RadioShack’s Vintage Turntable looks great, and I really want to like it, but is a practical demonstration that nostalgia is a trap, and design isn’t everything.
RadioShack has lurched back to life. Sort of. When we heard about the Vintage Turntable from the company, we had to give it a spin. Pun intended.
I’m old enough to remember antiques that looked like this. Wood frames, raised and colored metal for control settings, and so forth.
So, spinning into nostalgia for my Father’s record collection, we asked for a sample for review. It took about a week to arrive, and I was daydreaming about it a bit.
I wish I hadn’t. The RadioShack Vintage Turntable has some nice features, but too many compromises make it hard to recommend.
When requesting, I had forgotten that this isn’t a path that generally ends well for companies purposefully trying to mix new tech with an old aesthetic. Especially if it’s being done to meet a price point.
RadioShack Vintage Turntable review: Design
As the name strongly suggests, the RadioShack Vintage Turntable is a record player that tries to play up to being from an older period of time. It’s a small chest-style record player, with a lift-up lid that holds the player itself.
The cabinetry is okay, and it certainly has elements that scream old-world appeal. The wood with a metal-styled faceplate, the analog radio dial, the knobs, and the speaker fabric certainly lean in that direction.
At 18 inches wide by 13.4 inches and 9.5 inches tall, it’s something that can easily find a location on a side table or in a cabinet.
From afar, it looks nice! It’s when you start to look closer that things become an issue. That wood isn’t proper wood, it’s MDF wrapped with a PVC veneer, which doesn’t hold up to a close inspection.
The inclusion of the manufacturer’s logo is — the modern RadioShack textmark — is oddly appropriate.
Then there’s the front panel. It’s a colored plastic piece instead of metal, held in with screws.
As part of those newer enhancements, you wouldn’t expect a record player from the era this player heralds back to — the ’50s or ’60s — to have a slide-out CD tray, or an LCD screen, or a bank of push buttons and a power LED.
And then there’s the SD card slot and USB-A port.
While trying to appear metal-like and old, it unfortunately screams cheap and flimsy. The plastic buttons and knobs don’t help either.
While the bulk of the connectivity is at the front, there are also some connectors around the back, which can be used as a line out to other hardware or speakers.
I did this with the (old) receiver next to the speaker as shown in the first image in this review. More on this in a bit.
To the side is a cassette player, rounding out its physical media playback features.
Opening it up, you get more of the PVC covering for the wood, as well as a modern, if basic, record deck and arm.
Overall, it has a confused appearance, hampered by modernity. It’s trying for “Mad Men” appeal, but really it’s giving 90’s retro “try hard” vibes instead.
RadioShack Vintage Turntable review: Features
The key selling point of this turntable is its ability to play records. The good news is that it does just that.
The turntable works at three speeds, including 33-1/3 RPM, 45 RPM, and 78 RPM. There’s also an auto-return feature, so you know the tonearm will head back to its resting place once the record’s finished.
I would be happy with just that, if the 5W internal speakers were decent — and they’re not. They sound tinny and cheap.
As the ’80s and ’90s commercials often said, there’s more. Connecting to the receiver with good speakers, and then to a HDMI wireless transmitter didn’t make things any better.
There’s also an AM-FM radio built in, controllable with the central dial. This, again, is adequate, but let down by the speakers.
If you have tapes or CDs, you can also insert them for audio playback, again either through its included speakers or to an external pair.
The CD player is serviced from the front with a slide-out tray, along with a row of control buttons just above. You could use CDs, but it also supports MP3s burned to CD-Rs or CD-RW discs.
The tapes are slid in to a slot on the side, which feels a little unusual and more like a very old car stereo in functionality. You also only have a single button to control the cassette’s playback, which has fast forward and rewind but it’s a fussy half-press for those features.
If you want to digitize your physical music media, there is an opportunity to do that here, and that works the best out of everything on this device. Plugging a drive into the USB-A port or adding an SD card lets you record from your vinyl, CD, cassette, or an AUX audio source to an MP3 file.
This is somewhat handy if you want to own your media, especially if you have limited-availability recordings. It’s perfect for those ’80s bootlegs.
Obviously, if your music collection already exists on a music streaming service, there’s little reason to make these copies at all.
The biggest deal-breaker may be the raised labels on the control front. You just can’t read them, even in bright light.
Pairing barely passable speakers, with a barely readable control panel is a bad combination.
RadioShack Vintage Turntable review: Old, in the wrong way
It is obvious that the RadioShack Vintage Turntable is attempting to appeal to those who yearn for the “good ol’ days” with the aesthetic.
That’s fine. We just can’t recommend it.
Aside from the aesthetic, the big pain points here are unreadable controls, the cassette player’s limited controls, and the speakers. The latter can be solved, sort of, by hooking up some external speakers and using this as an audio source.
As a record player, it works well enough for old records. If you’re a vinyl fan, get something else.
RadioShack Vintage Turntable Pros
- Plays records and lots of older media
- MP3 production from old media
RadioShack Vintage Turntable Cons
- Looks cheap
- Bad speakers
- Illegible controls
Rating: 2 out of 5
Where to buy the RadioShack Vintage Turntable
The RadioShack Vintage Turntable is available from Radioshack, priced at $139.99. It’s also available on Amazon, also for $139.99.
We’ve seen it for sale during this review for as low as $80. You probably still want to skip it, though.
