sound quality of new portable record players

[aaslatten]

I think these new portable record players look pretty cool, and I like the fact that some of them play 78s. I heard the one they have at sharperimage and it sounded fine but wasn't very loud. I'm interested in the one they sell at Foley's that looks like a tweed suitcase. From looking at it in the store, I can't even tell if it plays in stereo. Unfortunately, I have a feeling they sell most of these as novelty items.

I have a turntable already but I thought one of these might be fun for playing singles and 78s. Does anybody have any info on this?

[Jeff Lichtman]

The new portables may have a 78 speed, but they don't have a 78 stylus. 78s have bigger grooves than LPs and 45s do. The standard stylus size for an LP is .7 mil, while most 78s were designed to be played with a 3.0 mil stylus (although other sizes often sound better, for reasons I won't go into here). An LP stylus will rattle around in the bottom of a 78 groove and sound terrible.

Califone makes cheap, portable record players with flip-over styli so you can play both LPs and 78s. You can buy them from KAB Electro-Acoustics at http://www.kabusa.com/. I have bought from KAB, and can vouch for the company.