Apartment Therapy Unplugged | Teenage Engineering's DIY Styrofoam Turntable

Teenage Engineering's DIY Styrofoam Turntable

Anthony posted about the continuing trend of the turntables returning back into home audio setups earlier today, something we're not surprised since audiophiles and music snobs alike agree that vinyl just sounds better. The tactile quality of putting that needle on the record ("...as the drum beat goes like this..."); that first scratchy audible scratchy"thoomp-scrrrr" before the music begins still ranks amongst our favourite sounds. The design team over at Teenage Engineering must share our affinity for the old tech, as they've produced this DIY concept turntable made mostly out of high density styrofoam, designed in the exact dimensions as that of a LP cover. Although the team over at Crave note the choice in material "sucks for sustainability" (not to mention durability), we could imagine the use of corn-based foam or recycled wood to improve the green factor of this DIY concept...

Teenage Engineering as it stands isn't looking to produce the turntable commercially, which begs the question of whether they'd consider offering it as a downloadable DIY plan with components listings. Why not make it a downloadable plan so others can experiment with materials beside high density foam (or perhaps with leftover foam from packaging). Here's what they list on their site for those of you who might want to piece something together yourself:

45 / 33 rpm, with finetuning knob
Built-in Speaker
Built in Amplifier
USB connection for transferring audio to computer
Effects Knob for Delay, Chorus etc.
Volume Knob
RCA output
3.5mm Headphone output

This might be something our DIY project guru Peter could muster up. Peter? Anyone? Hello...?

[via Crave]

Comments (3)

audiophiles and music snobs alike agree that vinyl just sounds better.

Huh? This audiophile thought vinyl was trash 30 years ago. It's still trash today.

Fortunately, there are now a slew of higher-fidelity alternatives, virtually all of which are cheaper and more convenient.

posted by sunspot42 on April 29th 2009 at 8:40pm
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Hey, I know some people who think lossless compression digital audio is the bee's knees. I'll take the warmth of an LP coming out of my vintage B&O system any day after comparing it to other modern mediums/formats. But sound preferences are subjective, so whatever pleases your ears is what matters. So no need to "trash" what others love!

posted by gregory on April 30th 2009 at 2:39pm
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>I'll take the warmth of an LP

If by "warmth" you mean "noise and distortion", hey, whatever floats yer boat. But that's not higher fidelity, which as an audiophile is what I value. The article made a statement which simply isn't true - audiophiles and "music snobs" most certainly do not agree that vinyl "sounds better".

For me, whatever "warmth" all that distortion inherent in the vinyl format imparts (and I'd dispute whether it could even be characterized as "warmth") is overwhelmed by the many truly annoying artifacts that come along with it, from screeching harmonic distortion (especially in the midrange), to wow and flutter, surface noise, rumble, clicks and pops, dynamic range compression, hum, tracking noise, phase misalignments and a host of other glaring sonic defects.

Which in vinyl's defense is just the kind of lousy performance you'd expect from a recording format invented over a hundred years ago.

I could never listen to more than a single album in a row at moderate volume or louder back in the day, even on the finest turntables, without getting a massive headache. Toward the end of its lifespan even the lowly cassette had handily surpassed vinyl fidelity (and thanks to the miracle of tape saturation, offered a measure of true warmth that vinyl - with all of its shrill artifacts - never approached).

If its warmth folks are after, get a decent tube amp and hook that up to a good CD or DVD player (Denon still makes standalone players that sound fine). That'll provide a much warmer sound than vinyl ever could, without its legion of drawbacks.