The Audio-Technica AT-PL120- Or: Record Players for Dummies!

I choose to blame Crap From the Past for this purchase. CFtP is a radio show out of Minnesota on KFAI that does retro pop music with a focus on obscure, forgotten, or overlooked recordings. - a graduate level course in pop-music, as Ron "Boogiemonster" Gerber often says. Without him, I doubt very much that I'd have given a second glance at the record bin at the local goodwill.

But glance I did, and I saw someone's old disco collection that they had given up. The Bee Gees, Abba, Stars on 45, some random groups I'd never heard of - it was glorious, and I instantly picked them up. 10 bucks later, I had a record collection again. The problem was - I hadn’t owned a turntable in decades! Probably like most people here, I gave up vinyl towards the end of the eighties, when Compact Discs took off and became the industry standard.

My initial shopping around lead me to the Crosley Songwriter - a turntable with a CD burner built right into the very nice looking retro 40's case. Perfect! I could get my music onto CD, have a nice looking case and still play records if I want. Sadly upon further reading, the failure rate of the CD drive and the overall crap to price ratio turned me off the unit.

I like the idea of being able to dub my records to CD, so I uncovered the iTTUSB Turntable from ION, with a direct out to a USB port. While perfect for dubbing to my computer, the unit looked like crap and had no dust cover. Beyond the short term goal of dubbing, I actually wanted something that would work with my home theater setup - so that one was out.

I found the Audio Technica AT-PL50 at Circuit City, and while it could output to my computer via the RCA cables, the turntable looked cheap, and was built very flimsily. Testing the unit out in the store, I found that the needle (I would later find out that was called the Tone Arm) would whip towards the center of the record, skipping like every five grooves and sounding dreadful (I later found out I needed a record player with anti-skate control). So the AT-PL50 was right out.

However I did some reading with the Audio Technica line, and found the AT-PL120. On the surface it had everything I needed - an RCA output for dubbing, anti-skate and tone arm balance settings, and it looked nice for the long run. It was a bit more than I was expecting to pay (I was in the ballpark of about 100 bucks), but if the unit fit all my needs, if I was going to keep this for the long term, why pinch pennies?

Now, I'm not an audiophile - so I cant tell you that the turntable outputs wave form amplifiers at 1,400 dBm with a sound resistance of .73 or whatever. I can tell you that I made the right choice and the AT-PL120 plays like a dream.

The Turntable is fantastic. It's well constructed and very heavy, reminding me of the ancient record player I had when I was a kid. The sound is crisp and clear, even on records that have seen better days. With proper care, the AT-PL120 should me last for years and years.

Setting up was really easy. Even for a non- audiophile like myself, it took about half an hour (and it would have been faster if I hadn’t been so worried about breaking something). Balancing the tonearm was a bit tricky, probably the longest process of the set up, but even this wasn’t too bad. The instructions are clear and easy to read walking you thought every step of the way.

The level of control and detail that the user has over the AT-PL120 is astounding. Aside from the fully adjustable tone arm assembly, you get pitch control, the ability to play records backwards (Now I can listen to Ozzy tell me to worship the devil properly!) 33, 45, and 78 rpm playback modes, and a pre-amp. This last bit is important, since today's audio equipment often doesn’t have a phono input anymore, meaning that if you were to play your records through them without a pre-amp, you'd get very, very faint music.

Not that everything is all unicorns and sunshine, mind you. There are some flaws with the AT-PL120. For starters, the RCA cables are really, really short - about three feet long. This isn’t a problem, since my amp is about 2 feet away, but it does limit your options right out of the box. Also, the cables are hard wired into the unit, so hopefully they wont fail on me.

Also, there is no adaptor cable for your computer. Of course an RCA-to-mini adaptor runs about 3 bucks at radio shack, so it's not a HUGE problem. And there's no software for dubbing records. Again, with Nero or Musicmatch, you should be good to go - but you will need to pick up some items. If you don’t have them, don’t expect to dub records right away.

Also it would seem that being a professional grade turntable means no frills. Everything with AT-PL120 is manual, from starting and placing the tonearm to auto-return. When the record reaches the last track, it just sits there and bumps against the inner hub. Mind you, manual control means that there is less stuff to break down on you, but it does mean that you have to do it all yourself. It's a double edged sword.

At the end of the day, I don’t know much about turntables, but I do know what sounds good. The Audio-Technica AT-PL120 performs great, has excellent sound, looks sharp and has enough controls to keep the most anal of micro-managers happy.

WOULD I BUY THIS AGAIN IF SOMEONE STOLE MINE?
Without a doubt - assuming the punk didn't get my record collection at the same time.