Vinyl records have come back into vogue, and for good reason. While CDs and other digital formats are easier to store, vinyls create richer, more accurate sounds – so long as you keep them clean. If you want the best listening experience, you will probably buy a Fluance RT85 or Vertere DG-X, but these turntables look plain next to something like the Gramovox.
The Gramovox, better known as the Gramovox “Classic” Floating Record vertical turntable, is a record player that flips the main record-playing mechanism on its head — or at least 90 degrees. Instead of orienting the vinyl so it’s parallel with the table and letting gravity help the needle read the grooves, you have to secure the record to the vertical spindle so it doesn’t fall off, and the needle and tonearm use springs to read and track the record’s grooves. If anything goes wrong, the record playback could skip, or worse, the record could fall out of the turntable.
While quality turntables like the Fluance RT85 sell for $549.99, the Gramovox “Classic” Floating Record vertical turntable retails for $1,199. However, that price gets you a record player that takes up less room than traditional horizontal turntables and also doubles as a piece of interactive art. If you’re worried about the audio quality, the Gramovox delivers “rich, clear, and warm” audio, and it doesn’t skip at all, according to Paste Magazine. The Gadget Guy also praises the device, so you know you’re purchasing quality.
The Gramovox might provide a unique listening experience, but it isn’t unique
At first glance, the Gramovox might look unique because the majority of vinyl record turntables are oriented horizontally. That couldn’t be further from the truth, though. In reality, there are so many flat record players because it’s difficult to construct vertical ones that work properly. However, there’s a huge difference between “difficult” and “impossible.”
Plenty of companies have produced successful vertical vinyl record players. Examples include the Pro-Ject VT-E BT Wireless Plug & Play Turntable and the Crosley Beck Fully Automatic Vertical Record Player – both were designed by some of the best record player manufacturers on the market. Then there is the Miniot Wheel 2 and Wheel 3, which can be oriented vertically or horizontally. However, all of these record players are modern products; the concept has been around since the 1980s.
One of the first vertical “turntables” to hit the market was the Sony PS-F5 (not to be confused with the Sony PS5), aka the Sony Flamingo. Not only could the PS-F5 balance and play vinyl records upright, it was also portable and ran on either an AC adapter or four AA batteries. Also, the device used a “linear tracking tonearm” that was completely encased in the PS-F5’s shell, similar to what Miniot installs in its Wheels. Despite its size (and looking like a cartoon circular saw), the PS-F5 was praised for its sound quality. Whether that has more to do with the quality of Sony’s engineering or the advantages of a linear tracking tonearm, however, is up for debate.
