Side by Side Comparison of: Jensen vs Amazon vs VINYL

This was definitely by far the best purchase I ever made... I have wanted a record player for years but never got one because I thought they were all very expensive... but then when I looked some up and found this budget piece... I was THRILLED. It is a perfect way to start off a collection and good for college students who are broke but want to explore their love of music. With all the moving around in and out of college dorm rooms, it is not the end of the world if it were to break because it wasn't too expensive, but so far it has held up really well and still plays my records well!(I've moved about 5 times with it.) It's got a pretty descent speaker on it as well, but if you have a bigger living room or anything you may want to hook it up to some better speakers to get a nicer, louder sound.

I hooked this up to our stereo and love the sound. My computer does not have the right sound card, so the use of hooking up to the machine directly to my computer did not work. However, I did do recording of the music with my computer's microphone and it did a good job. The trick, of course, is silence in the room except for the record player. How well this works for anyone else is dependent on their computer. A record changer would have been nice, but then the price would reflect that.

The real treat was playing the old 78 RPM records. Wow!! Never thought I would hear them again. Buy this for hours of fun and nostalgia.

This turntable is a great product for the price. You would never mistake it for a turntable from the 70's but it plays well and when hooked up properly easily records vinyl to your computer.

This is a really great value for a record player. The speakers are decent, you can't turn them up to fill a room with bass and music, but good to listen to your albums at a normal level. The tone is good, no noticeable issues with scratches or bad sound. Had no skipping at all and my albums are fourty plus years old. The design is great where I can take it to my shop, outside, or to the living room and listen to music. I would say it's one of the best buys I've made and have really enjoyed listening to my album collection again. You get what you pay for and I think that for the price, this is perfect. I've had this three weeks and have had no problems other then wondering why I liked some of these albums so much. Bee Gees greatest hits, volume 2, why did I like that album? Sigh....Beatles never disappoint! Buy it, you'll like it!

This thing is awesome. It's like the old record players most of us probably had in our bedrooms to listen to records. About the only thing it doesn't have is the ability to put a stack of records on and let them automatically drop, and the arm doesn't automatically reject and go back to rest on the home position. You can switch it to either keep going in the end-groove, or for it to stop once it gets there.
Sound: It's got two built in speakers that sound better than my old record player did in the 60's, OR you can use the line-out jacks on the back to hook up to external power amp and upgrade speakers like we did in the 70's. It's also got an Aux In jack so can plug in an iPod or phone, to utilize the speakers. And of course the main reason I bought this, is it's got the USB connection to be able to rip my old records to MP3. This thing is a LOT better than what I was anticipating for the money. If you're looking for the same quality sound and experience most of us listened to records on in the first place, this is it. If you're looking for a super high end turntable like the purists (people who wear gloves to handle records) this is not it.

Needed a second turntable to play at work- no time at home to listen to the growing collection, what with kids and all. (My home turntable is the Audio-Technica AT-LP120-USB, with a pair M-Audio Studiophile AV 40 Active Studio Monitor Speakers)

This is a reasonable turntable to play in quiet environments. There is a little hum from the motor, but that is a minor inconvenience- masked by the music when it starts. May be a bit more distracting with quiet classical pieces.

Some of the product photos use a 10" record, I think. A 12" will stick out a little bit more- you also have to carefully place the record on the platter, positioning it so that it goes under the pickup arm and into the rear gap in the cover. The back has the USB connection, an audio in, and the RCA jacks. The front has the headphone jack, power switch, auto stop switch, pitch adjustment slider, volume and tone knobs. The autostop uses the angle of the pickup arm to turn the turntable on/off, rather than the click the pickup arm makes in some players when you move it away from the record before placing the needle on the it.

A good turntable for personal play. Does it have the best speakers, or stylus? No, but look at the price tag. You can't expect a home stereo system quality turntable for that price. A site I've looked at raised a few budget options for decent sound quality and setup....for under $1000. Yeah, merely under a thousand and under 50 are the options and the under 50 fits me since I barely have a record collection and is mainly so my wife can play the 12" by the band she loves. It's not perfect, but it works for the scenario. When and if I become the expert who is cleaning his records and playing them on a budget setup just under $1000 or a top of the line system I'll have the records and money to not care and comfortably pass the time. For now, I'll enjoy my adult Fischer price setup.

It's not a bad turntable. I bought it for the USB port so that I could transfer a few special edition remastered LPs to my PC. It can be hard to find an affordable one with USB, so I grabbed this one as soon as I saw the price. It's very small but heavier than it looks. The speakers are very weak, but you get what you pay for. It also comes with Audacity to import the records, which is a good program, but I recommend finding the newest version online yourself (it's free).

However, it does have one glaring problem - the play speed. It has a "Pitch Adjust" slider, which works as it should, but the center dead zone where it should play normal is WAY too fast. If you want to listen to it just on the table itself, you'll have to slow it down about halfway to get it near accurate. You can use Audacity to adjust the speed after you transfer it to PC, which is extremely useful, but you either need a very good ear or a copy the original CD/album to help line the pitch up.

All in all, it's OK. The price is great, and it does what it should. I'd recommend it for the USB input, which gives you the editing ability using Audacity (or any other audio editor).

Considering the price of this record player I wasn't expecting anything miraculous, and if that's the mindset you have before purchasing it like I did - then you won't be disappointed. Most records sound great and the built in speakers are decent (although, if you have a song with a lot of bass, you can hear the tone arm rattling as well as the speakers, and the sound gets kind of distorted). One of the things that prevented me from giving this 5 stars is that I feel like I have to adjust the pitch dial on almost every record - sometimes several times during different songs on the same record as well. It's as if the platter doesn't maintain the right speed while it's playing, and you can hear the pitch on some songs go up and down slightly while they're playing. Although somewhat annoying, it's something I can live with given the price and that I wasn't expecting some state-of-the-art machine. If you're wanting something you can take with you that is lightweight and has decent sound, I'd definitely recommend this for the price. I haven't seen any other compact/portable record players on here or anywhere else that have the ability to adjust the pitch and tone, which is nice. I plan on upgrading the needle which is something I'd also recommend to anyone who purchases this as the stock one isn't that great.

There are lot of these small, cheap record players on the market but the Jensen JTA-230 is the only one with a pitch adjustment and tone control. It is quite a bit smaller than it looks in the photo -- an LP sticks out of the sides when playing because the disc is bigger than the player itself! The built-in speakers sound OK considering how tiny they are, but it doesn't get very loud, even when turned all the way up. It's loud enough for personal listening, but not for a party or dance lessons.

A 3 mil stylus for playing 78 RPM records is not included, but can be purchased separately (look for part number 793-D3). But the stylus is rather difficult to remove from the cartridge, so if you play them often, you might as well dedicate it to only playing 78s, and get a better turntable for your LPs and 45s, rather than swapping back and forth beween the regular and 3 mil styli.

The USB output, RCA line level output, and headphone jack all work fine, but sounds tinny and lacking in bass, so playing it through larger speakers really doesn't improve the sound quality that much compared to the small built-in speakers. Even if you try to boost the bass using an equalizer, it still won't sound hi-fi. So the JTA-230 is best used as a tiny, inexpensive, self-contained record player. It's a good beginner turntable for kids or for "crate digging" but won't be good enough to be your primary turntable for serious listening.

It works perfect for a small office (which is where I have it), the built in speakers are not the greatest, but I can't turn it up to much or I'd bother my officemates. It can sound tinny even on low settings. It tends to randomly skip at times, with no reason even with brand new records.

The pitch adjust is needed only because of the low quality speakers, but once you figure out the right setting - playing records on it is easy. I purchased this because I wanted to be able to close the top while playing records, and it accomplishes this well!

Like the title says, it's good for the price. I was pretty shocked by everything this portable player can do. Nonetheless, there are some flaws. The first time I bought this, the turntable spun unevenly. After researching a bit, I found out that an uneven turntable can damage records over time. So, I returned it for an exchange. I received my exchange and noticed that the new player experienced the same problem as before, just not as bad. I ended up returning it for a refund. Some other minor flaws include a lack of bass and the lack of an adjustable tone arm. I learned from a friend who is experienced with turntables that all-in-one players actually damage your records over time. Since the tonearm can't be weighed properly or adjusted, the stylus ends up carving into your records over time. I highly suggest saving your pennies and buying a high-quality turntable (like Audio Technica), a phono pre-amp, and a pair of active bookshelf speakers. You'll definitely experience a high-quality, studio sound with that setup.

It works, my only complaint is the onboard speakers don't completely mute when you have it connected to speakers via RCA or the auxiliary/headphone jack.

Overall the sounds is a little muffled, even when using headphones or USB encoding. The cartridge on this isn't very good, I guess its the standard cheap kind. The tracking arm is very small. It hasn't broken, I just don't trust it. I really would not recommend this if you're new to vinyl, vinyl sounds way better than the sounds this player makes. I do take it with me when I need to be somewhere else for a while, so its good for that.

I'm not a huge collector just a regular person with a small collection of about 50 LPs and occasionally I buy more because I like the sound and the look of records. This little turntable is nice and small and seems to play well... the only reason for three stars is that I'm not happy with the sound on the new vinyl LPs ... I just got the new Hozier album and on maximum sound it doesn't fill the room... the older LPs are louder on the max volume but still I almost always have to go to the max volume. If anyone can suggest a set of speakers I can attach to this to make it louder it would be greatly appreciated.
I can't comment on any other capabilities of this device since I ONLY need it to play records... it's hard to find a good solid record player without all the modern additions thrown in that make them more pricy... wish they could just make a good quality turn-table with a nice set of speakers!

Ordered this for my wife for Christmas, and it arrived in time and packaged nicely. When she opened it everything seemed to be in order and we put an LP on it. When it started to play we were surprised to see that the sound of a very familiar song was sped up quite a bit. We tried moving the pitch adjustment to get it back to normal, but no change was made. After trying for a while to figure out how to slow it down, my wife pushed up slightly on the pitch adjuster lever and it went back to normal. As soon as she let go of it, it sped up again. Unfortunately there was no way to permanently get it to stay changed. It seemed like a great buy, but apparently I was wrong.

For the money, it plays LP's just fine. The speakers are anemic....you can hear the music, but forget about fidelity and general loudness. I also hooked it up to my home stereo, two different receivers in fact, and it just isn't pumping enough power through to be useful (my humble opinion, of course). Also, something I find odd.....it has auto-off. So once the LP has reached the end it turns itself off.....but leaves the needle on the record. Huh? Whatever happened to moving the needle arm back to it's holder like my turntables from 30 years ago??

Again, for the money it'll play your LP's. Just don't get too excited.

I bought this because I have a bunch of records that where handed down to me by my father which I wanted to listen to but did not have anything to listen to them on. I bought this turntable and the first record I put on started to skip, I thought maybe the record just was in bad shape not that it looked like it but who knows. The second one I put on the same exact thing. I bought some brand new records and the first time playing them on this turntable they also skipped even though they where brand new. So all in all I am not to happy with this purchase since all my records skip.

The needle is very flimsy and tends to skate over records that are even faintly warped (many records are at least faintly warped). The vinyl-to-mp3 converter results in incredibly low-quality MP3s. Sometimes, closing the cover causes the needle to skate. The speakers are very tinny in quality. But I'm giving this two stars rather than one because it's so portable, which can be convenient for someone like myself, who moves roughly every year. I wound up buying a different record player (http://www.amazon.com/Technics-SL-BD22-Turntable-Discontinued-Manufacturer/dp/B00006I5WC/ref=sr_1_4?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1425835571&sr=1-4&keywords=technics) used at a higher price than this one cost now, and so far it works much better (hoping not to jinx it though).

This player is tiny, lightweight, plastic, wobbly, and looks like it's for a child. I normally don't cut corners on quality for price, but I let my guard down and got what I paid for. The LP sticks out though the slots in the cover when it's closed and looks ridiculous. The sound through the built in speakers is not good, and the volume at it's highest is not even close to loud. I was going to send this back and buy a real turntable, but I'm going to hook it up to my sound bar to see if it gets any better. Even if it does, I can't recommend this.

Mine still functions as a turntable (although the sound is truly inferior if that's your only reason to buy it), but I wanted to convert my vinyl records to MP3 or other formats. The Audacity software worked for several months but then stopped working completely. I don't know why. That's money thrown away, but at least it didn't cost much.

 I'm not a vinyl expert and I wanted something to play a few vinyls I had collected from thrift stores. I was disappointing to find the audio quality coming out of the built in speakers was very distorted and unbearable to listen to, especially during low frequencies associated with synth and bass drums. After a few minutes experimenting I was able to find the problem: this turntable tracks way too heavy. I was able to solve the audio issues by lifting the stylus slightly to take some of the weight off but there is no permanent solution to this as you can't adjust the tracking force on this model. I will be returning my unit and I hope those reading this will look at a different record player.

This was bought for my daughter for her birthday. It worked great for about one month. Sporadically worked for the next month....now it doesn't work at all. I do not suggest purchasing this product because it is a waste of money. warranty is limited and basically it is more expensive to return it for repair than it is to find another company to purchase from.

I had a problem with the first I bought where after playing a few vinyls it would randomly start slowing down and distorting the sound, then recovering, then slowing down, etc, etc, etc. I have never had this problem with any other turntables. I decided to return it and get a replacement, and low and behold: it took it a little longer, but this one is doing the same thing. I don't know if it is too late to return it or not, but one thing is sure: if I can return it, I will. I don't want to try my luck with another.

Arrived and did not work straight out of the box. Table just would not turn. My husband is an engineer so we troubleshot and did everything we could to ensure it was not user error. It's just broken. We'll repurchase but if the next one is broken, we'll come back and leave an update. Amazon shipping has become a joke. They crammed this record player into a box with a bunch of other things -- some heavy -- and it no doubt was broken from all the jostling it took in transit. Amazon/ Amazon Prime is slipping in all areas and meanwhile they're charging more for it. Such a shame.