My father collected records for most of his adult life. Not casually, seriously: he had about four hundred albums, organised by genre and then alphabetically within each genre, stored in wooden crates that he had built himself in the garage. Jazz, soul, some classical, a significant amount of sixties and seventies rock. He knew every record in the collection and could tell you when he had bought it, where, and what he had been doing at the time.
He passed away seven years ago. I inherited the collection. I also inherited the problem of having four hundred records and no way to play them, because my father's turntable was old enough that it needed a replacement stylus I could not source, and I had been meaning to sort it out for seven years without quite getting around to it.
My name is Sandra Leigh. I am a fifty-four-year-old librarian from Coventry, and the records had been in boxes in my spare room for seven years. Not neglected exactly, I knew they were there and I thought about them often, but inaccessible in a way that felt increasingly wrong the longer it went on.
The Decision
It was my father's birthday in March, which I always find a difficult day, that finally pushed me. I sat in the spare room looking at the boxes and decided that keeping four hundred records in boxes was not honouring them. I needed a turntable.
I had not owned a turntable before. I wanted something that would play the records properly, that had built-in speakers so I did not need to buy a separate amplifier and speaker system, and that looked good in my living room. The white finish was important: my living room has white and light wood tones and I did not want a black turntable dominating the space.
I found the Vintage Vinyl Record Player Bluetooth Turntable in White at ALTOE. The spec was exactly right. Built-in stereo speakers with an independent woofer for richer sound. Belt-driven system with a tonearm lifter to minimise vibration and prevent accidental scratches on the records, which was the feature I cared most about given the age and irreplaceability of my father's collection. Three-way input: Bluetooth, USB, and AUX, which meant I could also use it for streaming when I was not playing records. RCA output for connecting to external speakers if I wanted to scale up later. Three speeds: 33, 45, and 78 RPM, covering all the formats in the collection.
At £68.04 it was a straightforward decision for something I had been putting off for seven years. I ordered it on a Thursday. It arrived Saturday.
The First Evening
I set it up on Saturday afternoon. It was ready to use within about fifteen minutes. I went to the boxes in the spare room and chose the first record carefully: Miles Davis, Kind of Blue, which my father had told me was the record he would take to a desert island. I had heard him say that many times. I had never heard the record.
I put it on. The belt-driven system started smoothly. The tonearm lowered onto the record without any drama. The built-in speakers filled the room with the opening of So What, which is the first track on Kind of Blue, and which I had never heard before.
I sat in my living room and listened to the whole album. Forty-five minutes. I did not do anything else. I just listened.
I am not someone who cries easily. I cried a little, which I think was about the music and about my father and about seven years of those records sitting in boxes when they should have been playing. It was a good evening. It was one of the best evenings I have had in a long time.
Seven Months On
I have been through most of the collection over the past seven months. Not systematically, just picking records that catch my attention or that I remember my father mentioning. I have discovered music I did not know I loved. I have listened to records that my father bought before I was born and understood, for the first time, something about who he was before he was my father.
The turntable has performed reliably throughout. The belt-driven system has not caused any issues with the records. The built-in speakers are good enough for a room of normal size, warm and clear without the harshness that cheaper speakers can produce. I have used the Bluetooth input occasionally for streaming, which works well, but the records are what I come back to.
My brother visited in May and spent an afternoon going through the collection with me. He remembered records that I had forgotten, told me stories about where our father had bought them, and we listened to about six albums over the course of the afternoon. It was the best visit we had had in years. The records gave us something to talk about that we had not talked about before.
I have recommended the turntable to two friends who have inherited or rediscovered record collections. Both have bought one. Both have reported the same experience: the records that had been inaccessible are now playing, and the music is better than they remembered.
The Verdict
If you have a record collection that has been sitting in boxes, get a turntable. The Vintage Vinyl Record Player in white is the right choice for someone who wants to play records properly without building a separate audio system: the built-in speakers are good, the belt-driven system protects the records, the white finish is genuinely attractive, and the Bluetooth and AUX inputs add flexibility. It is the purchase that gave me back four hundred records and an evening with Kind of Blue that I will not forget.
Find the Vintage Vinyl Record Player Bluetooth Turntable – White at ALTOE. Listed in Latest Products, Electronics, Audio, Audio Players & Recorders, and Turntables & Record Players.
Play the records. They have been waiting long enough.
— Sandra Leigh, Coventry
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