OPENING THE BOX! The American Audio TT Record

0:00 Vinyl turntable from American Audio

Alright folks, this video has got two meanings. One, we're going to call this video Opening the Box. The other one is we're going to actually look at a vinyl turntable from American Audio with a slight difference. So first of all, what are we on about when I say open the box? Well, first of all and foremost, please do not open any box like this. Alright, maybe that's a slight extreme but the thing is I know so many people who have let's say opened the box they've put a certain item together and then they're like well where's this bit and where's that bit? Well of course the thing is they didn't look inside the box correctly and they probably chucked a certain item that is quite an integral part of that certain piece of kit.

Pause the camera and we'll open the box. Excuse me. Right, here we go. It's a vinyl turntable. It's an actual recording vinyl turntable. What you've got here, you can plug a USB, a little thumb drive into the back of the turntable and you can record your vinyl basically. Simple as that. Alright, now then, what I've got is first of all be very careful and If you do need help, don't start using sharp knives. What I've got is a sharp knife cut like so. Probably a few of you are thinking, why is he doing this? What's the point in this? Well, there's quite a good reason actually. Sharp knife. Okay, there you go. What have we got in here? Right, let's just move that camera so I can actually see what I'm doing. Now, if we have a look, accessories it says there.

2:35 You can put it back in the actual original box

So, I'm going to cut right on. Right, first of all we've got the platter. Now, I would recommend that you keep all packing materials. The reason being is you never know if you want to flog something it will increase its value dramatically if you've got all the original packing materials. So something like that. Don't throw it away. Don't think, oh, where can I put it? Because guess what? You can put it back in the actual original box. So there you go. There's that and that. Alright, also, this is the actual platter. So let's take it out. There you go. There's the platter. Put that to one side. Now, if we take the actual turntable out, this is where some people fall flat. What they'll do, they'll go, oh wow, look, turntable! Wow, goodness me, brilliant!

And then they open it up, they put it together and then they think, oh, where's that bit? Oh, where's that bit? Well guess what? They're actually secured to this area here. That's why you've always got to watch all of the packing materials inside. You never know, you could have a certain bit that is vitally important to the basic working of the actual item you've got. So what I'm going to do I'm going to get all these bits off this polystyrene, pause the camera, and then we'll have a look at the actual unit plugged in, or when I say plugged in, set up. Hold tight. Right, there you go, very quickly, all of the items are out of the box, all of the packing material are back in the box, fold it up and put it out of the way. For goodness sake, don't chuck this away. Like I said, you never know, you may need this, so keep it safe.

Keep it safe. Right, what did we have in the box? Logically, the actual turntable. So we'll just put that to one side for the moment. This is known as the platter and you'll also notice here this black line. That is the belt. This is a belt-driven turntable. I personally do not like belt drive turntables. I only like to use direct drive turntables but... There is a difference between this turntable as opposed to conventional belt drive turntables. And I actually like this turntable. Of course, I shall explain why very shortly. Well, you should know that anyway at the moment. So there you go. That's the platter. Now here we go. That area there is known as the actual head shell. That there is known as the cartridge. And underneath this plastic covering, you've actually got the styli. That is your power cable.

5:31 Pause the camera and what I'll do now, I'll put it all together

So, don't lose any of this. That thing there is probably quite important for this turntable. Normally on SL-1200s or any other vinyl turntables specifically for DJ use, you've always got one of these and people wonder what the heck it's for. Well if you're only using 12 inch singles, you don't need it. But old school 7 inch singles quite often used to have the actual middle taken out of the... You've got that, I'm pretty sure you can put a mini jack, stereo mini jack in there and then that then can plug directly into your mixer for example. That there is the counterweight, there's an extra RCA to RCA, you've got your slip mat and then you've got All these bits and pieces, guarantee and instructions. Keep them. Look after them. Okay, pause the camera and what I'll do now, I'll put it all together. Right, I'm sort of sitting at a strange angle so hopefully you'll get this. Now this is how you actually put together a belt drive turntable. Can you see there? There's the belt. Now this is what you actually need to do. You need to lift that like so. Then what you need to do, turn it around,

And then you've got your thumb there. Can you see my thumb is actually pulling that belt now? So the actual belt will go around this small spindle here. So what you need to do is centre the actual platter, keep your thumb on there, move it around so it's exactly at the position where that little spindle is and then just let that go over the spindle. That's exactly how you want it. If you haven't got the belt around that spindle, then the actual platter will not turn. So if your platter isn't turning, make sure the belt's around there. Okay, we've done that. Counterweight. There you go. On the back and turn that clockwise like so. Now for goodness sake, don't start pushing it on like this because eventually it's going to wear away.

Just twist it on and it will actually twist on naturally. Cartridge, head shell, that will fit there. Again, place it. Now also again you can see a tiny little piece of metal poking out. That 99 times out of 100 will set up directly facing upwards. And then turn this like so and that will lock in place. Don't... Put it too tight. If you do, we could have problems in the near future. Now apart from literally plugging in the mains we're near enough set up. So there you go. This video is about really something called opening the box and in this video we're looking at the American Audio TT Record. It's a belt drive USB recordable turntable. In a future video I'm actually going to be doing a demonstration on how this particular piece of kit works. Practice and enjoy.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.