The DIY record player
In this video I'm assembling a Spinbox - another of my unwise late-night Kickstarter purchases. On paper it seemed right up my alley, a self-assembly kit and a record player, both things I usually enjoy, however...
Assembling & Testing a Spinbox - The DIY Cardboard Box Record Player (YouTube)
Comments (47)
Another great video, thank you. You mentioned a week or two ago that some people didn't like the outro with the Patreons' names. I love it and would like to see a version without the names.
That’s something that I can do very easily. I’ll upload one when I next get a few minutes.
A lot of money to pay for a piece of shit!
Overpriced and disappointing seems to be the consensus on the product, but a great video as always! Like you, Mat, I would have loved to see how the turntable components fit together, so it is frustrating that major sub-component came fully assembled. Sometimes, a cheap device is better than no device, but in this case, as you pointed out, there are some very reasonable (and fully assembled) turntables at similar price points already avaiable, so it is hard to see who this is aimed at. If it was around £30-£50 I could see it being of interest to students and the like, but even a Crosley would be better than this as the cases are more robust. I just did a quick Google, and one could easily be obtained for less than £50.
It really has no redeeming features at all - or at least I'm struggling to think of one .
Funny how many of the truly carp projects involve playing vinyl! As soon as I saw the shipping box being used as an integral part of its construction, you know the rest isn’t going to be a journey of welcome discovery! Well done for not losing heart - I’d have gone out for a pint long before the rubber feed were put on.....
I did have plans to set it on fire at the end - but so many people get upset when they see destruction of objects I decided it probably wasn't worth it.
I long ago came to the conclusion that Kickstarter was mostly a marketing scam
I think the intentions of the platform were sound, but it turns out that anyone who just turns up with a good idea experiences extreme difficulties when they have to devliver that at scale and has never run a company. Then at the other end you just get the companies fishing for pre-orders on something they’ve already got ready. When it’s at its best it’s a simple idea, like someone wanting to program a computer game for a C64, but they need some advance money to live off while they take six months off work to make it happen.
Mat: We read of a massive snowstorm and subzero cold headed your way. Prayers and good wishes for your safety!
I think that’s just the news looking for something to talk about. There’s a bit of snow where I am, perhaps enough to make a sub-dtandard snowman in my back garden. Thanks for the kind words though, I’ll be staying in working on the next videos.
At 7:00 I wonder if the instructions for the springs are backwards. For "anti-shock floatation" they probably should be facing the other way, and supporting the plastic chassis above the cardboard. As shown, they appear to have no purpose.
I’d agree, I would have expected them to put them on the top of the box and then thread the plastic legs through them and down into the holes in the box. However since they are held in place by large flat headed screw, they really could only go on last.
A cardboard record player from China. What could possibly go wrong? :) Good job on the video, though. You could film yourself filling in tax returns and still make it entertaining.
He indeed did a video about a printer!! And it was really good.
I always find it interesting the odd things that pop up on Kickstarter that get funded... I have to throw you some respect Matt for doing a good job on this video, build videos are always a lot of work, and I could imagine once you opened it and cringed
well, i feel bad being one of the folk that brought this to your attention, but it did make for an interesting video. I doubt you'll get enough revenue from this to cover the cost, sadly. but we love you for it!
With a bit of luck and a strong tailwind it could break even. You win some, you lose some...it’s all part of the game, it’s not a problem.
Reminds me a lot of 15-year old me. I would make record players out of FischerTechnik: with a model train transformer and a motor that had the exact right set of gears I could make it run at just about 45rpm. I also made several projects out of cardboard boxes where I'd just cut out the holes and I'd run into the same problems with stability as you did in the video. And I had a couple of records that I'd gotten as gifts from neighbors with names such as "Dixieland a-go-go" or something, that nobody would have minded me playing with a nail taped to a plastic cup.
How the hell is there a thumbs down on a patreon exclusive? That's one commited troll.
That is a bit odd.
It was worth the pain, Mat. Interesting as always. Let's face it, you do this sort of thing so we don't have to. Such is the way of art! :-)
Wow.. That's terrible. I might pay $25 for something like that as a fun project. But you're right, no way it is worth the price you had to pay to get one.
Ill-advised Kickstarter purchases always make for some entertaining content. What a terrible piece of overpriced tat. I think I have seen several sub-$50 Chinese turntables that were using that exact same mechanism. Hopefully you'll make ROI on the video after suffering through that nonsense. The actual tracking force is probably a bit lower than what you have measured though, because your scales sit higher than the surface of the record, putting more tension on the balancing spring than it would normally.
Absolutely shocking. What a bag of spanner’s utter shite. Send to big Clive for destructive testing.
Reminded me of James May (who you don't sound like, Mat) reassembling a Dansette: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nMHhLidGVU" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nMHhLidGVU</a>
I wish I had three camera people and a sound guy following me around when I did these - it would be a lot easier to get the shot while also assembling at the same time - it's much harder doing this while reaching over a tripod.
Fun video although it sounds like you were tortured to make it. Sorry for that. One production issue that I found annoying: your autofocus mechanism was constantly pulling in and out of focus. Given the shallow depth of your studio, can't you just manually fix the focus on the assembly bench? Perhaps your lens to too shallow to allow this, but I must say that the constant blur-focus-blur-focus was tiring on my eyes.
Sorry about that - I can lock focus off, but whenever I do, I end up moving something and forgetting it's locked then I only notice in editing that the footage I shot is all out of focus. I've deleted videos in the past because of that because whole sections were unusable - so this is as good as it gets right now. It's not ideal, but it's the best I can do.
A fun way to use up an hour or two, but not much to show at the end of it. I used to date girls like that :)
If Florida, if exposed to the humidity, this box would be obliterated. Apparently the average climate controlled suburban home has lower humidity than the Valley of the Kings.
Once again, Techmoan suffers for his art.
Absolutely. I actually felt quite bad for him as I watched, because he was clearly in pain having to do this one. These should at least be fun, I think. Sorry you had to suffer, Mat.
Wow that looks so cheap - although fully assembled in your studio lighting it actually looks pretty stylish. I'm sure you've answered this before, but if one was interested in dipping his toes into the vinyl world and wanted a decent all-in-one record player (with speaker / amp) for under $200 is there one you could recommend?
Hi Joon, I'm no expert, but "build-in speakers" for a record player would be a bad idea in almost any case. Therefore companies that know what they are doing, might avoid it. So I'm afraid there would not be a All-in-one record player out there that would be considered 'good' or 'recommendable' as far as audio-quality goes. But what is considered 'good' by someone might depend on other factors. Like a 'fun-factor', 'style-factor' or 'hipster-factor'. There is a nice comparison to be found here: <a href="http://www.techsounded.com/best-portable-record-players/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.techsounded.com/best-portable-record-players/</a> Hope it helps !
I just looked it up...paying full retail for an 11' Turntable Deck Mechanism would set you back between $25 and $30 American dollars. Add a cheap amp and 2 small speakers...maybe $5 to $10. So, the rest is cardboard. My guess is that they are paying FAR less for the components. Ugh...
It's clearly made of Chinesium, I wonder how it compares to something like <a href="https://www.aliexpress.com/item/LoopTone-33-45-78-Speed-USB-Turntable-Players-Vinyl-LP-Record-Player-w-FM-Radio-Earphone/32806482657.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.aliexpress.com/item/LoopTone-33-45-78-Speed-USB-Turntable-Players-Vinyl-LP-Record-Player-w-FM-Radio-Earphone/32806482657.html</a>
Spinbox: The Cardboard Crosley. For a few quid more, the designers could have specified masonite for the base and top deck - a thin manufactured wood panel product. It can be die-cut the same as cardboard, but is considerably more resistant to tearing and crumpling (being wood .... ) Regardless of stylus, that cartridge is likely ceramic, which delivers a high output voltage suitable for a crappy preamp, but requires heavy tracking forces. And let's not even discuss anti-skating! A fascinating video, Matt - thank you.
They've got the nerve to tell you to go to google and ask for more donations on the board!
Always good to have a new packet of silica gel for the collection! There might be a cheaper way to get it, though ;)
Bah!, you can't even browse their website without signing up for an account.
I made the mistake of doing that and there’s nothing there...it says something like ‘thanks’ and you can register your turntable but that’s about it. There’s nothing to look at.
I wouldn’t be shocked if Crosley was the company that filed the copyright strike against Kickstarter for that turntable.
I know this cheap mechanism, it's the one that's used in the ION players and many other cheap ones I suppose. The stylus seems to be the diamond one though, the sapphire one has a red needle holder (that's how I call that thing). the diamond one is metal. Not that it matters that much...
Thanks for that tip...I didn’t know how to identify them...so that’s very useful info.
Yeah, great video...but such a cheap product. It was designed not to be educational, just fun? Well, you can't spell fun without FU...and that's what they 're doing to their customers!
I'd be so disappointed if I'd bought this. It's a nice idea maybe for a child who might like building things, or one of those Urban Outfitters "retro" impulse buys. The cost is just too high given the quality.