A radio with a belt-drive tuning dial, styled to look like a turntable, sold by a company that makes umbrellas. It makes perfect sense! #turntable #toy #novelty
r.i.p. phil schaap who passed recently. wkcr is playing some of his old shows today which kevin sampled here. the man was an icon - a great proponent of jazz and a master historian. those records your hearing are most likely 78s from his personal collection.
The move with the battery rolling away to show it was actually a radio and then panning out to show just how small it was compared to a real table was so smooth.
I remember my mom getting me one of these from Sears in the early 2000's. At that time the cashier was surprised to any kind of turntable at all, indicating she hadn't seen one in years. As you described, at that time vinyl records were considered a dead technology of the past.
“Kind of an odd product.” An early contender for understatement of the year! If it would have actually worked, it would have been strangely cool, though.
Not gonna lie this is actually kind of cool. I love novelty hardware like this, even if it was largely just a generator of eWaste. Also, does anyone else think that DraftKings ad came across like a GTA radio spot?
Wouldn't even be hard to do if you based it on portable CD player hardware. though it probably wouldn't pass safety stuff to be officially sold because the laser would be exposed with no disc on it and there wouldn't really be a way to cover it and not look like crap in the process
@@Knaeckebrotsaege Ah, right. The whole laser thing ._. Well, at least I have a project if I ever get my hands on a 3D printer! Disregard eye safety, embrace useless but neat novelty!
@@langam7017 Now that i think of it, one could even link the "tonearm" to the laser sled... though it wouldn't make much sense cause the movement would be backwards. Unless you could reverse the movement mechanically somehow 🤔... damn now i'm overthinking a novelty cd record player that doesn't even exist
Regarding the styling of the turntable and the motor/belt/platter arrangement: they might have been inspired by the Revolver turntable, which was introduced in 1984 and had that exact arrangement. ProJect also had some turntables with that arrangement that predated the U-Turn Orbit by several years.
The product I remember Totes for the most is their "Toasties" socks that had anti-slip stuff on the soles, so you could wear them like slippers, and not slip on smooth floors, they were comfy socks... :P
Hearing those '30s songs reminds me of our own local institution out here on the upper left coast: "The Art of Jazz", hosted by the inimitable Ken Wiley on 88.5 KNKX-FM (formerly known as KPLU-FM), every Sunday afternoon. It's quite possibly the single best program on their entire schedule, with an emphasis on the early years of recorded works.
1:28 a combination of the camera angle and the box graphics makes it look like you must be 25 feet tall and opening a real turntable box. Reminds me of the old "Land of the Giants" TV show 😃
Turntables we’re still popular with the retro community in the early 2000s, they were just as popular like B&W CRT TVs! There were non-electronic companies that licensed their name for retro tech products like travel size disposable cameras!
Most radios with an analogue dial had this loop of fishing line to move the dial and the tuning caps - wouldn't they qualify for "belt drive award" too?
I would say that looks like a pretty essential item to have on a desk. Certainly more entertaining than most executive toys. Fun fact: here in Sofia, Bulgaria we have a station on almost the same frequency (90 MHz) playing the same kind of music - Radio Nostalgie.
I think there is a possibility the reason the AM radio dial on this novelty radio doesn't include the expanded AM frequencies above 1600 MHz and has unusual spacing of the frequency number is that it's may not be a radio originally intended for the U.S. Market. There are other countries that have stations on their AM dial who's frequencies match the markings on this radio's AM dial.
I kind of like this idea, mostly the light up pointer to simulate the cueing and speed light which would have been in an actual turntable. Like the jazz music its nice.
In the early 2000's turntables and records were extremely popular in the dance music DJ scene, where most songs were released on vinyl only. For a few years there DJ turntables were outselling guitars.
I think I saw one of these at a chain of stores we have here in PA called: '5 Below'. I am now going to convert my dust cover on my Audio Technica to a push button opener..
@@sophist1cated AM is just crappy talk stations and FM music stations play the same 15 songs over and over. Apart from BBC Radio 4 comedies, I don't listen to radio anymore. :)
@@frankowalker4662 "AM is just crappy talk stations and FM music stations play the same 15 songs over and over." - Commercial stations in the U.S. are pretty much the same. College/public station is the only respite.
@@sophist1cated AM still makes sense in the US because of the huge geographical size of the nation. With shorter distances around here, it's only natural that it's pretty dead in Europe. Even nationwide stations just need a not that large amount of relays to cover a whole country in FM. That's also why stereo AM was never a thing here, FM being the obvious best choice for music.
I suppose that the best thing about this radio is it works. Unfortunately the worst thing about this radio is it works. It's far better as a decoration.
Really enjoyed this video. I’ve been ripping a couple volumes of the RCA Victor Encyclopedia of Recorded Jazz and took note of Chu Berry’s name, so I smiled when I heard the DJ mention him. Keep up the terrific videos, I always appreciate your humor and knowledge.
Pretty cool to hear that WKCR is still broadcasting! Nowadays they are probably most known for broadcasting the Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito show, which was a super legendary Hip-Hop show that ran from 1 to 5 in the morning. Started in 1990, ended in '98 but Bobbito stayed on the station until '02. Lot of legends came through there before they blew up. On some of the rips floating around the net it sometimes caught the end of the show and after them, a jazz band would come on.
Perfect present for grandma , who really wants to be hip and get into that vinyl business that everybody seems to be into. Only she doesn't want to pay for a real turntable , doesn't have any records and only remembers what an 8 track is.
By the way you could perhaps fit a 3 inch CD onto there quite well, especially if that was a record design; thus you'd have the full authentic look! Or you could make one from a 3 inch CD even by creating an artwork fit for the purpose?
The operation is still a cool design though.. The platter, tonearm volume... Neat. As if I didn't have enough knick knack paddywhack give the dog a bone already...
In my collection of odd stuff I have a 3" gas strut. It's the tiniest one ever made I believe. It collapses to about 2". Wouldn't be strong enough to lift a turntable lid, but it looks like it would be used for that! It was actually used to open a pop up power port on a video conference desk.
when i was a kid in NJ , if i was trying to find a good song on the radio, if you heard jazz that means you went too far. later it meant you almost had WSOU.
Just to be clear: vinyl records never really died completely. There were electronic music labels that would still release records in the 1990s and into the 2000s as they were still used by DJs in clubs. Even though records were "killed" by the major labels, they did allow for some of their premiere artists to have some current albums available on record. But yes, the "vinyl renaissance" started around 2008 or so with Record Store Day and it build from there. Until you had manufacturers making new turntables, you had to get them second-hand (and may there were some specialty places that could make them but it probably would have been at an audiophile price-point).
The most memorable part of the video is your mention of WKCR. Good to have an alternative Jazz web stream when I don’t feel like picking music and don’t like what’s on KCSM- I already forgot about the radio turntable thingie.
This is even more bizarre than those 3" records and turntables they had for RSD a few years ago which had atrocious wow and flutter and were more of a novelty than anything else. Yeah, that does sound like what spinning a 78 would sound like if it had been worn down. I have had a U-Turn Orbit for 4 1/2 years so funny you mention that. Empire had external motors on some of their turntables in the 1960s but I guess that really didn't become hugely popular until the 2010s during the vinyl resurgence.
For a cheap little novelty they sure put a lot of work into it! If that were made today they'd be flying off the shelves, except it would have to be a bluetooth speaker or something lol, I'm surprised they made this in a time when LPs were just an outdated technology instead of something fun and retro.
I see 121 Plauche Street, New Orleans, Louisiana on the box. I wonder if Eton still exist in my hometown. When I researched the address, ETON was located in Elmwood, Louisiana. Which is not too far in the New Orleans area. As a result, it is not in New Orleans, it's in Jefferson parish, which is the next parish next to Orleans parish.
kool TT...would have been much cooler with a fake record that spins as the radio music plays. Eventually Totes had a "Toys & Novelties" line, I have their AIR GUITAR which was basically a toy air guitar neck where you played by pressing chord buttons & breaking an infrared beam with your hand. That was from 2012 & about the same low quality
A long time ago someone gave me a miniature of an entire HiFi system..in old school wood and silver... In that audio cabinet that had the glass top that lifted up for the turntable with a glass front. Tuner, amp, cassette and record player ..eq! --and speakers on either side. Somewhere over the years it has gotten lost. And I don't know what happened to it. It was really cool. It pisses me off!
@@BilisNegra Now you're cookin' with gas ! don't see how Walmart could find shelfspace, what with these huge boxes. oo, oo, I got it ! Take all the components apart, throw them into a colorful box labelled in any language but English, put 'em on the aisle end caps with a big sign saying: MAKE YOUR OWN HIFI RIG !!! HOURS OF FUN FOR DIYERS. !! NO SKILLS NEEDED !!! MARKDOWN $30. trust me, they'll sell a million of 'em. (of course, there'll be no instructions in the box.....YEAH THAT'S IT !!! A STEREO JIGSAW PUZZLE !!!!!
It's too bad you couldn't take advantage of the somewhat fine tuning with that belt driven mechanism with a more selective tuner. That thing is as wide as a Mack truck.
you should review the new monoprice turntable. it actually looks halfway decent. they usually don't cut corners on functionality on their monitors. I am using one of those right now.
A radio disguised as a turntable made by an umbrella manufacturer in the 2000s? Totes magotes! All jokes aside, this isn't too different from the other retro-themed electronics that were all over the market at the time. In fact, I was actually really into this sort of stuff as a kid. This radio would have looked nice sitting next to the '50s "payphone" I had hanging on my bedroom wall.
That sounds horrific. I would have put it on my desk at work with all my other nic nacks thought... Reminds me of when I got one of those "baby boombox" radios as a kid and couldn't believe how horrible and shrill the sound was. Ear splitting "s" tones. It lasted about a day before I took it apart.
