage your vinyl albums and stylus. The sound quality really depends on the quality of the hardware of each particular unit. The cartridge is very important, so is the the speed accuracy and performance of the motor, the quality of the pre-amp and even the material and shape of the tonearm. The good thing is that must turntables above $300 can be upgraded, thus improving their sound quality.

Features

There are many features that you may consider when buying a record player. You don’t want to buy something that has features that you don’t need. Neither do you want to choose something that doesn’t have all the features you’re looking for. We take this into account when writing our reviews. I list some of the questions you may ask yourself when buying a turntable:

• Does the unit come with USB connection?
• Is it automatic or manual?
• Does it have a pre-amp?
• Is it upgradable?
• What type of cartridge and stylus does it come with?
• Is it belt-drive or direct drive?
• What RPM speeds does it support?
• Does it have adjustable speed?
• Is it adjustable? (vertical tracking angle, counterweights, antiskating)
• What cartridges does it support?

Closing remarks

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you got a good idea of the type and quality of our reviews. We look forward to helping you find what you are looking for. Feel free to leave a comment or send a review request through our contact form. We love hearing from our readers. If you need more information, feel free to consult our buying guide. Have a great listening!