Against all my personal expectations that the fad would pass, vinyl records continue to be popular and there are hobbyists all over the world saying “no thanks” to digital music and prefer dropping a needle onto a vinyl disc.
If you’re going to indulge in the ritual of listening to vinyl records, why not do it with style? That’s probably what the designers of these record-playing oddities were thinking at the time.
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Sony Flamingo (PS-F5 & PS-F9)
Sony is the inventor of the Walkman and the Discman, so it should be no surprise that the company made a pretty solid attempt at a portable record player–the Flamingo.
This is pretty much as minimalist as you can go with a record player. There’s no deck or turntable. Instead, the record is placed vertically into the player, clamped by its center label. It uses a stubby little tone arm, self-contained within the player. It even had cueing and search functions, making it more like a modern CD player in some ways.
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Audio-Technica Sound Burger (AT-SB727)
The Audio-Technica Sound Burger looks quite similar to the Sony Flamingo at first glance, but this similarly-minimalist record player is used in the traditional orientation, with a tone arm that moves like a regular record player. It’s just that the table part of the turntable is barely there.
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The model pictured here is actually the modern re-release which now has Bluetooth and USB-C, which is obviously not something the Sound Burger had in the 1980s, when it was first released.
Audio-Technica AT-SB727
The Sound Burger has been revived for Audio-Technica’s 60th anniversary just in time for the modern revival of the vinyl format.
It has a belt-drive system that can play both 33-1/3 and 45 RPM records with up to 12 hours of wireless playback. This player was originally meant as a limited re-release for Audio-Technica’s 60th anniversary, but it sold out so quickly, and demand was so high, that the company simply brought it back to be a regular part of its lineup.
8
Crosley Revolution (CR6002A)
The Crosley Revolution is a record player from 2010 which is effectively a clone of the Sound Burger concept, but it’s different enough in appearance and features to stand on its own as a weird player of note. Twelve years before the real Sound Burger came back, the revolution combined old and new in a way that was still pretty fresh.
Today, it’s not weird for a modern turntable to have USB audio and one-button digitization of records, but the Revolution had this and interesting functions, like an FM radio transmitter, so you could listen to records anywhere a radio was nearby. Who wouldn’t want their music twice distorted? You can still pick these up used for about a hundred bucks, though with a brand new Sound Burger costing $200 I’d personally probably go for the newer device with a warranty, unless we’re nostalgic for retro-retro-modern gadgets already.
7
Edison Disc Phonograph
An acoustic record player from the 1910s that played Thomas Edison’s proprietary “Diamond Discs.” Unlike typical Victrola turntables of the time, Edison’s machine used a vertical-cut groove system: the thick quarter-inch discs carried modulations in groove depth rather than side-to-side.
Those discs are absolutely the thickest disc-shaped recording media I have ever seen, and since this is an acoustic system with no amplification, well, the audio is impressive given that it’s all intricate clockwork and simple mechanical acoustic audio.
6
Toc Record Player by Roy Harpaz
This is another vertical player, but unlike the ones we’ve looked at so far, it’s a modern design from 2015. Wait, that’s already 10 years ago! Thanks to modern technology, this is actually much more compact than the Flamingo or Burger, or at least it looks that way.
The tone arm is completely hidden within the body and it it uses sensors to scan the tracks on a record, allowing listeners to skip tracks via remote control or touch buttons. The Flamingo also tried to offer similar functionality, of course, but without the benefit of modern electronics.
5
Sharp RP-114 Vertical Turntable
Another vertical player appears on the list, but in the case of the Sharp RP-114 the player isn’t minimalist at all. Instead, it’s basically like someone turned a whole top-loading turntable on its side. You can also clearly see this is a product of 80s design, given the big brushed metal look and the smoked window letting you see what’s going on inside the player.
So why go through all this trouble? Well, the big party trick here is that the player can play both sides, making it a fully-automatic player. It reminds me of the fancier LaserDisc players that didn’t make you get up halfway through the movie to flip the disc over. I’ll be honest with you, while probably a result of when I was born and what AV gear I lusted over as a child, this is the prettiest player on this list in my opinion.
4
Vinyl Killer (Tamco Soundwagon)
The “Vinyl Killer,” or Soundwagon as it’s properly called, is the world’s smallest record player. Well, at least so its makers have claimed. Instead of a platter, the battery-powered bus is placed on top of a vinyl record, where it drives in circles along the grooves to play the music through a built-in speaker.
As you can tell from the above video, the audio reproduction is pretty awful and, as its dire nickname suggests, the Soundwagon is a good way to destroy a perfectly good record in the name of novelty. Still, it is weird and it’s definitely collectible. Just don’t use it on anything but a record that’s already bound for the trash.
3
Yamaha GT-2000 With Disc Stabilizer
A GT-2000 sound like an expensive and rare vintage sports car you’d only ever get to see in Gran Turismo, and with the Yamaha GT-2000 you wouldn’t be too far off. I mean—just look at it. However, this isn’t a list of the most beautiful record players, so what makes the GT-2000 weird?
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Well, this “gigantic and tremendous” player weighs in at a hefty 61.7lbs! It’s what kids these days might refer to as “thicc” and you might want to stick an extra “c” on the end there just to be safe.
Why? Well, the idea is to make this high-end record player as stable as possible. One of its accessories, the YDS-3 Recorder Disc Stabilizer, is just a huge machined piece of brass and wood that pins down your record under its immense weight. It’s not clever, but it’s effective!
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2
Dual 1019 With Stacking Mechanism
The Dual 1019 (released 1965) was a fully automatic, idler-drive turntable that could drop and play a stack of records sequentially, thanks to a clever multi-record spindle mechanism.
Now, while there are plenty of 1019 videos on the web, I couldn’t find one showing the stacking spindle in action, but I did find this video of a Dual 1229 stacking spindle doing its job, and it’s fascinating to see it work.
While this is still mechanically complex, it’s brilliantly simple in concept and, as far as I can see, it works pretty reliably. Too bad it doesn’t flip the records, but hey, you could stack two of the same record with different sides facing up and still get to listen to the whole thing without getting up.
1
Laser Turntables (ELP LT Series)
Is there anything that doesn’t improve when you add frickin’ laser beams to it? Well, while lasers are a big part of what makes CDs so great, applying them to vinyl records is a bit of a mixed bag.
The ELP LT family of turntables don’t have a physical needle, but use a laser beam to scan the groove and convert the fluctuations in laser light into audio. The main selling point here is that you can play your records without adding any wear or tear to them, and the tracking is completely error-free. Even if the record is a little warped, the ELPs can compensate for it.
Unfortunately, apart from being crazy-expensive, there were some drawbacks. For one thing, the record in question had to be really clean. Preferably cleaned with an ultrasonic system so not a spec of dust would be found on it. The laser pickups are notoriously sensitive to dust in the grooves.
Audio-Technica AT-LP120XUSB-BK Direct-Drive Turntable
They did find a place with archives that needed to play records without risking further damage to them, and, of course, ultrarich collectors who wanted them for much the same reason.
You know, it’s not only record player designers that flex their creativity when designing players. I once had a wall-mounted vertical CD player that opened up like a scarab beetle. That was a great party trick, though now that I think about it, it didn’t sound all that great. I guess sometimes you have to sacrifice something in the name of novelty.
