Audio-Technica AT-LP1240-USB Professional DJ Turntable Preview

A

admin

Audioholics Robot
Staff member
Turntables have transformed from pieces of audio gear to listening room bling. Luckily, some companies are still making turntables for those that actually use them. The Audio-Technica AT-LP1240-USB has just about everything you'd want in a turntable - integrated preamp, a high-torque multi-pole direct drive motor, a stroboscopic platter with a speed accuracy indicator, and much more. Plus, you can connect it to your computer and transform your vinyl into bits. Built with the DJ in mind, the Audio-Technica AT-LP1240-USB is so tough it may be the last turntable you buy...unless you win the lottery.


Discuss "Audio-Technica AT-LP1240-USB Professional DJ Turntable Preview" here. Read the article.
 
3db

3db

Audioholic Slumlord
Of all the turnatbles to review, why this one?? :confused:

I don't know who wrote the review but the author is so out of touch with reality callling a turntable "bling" . :rolleyes: I use mine on a daily basis and I'm one among millions that do. Its not bling but is working fixture in a lot of audio centric set-ups.

To the author, try and avoid your missinformed biases towards turntables when doing a TT review. There are a large number of entry to mid level turntables from the likes of ProJect, Rega, Music Hall, ClearAudio, Thorens, etc that offer excellent value with out the USB "bling" . :rolleyes:
 
K

kevon27

Annoying Poster
As a former DJ who owned Lineartech, Gemini, Technics 1200, Vestax PDT-5000 turntables, I don't remember how vinyl sounds anymore due to digital media... I still have records at my mothers house and my wife has a collection in the attic. I should find a cheap turntable on Ebay just to compare digital vs analog..
 
agarwalro

agarwalro

Audioholic Ninja
Of all the turnatbles to review, why this one?? :confused:

I don't know who wrote the review but the author is so out of touch with reality callling a turntable "bling" . :rolleyes: I use mine on a daily basis and I'm one among millions that do. Its not bling but is working fixture in a lot of audio centric set-ups.

To the author, try and avoid your missinformed biases towards turntables when doing a TT review. There are a large number of entry to mid level turntables from the likes of ProJect, Rega, Music Hall, ClearAudio, Thorens, etc that offer excellent value with out the USB "bling" . :rolleyes:
I did not feel any prejudice coming through in the article. I assume the author being out of touch comment refers to the drop in CD and spike in LP/EP sales. To put things in perspective, here is what RIAA states as the US numbers in millions for the LPs. [1]


Here is the number for all formats in stacked histogram [2]. Evidently, the LP is dead.


For an even more glaringly obvious comparison, this one shows the 'singles' in stacked histogram. [2]


Reference 1, Reference 2.
 
M

MidnightSensi2

Audioholic Chief
Looks like a cheap knock off of the Technics 1210 hehe.

I love my 1210s. Wish they didn't stop making them (although I can't blame them). That said, they are so study you can get an old one and it still works well, plus parts are everywhere still.
 
agarwalro

agarwalro

Audioholic Ninja
The DJs in Seattle/Portland's Jungle/DnB/Dubstep scene would wax eloquent (or I should say, eloquently swore) about the SL1200 MK2 being the best for any price.
 
3db

3db

Audioholic Slumlord
I did not feel any prejudice coming through in the article. I assume the author being out of touch comment refers to the drop in CD and spike in LP/EP sales. To put things in perspective, here is what RIAA states as the US numbers in millions for the LPs. [1]


Here is the number for all formats in stacked histogram [2]. Evidently, the LP is dead.


For an even more glaringly obvious comparison, this one shows the 'singles' in stacked histogram. [2]
Vinyl has turned into a niche market but its far from dead. Furthermore, you failed to miss the point about turntables being called bling. I don't own a turntable for the "bling" nor do all the people who really enjoy the format. Vinyl offers something that CDs and files on a hard drive can't offer; involvement.

I don't care about highly compressed or lossless downloads as there is next to no involvement in digital audio. I also don't care that digital sales trump vinyl. I have the satisfaction of knowing that I can purchase a vinyl copy of any artist I choose to.
 
C

Cher Nobyl

Audiophyte
Huh?

This review is kind of weak. This turntable is so obviously a copy of the SL1200Mk2 that I would think some comparisons to that model are warranted. Where are the comments about how it functions? Fit and finish? How easy is it to set up? What it sounds like? Phono preamp performance? Where is it manufactured? Up to the end, the Technics was made in Japan. I would assume this one is made in China ... but the review doesn't say.
 
3db

3db

Audioholic Slumlord
This review is kind of weak. This turntable is so obviously a copy of the SL1200Mk2 that I would think some comparisons to that model are warranted. Where are the comments about how it functions? Fit and finish? How easy is it to set up? What it sounds like? Phono preamp performance? Where is it manufactured? Up to the end, the Technics was made in Japan. I would assume this one is made in China ... but the review doesn't say.
To be fare ..its called a preview so it is sorely missing meaningful specs. I think its a piece of junk personally and I would not let it touch my albums.
 
its phillip

its phillip

Audioholic Ninja
It's not a review. It's a "PREVIEW."

And 3db, the comment about "bling" referred to the stupidly expensive/flashy tables, not this one.

Here's the quote:
We have a bit of a hard time with turntables. It isn't that we don't understand them or that we don't like them, it is just that they seem to have stopped being a piece of AV gear and transformed into listening room bling. We're sure people use those 200lbs, $200,000 turntables constructed out of acrylic, carbon fiber, and dolphin bones but, it seems to us, that these are more "works of art that may or may not be used for their intended purpose" than actual pieces of gear.
So don't worry about your tables being called bling unless it's a 200lb behemoth made with dolphin bones :)
 
3db

3db

Audioholic Slumlord
It's not a review. It's a "PREVIEW."

And 3db, the comment about "bling" referred to the stupidly expensive/flashy tables, not this one.

Here's the quote:


So don't worry about your tables being called bling unless it's a 200lb behemoth made with dolphin bones :)
I have two out of the three ...acrylic aka dust cover and carbon fiber for the tonearm. Everything else is conventional. It weighs in about 20 lbs. :)
 
C

Cher Nobyl

Audiophyte
Preview, review ... seems like advertising copy from Audio Technica, is what it seems like.

:)

To be fair, under the specs tab, it does say that it weighs 27 lbs, which is actually in the same ballpark as the SL1200Mk2.
 
M

MidnightSensi2

Audioholic Chief
The DJs in Seattle/Portland's Jungle/DnB/Dubstep scene would wax eloquent (or I should say, eloquently swore) about the SL1200 MK2 being the best for any price.
The problem is they are taking them out of production, but they are still widely available and a used one is pretty easy to come by.

Jungle/DnB/Dubstep are one of the few scenes still cutting plates, and even those DJs are mostly running through a computer. I mean, the cost of cutting a dubplate becomes too much and travelling it's too hard to carry vinyl around when it all fits in a laptop with Serato. Especially international.
 
agarwalro

agarwalro

Audioholic Ninja
I don't care about highly compressed or lossless downloads as there is next to no involvement in digital audio. I also don't care that digital sales trump vinyl. I have the satisfaction of knowing that I can purchase a vinyl copy of any artist I choose to.
My conspiracy theory is that if someone will part with $20, 30 and more for a physical medium that guarantees repurchase, so why kill the format. The label company execs are probably laughing all the way to the bank. :rolleyes:

To each their own :).
 
K

kevon27

Annoying Poster
Vinyl sales will go up and down but to be realistic, it's not going to go mainstream.
Besides, the mpaa would eventually ban vinyl. You can't put DRM's on a record.
Even scratch dj's are ditching vinyl for digital media.. The great Technics 1200's is dead replaced by the SL-DZ1200.. digital..
I'm sorry, this thing about vinyl coming back is nonsense. I'll like to see these teenage schmucks walking around with 12 inch singles (Mom, can I go to Timmy's house to spin some groovy tunes?)
 
Living Stereo

Living Stereo

Enthusiast
OK A Technics SL-1200 it ain't, But it's not that bad for what it is. I am not a vinyl freak or much of a vinyl enthusiast, but I do own a small collection of records that my grandfather left me when he passed away and some of my own acquisitions that never saw the light of day on CD. That said I own the AT-LP240, which is the same unit minus the variable pitch and reverse function. I probably spin a record 10 times a year at best and on occasion transfer some to digital for other people. This table is solid, well built and does not feel like a piece of black plastic crap. I use either a Sure M97XE or an AT-120E on an it sounds damn good. I was able to get mine on Amazon for $250 and the model reviewed could probably be had for $300. Don't knock it until you try it, not everybody takes vinyl as seriously as others.
 
B

bikdav

Senior Audioholic
My Two Cents

The Audio Technica AT-LP1240-USB looks mighty attractive to me. I want to audition this turntable, because__ unlike the Technics SL-1200_ this one has a USB for connecting to a computer. The Audio Technica also has an onboard preamp_unlike the Technics_so it can be connected to any input. As I reflect back one the "old audio days", one of the things that annoyed me about the old turntable days was that your amplifier had to have a phono preamp onboard. Why didn't turntables have the preamp onboard in the first place so we could connect it to any free input?
 
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