My Miniot Wheel 2 finally arrived, but does it deliver on the promise? 

Agreed, that was a monumentally stupid design decision. Plonking the better part of 2k on a device from a manufacturer with an unproven track record is already a major gamble, but non-replaceable cartridge for apparently no good reason is unforgivable.

Agree. For the price, I'd want the ability to upgrade the stylus myself.

thanks, saved me from wasting 30 minutes 😁

Everything is replacable. It's just the amount of effort you're willing to take to do so. Just because the manual says "non replacable" means nothing to me. Should mean the cart is hard wired which I refuse to believe.

Full agreement, how foolish.

I see what you did there...

*groan* :D

Dad!!

Well played, sir.

lol

Sure, since it's already firmly tied to the manufacturer for cartridge replacement... 🤔

For 2000 dollars, you can get some endgame level turntables that also look very beautiful. This one looks kinda cool, but i would much rather have a Pro Ject Debut Pro for example. And that one is only around 900 bucks, so you could even put in an Ortofon 2M blue or even a 2M black and still be much cheaper. Or how about a real Technics 1210 for its retro design. Or maybe a Pro Ject Classic with real wood veneer and an aluminum platter. All of those would give you better soundquality for less money, and look better (at least in my opinion). And i really don't care about being able to skip tracks - when i listen to vinyl, i listen to the whole record.

I'ts like an upside down Technics J2 without the support for Audio Technica standard cartridges. These can be found under 100€

People that spend 30 grand on just a pair of speakers would find this rather cheap. One of the most expensive turntables out in the world cost over a half a million US.

They are already selling knockoffs on AliExpress for $50. lol jk

lol

At that price you could get a Refurbished Thorens 1600. Which would be worth more every year if looked after.

Its like my dual cs1229, I paid 300 refurbished and after a year the price has increased another 50

@@strawberryjam3670 Agreed. With Dual and Thorens you can still get new parts. Even brand-new acrylic dust covers. It’s in the price range of people who are paying for reasonable quality separates. Yet it has a ridiculous stylus / cartridge. At the price point being proposed I would want an Ortofon Quintet Blue or an Ortofon Red. If they had gone for any cheaper cartridge it would have ended up being a ceramic.

@@MadeleineTakam Bleh. For a lot less money I could get a Sony PS-FL77.

@@jonc4403 Hmm. I drive a 456M, but for a lot less money you could drive a Nissan Micra. The performance difference is about the same, as the difference between a Thorens 1600 and a Sony PS-FL77. I use an Ortofon Quintet Blue on my Thorens 1600. But on a Sony PS-FL77 your limited to really poor cartridges like the Sony XL-250G at best. Certainly cheaper, but wouldn’t you be better off, sticking the record over a pencil, while you spin it round really fast with your fingers and listening to it with a nail stuck in a tin can?

Neither visually pleasing nor functional, sorry. The visual aspect is totally destroyed by seeing the wrong side of the disc (the one that isn't playing) turning backwards, and the typical functionality of a turntable that centers on the "hands-on" manual control of disc and cartridge/tonearm, without any electronics involved except for turning the motor and amplifying the signal isn't happening either. How are you supposed to manually center a disc that is pressed somewhat off-center by eyeballing the groove spiral and the movement of the tonearm? How are you supposed to keep the stylus in the groove in a scratched spot by slightly holding a finger against the headshell? How are you supposed to play very thin pressings and flexidiscs, given that there is no actual turntable for them to lie on and keep flat? No, this is a barely functioNING, but no really functioNAL toy.

lmao, a joke right? looks like 5 dollar turntable off ali baba

@@PazLeBon Well would say a 40 dollar one but still it kills everything that is nostalgic about playing records

@@Bambeakz haha fair nough, i did it a disservice :) yeah actually after watching this I did mention t the better half, "do you remember going to the store n buying a new stylus" haha Rumbelows apparently she said

​@Bambeakz Very good point! It doesn't offer the tactile pleasure of a traditional turntable. Not sure I like the idea of a track locator either. I love the commitment one has (when placing a record on a platter without a shuffle control) to listening to an album uninterrupted from start to finish.

You can also just burn your money next time if you don't care for audio quality

More fool you. I've got better things to spend that kind of money on.

I would put another way, they used the Kickstarter backers money to subsidise their full retail operation to still be holding off sending out those backers a unit after 7 years is a joke

@@Bambeakz Yeah bro fell for a scam lol

Cartridge*

i mean you can... you just have to use their proprietary one, and hope they don't go bankrupt after buying the player.

@@SuperPickle15 You can change the Stylus not the Cartidge.

The crazy thing is though is that design wise it seems aimed at the non-enthusiast - non user replaceable effectively proprietary cartridge and no capability to bypass the inbuilt pre-amp.

@@Thermalions Definitely. For as beautiful and performant of a device as it is, it's a square peg in a round hole. It lacks the cost to have mass appeal, and the customizability to hit the mark for enthusiasts willing to shell out for its $2K price tag. Mat says it himself: he expected them to be bankrupt well before the device shipped on account of the scores of outraged backers and the bizarre "upgrade" scheme. That they're possibly only shipping backer orders when new orders come in to cover margins means they're cutting it razor thin. Why on earth would any enthusiast want a company with that shaky of a foundation to be the sole supplier for something as essential as a stylus on their $2K record player?

& you could say there is no wheel 1 so a upgrade to the 2 is a forced upgrade pay 150 extra or get nothing

It needs a cover

@@linuxstreamer8910 It was 'we're out of money, pay more or get nothing'. I suspect after 7 years there's no money left & unless this device does surprisingly well the company will be gone in less than a year.

On top of not being even able to swap out the stylus, no bypass of the preamp and no dustcover. Smacks of Apple to me, in the worst possible way.

Not even expensive if you compare the price to a designer 80s turntable when they were new with inflation taken into account.

I was quite happy to carry on chewing my toast. But the price is silly, when you consider the excellent turntables out there that perform so much better. Or, buy a whole new system for the same price.

@@kristoffer3000 They offer replacement styli, you just can't change the _cartridge._

@@MikaelLevoniemi except we have modern turntables that are nowhere near as expensive and the technology isn't even that complicated

And built in preamp/amp. It's not a soundburger, plastic novelty of a portable reccord player. It's a close to 2000 bucks item, and specd like a toy.

@@Damien.D Agreed. I'll wait until crosley makes a plastic one...shouldn't be long now...

​@@basshorseman998don't they get audio tecnica do make them that's if it's not a curusser

@@Damien.D Let's reinvent the wheel but this time make it round

This looks like it's all about the design and nothing to do with audio fidelity.

I was wondering if the plastic was shaved off, or they cut some of the metal too, it was hard to see.

Agreed. I bought a Shibata stylus from LP Gear for the standard cartridge and now just need to use a dremel to cut the plastic stylus body.

Presumably voiding the guarantee on your £2k device, though.

@@G6JPG Nah, you'd just keep the original stylus and put it back on before you shipped it back for repair. Consider it justice at them charging such an amount of money just to Dremel a bit of plastic off.

@@greenaum 3D printing could make that concern obsolete as the home use technology becomes more developed. but the cartridge carrier contact force would have to be worked with.

You can get a GOOD turntable for that price.

Yep I have two cats.

BREEKBAAR!

It is the soft desk that makes it wobble. The feet’s are from 4mm metal.

Also, as someone who finds that playing vinyl goes well with an evening session on the pop, my chances of operating this successfully while Brahms and Liszt to try to listen to Brahms or Liszt is practically nonexistant.

I loved my SL-J2; it spoiled me. It started creaking, though. I'm not sure why these guys wouldn't use P-mount technology, unless there's still a licensing fee.

Oof beat him to it.

@@GoAway-vj4vj you’re

I was curious: was it a single-sided record? (If yes, then indeed it would do as the cover.) (What is on it?)

Definitely. I'm feeling a bit stupid not picking up on that before you wrote it.

Ahh yes because a cover with either open sides or open top depending on orientation of the player makes perfect sense. Then again you could be right they might have put next to no thought into the dust cover like they have over aspects of the device.

And made out of slate

The idea to make product aimed toward a "hipster" audience is not that novel... While we might discuss whether the tracking force should be 0.02N or 0.015N (2 gram-force or 1.5 gram-force), the typical hipster just wants hipness without the details (although the might look up the tracking force in the manual so he can feel smug).

@@klausstock8020 You appear to misunderstand what I was saying. It's not about the tracking force. It's about a low budget bad sounding cartridge in a £2000 turntable. Low budget is just that, high end, is just that. You can not mix a low budget bad sounding cartridge in a premium turntable....end of story.

@@jimdandy2024 I understood perfectly well. "Tracking force" was just an example about something the *target market* most probably has no clue about (it's kind of funny that they added the option to adjust tracking force, but their web site only mentions "1.8 to 2.2gram" -- I think they want say "gram-force"...?). Anyway - their black comes with a Shibata stylus as standard, and the black model is only 3,800€. Cheap! But they could have made it even cheaper if they'd offer the AT95ML, which *is* currently cheaper than the AT95SH. And if you love your vinyl, you'll probably want a micro linear stylus. Downside if course that a micro linear stylus requires a precise installation. Maybe you can't do that with the Wheel 2? TL;DR: no need to discuss styli here, the Wheel 2 is neither made nor marketed for vinyl enthusiasts.

The maker seems very genuine, he ran out of money and borrowed more, to fill the orders, and a heart attack in 2021 (probably from the jabs), so people were lucky to get it at all.

@@G-ra-ha-m Take the Fox News misinformation elsewhere, thank you.

@@Cre80s Data, true information, sorry. You have been programmed to defend something that you didn't even notice before 2020.

It looks good. I'm glad there are folks out there doing this sort of thing. Now if they could make a decent tape deck...

@@bletheringfool I think the biggest limitation to making a new & decent tape deck would be the heads .. the mechanism itself is not much more complex than that for a record player. If I was tasked with making a new tape deck I think I would digitise the position of the tape and output from the head and use the combination to output a stream without any wow & flutter (could be done on a record player too, of course, and more easily actually).

@@davealancaruana6727 that was essentially the DAT (digital audio tape).And, still, my DAT crapped out due to the belt/bands mechanism.

it would make an impressive gift to a kid with a gaming computer and a set of headphones. they could play all the Taylor Swift records they bought before they owned a turntable

I think he was just over the moon at having received ANYTHING at all after waiting 7 years and continually having to pump more money into it. The final price is like 5 times what the initial offering was. And the company will no doubt go out of business if they haven’t already 🤷‍♂️. He better order replacement parts now while they’re still in business.

Sort of. I think the single line-of-light display would get a bit wearing.

How exactly would, say, an SL1210 not be able to play an off center pressend vinyl? Are you a sales drone of that scam?

I'd like to see a test with an offcentre hole drilled into a disk.

​@@Oli1974a conventional tonearm tracks the groove. It cannot correct for spindle offset like a servo controlled linear tracker can

Ever heard of "project binky" ? 🤣

ClickSpring took 5 years or so to build/ finish his Antikithera Mechanism video due to a few discoveries made while recreating it that lead to a bunch of previously unknown features/ research. It's a great series though, highly recommend

you're

...Though in the days before RU-vid, the BBC used to do this _all the time_ ... 🙃 (Sometimes because the videotapes would get misplaced, often turning up - Mysteriously - On the 16:32 InterCity to Glasgow... 🚅📼💨😋)

Just sell one kidney and one lung. 😂

@@my3dviews that would work. sign me up. lol

Good thing I don't want one as I only have one kidney left, cancer claimed the other one.

@@SlyPearTree sorry to hear that. maybe Techmoan will give you his one. lol

put more value on your organs

I do wish that Matt was a bit more critical of this product like you were. He really sold it as being his favourite record player (even though he clarified "currently made") but in reality, it seems like it's simply not good value.

@@inverse_of_zero I would say that it isn't for the enthusiast, it's more for the casual gadget lover with money burning a hole in their pocket. That doesn't mean it's terrible, just a different market.

@@chaos.corner Yes, sort of the same market as Bang & Olufsen - though their stuff was usually rather better technically, but the same sort of "clever design" target customer.

this

@@inverse_of_zero I don't think as many people are as in to "vinyl as a process" as you are. Or at least that you imply you are. I dunno. Maybe you have spent several weekends auditioning different preamps and carts. I think, for the majority of people, this model, with the lower-end cart, would probably still be the best-sounding turntable they have, or ever will hear. It's probably better than whatever they're listening to music on now. We've all been conditioned to believe there's a substantial difference between any given five pre-amps, when, in reality, you could make one that measures within a few percentage points of perfect out of a handful of parts you bought at Radio Shack. (.... thirty years ago, when those still existed.) Imagine, for a moment, not having been brainwashed by countless hours on Reddit as other people wax poetic about the enormous differences they heard when they swapped this op-amp for that one, built one from mismatched discrete transistors, or bypassed an electrolytic cap with a film cap made with the oil excreted from a unicorn's horn and used to bathe a nude virgin. And yet.... most of the stereos sold used a simple, utilitarian, textbook design made from the cheapest components on a phenolic PCB and connected not with demonic 3.5mm audio jacks, but garden variety _ribbon cables_ ... unshielded, pressed into plastic connectors that can't be removed non-destructively, and plated not in gold, but tin! The horrors! And all of those listeners survived the experience nonetheless.

Seems like they took a page from the design of CD players, using active servo systems to maintain tracking on a groove that may wander in two planes as it travels by in a third. Fairly obvious solution, when you think of it. Although I do wonder what they use as an error input, lacking the four optical sensors and a reflected laser whose beam shape corresponds to focus. Quite clever!

It's 90% about the design though, it's not something you'd get if you were an actual 'audiophile' as you'd want to be able to replace or upgrade the stylus, use a dedicated preamp etc

I love how it´s just used without comment 🙂

@@nordishkiel5985 it doesn't need any comment, that version is made specifically for people like Matt

The champ is the model name. I own one myself

I think he did a video on it?

Yeah, he used it in multiple videos at this point. I wonder if he would ever do a video on it ...

and the day they are gone you got a expensive paper weight.

I bet there are two things that required a bespoke cartridge: Needing close physical proximity to the optical sensor, and needing it to be light yet stable enough to move on the X and Z axis via (what I assume is) a voice coil for compensation against warps and off-center pressing. The first problem might have been solved by using a worm drive shaft that extended the optics on one side and the stylus on the other. The second... is pretty unique. I'm not sure there are a lot of off-the-shelf carts that would work, and even a "compatibility list" would be subject to design tolerances, since they weren't ever made for that purpose. Whether that feature is worth the bespoke consumables is a up to the buyer, I suppose.

not that it makes the main problem better (why not a p-mount?) but there are professional retippers in case you have an old but great or mc cartridge that isnt made anymore.

no way this would hold down paper

I really do not recommend using any turntable as your, "daily driver."

This video confirms something: @Techmoan is - In fact - A British spy stationed abroad. Most likely - Given his interests and specialties - In Japan... 🕵🇯🇵😉

Now in curious! how does the Wheel 2 remind you?

@@krimke881 Great question! My technics deck is basically an amalgamation of all the high tech features of the mid 80s in a turntable, so it gives a very unique experience compared to other turntables. It's a linear tracking tonearm built into the dust cover, it will auto detect the size of your record and place the stylus down in the right place, it scans for tracks and lets you program a playing order non linearly, so I can play tracks 3, 5, and 1 for instance, and its direct drive with a quartz crystal disciplined motor for accuracy. It's not the peak of audiophile turntable by any stretch, but with all the quality of life features and enhancements it has it makes for a great user experience with great audio. That's the sense I have of the wheel 2 as well. Is it the best audiophile turntable on the market today? Definitely not. But it's taken so many useful and interesting features to provide a great record playing experience, with new concepts to try and improve the turntable for the astute listener (looking at that upside down tonearm). If they ever get the price down closer to 600-1000 usd, I'd seriously consider it.

​@@krimke881 It's linear tracking, direct drive and detects tracks

So is my Sony PS-FL9 and it's also fully programmable like a CD player and has a drawer so you can build your stereo on top of it

Indeed. I, too, have one and it is an excellent turntable. I've also just finished fixing and servicing an Sl-ql15 another fantastic table from the 80s which has programmable track orders.

But that's ugly

I agree man. It's cool that innovation is still pretty hot even if we have to pay more for it. Especially in a world of so much blandness and"cheap" thinking.

Actually in their advertising, you can see the Wheel 2 on top of a Bang & Olufsen radio.

It certainly has the Bang & Olufsen _price_ about it... 😉

My speakers can vibrate my walls.

Or standing freely on a single aluminium post.

And non-serviceable.

Seven years of management salary😋

@@IcecalGamerwhat is that emoji lmao

500 seems more correct.

@@Farquad76.547 the 7th top row DEFAULT YT emoji

I get that it's a joke, but this is making my autism itch. Since the wheel plays the side facing the machine, placing it on top of a regular turntable would just play the same side again, wouldn't it? 😑 Sorry for ruining the joke.

@@remcovanvliet3018 The turntable that you place the Wheel on top, would play the top side of the record. So, you need to use both turntables to play both sides of the record without having to flip it. 😄

But the Miniot does rotate counterclockwise, so the LP will simply remain mostly stationary

​@@Aliens308You just have to slip the drive belt off the normal table.

@Aliens308 No. You don't play both sides at once. Once the Wheel completes playing its side, it stops rotating. Then you play the top side with only that one rotating.

Why would you want a digital output for an analog audio medium like vinyl? In that case just stream the track for 99 cents/pennies

​@@albank.5386 He also mentioned RCA outs.

Seems like a remote control(or at least a remote control App)should be another.

An analog device with Bluetooth? That *would* be a waste of dosh.

Thought you would say: since the romans left

Oh yes? And what have the Romans ever done for us?

B&O fans more like it

Yes! Pause and skip tracks from across the room.

Covering up the IR sensor would do you no good.

No printed cover. The ideal case would be a mirror or smoked plexiglass door that slides out of the way when you use the turntable. And that center hub could do with a better finish to make it an eye catcher.

Not the crappy Ortofon rubbish which is no better than the present one! A quality turntable needs a standard mount with two screws, or better a standard headshell mount (could be accessible from the back). But in the end, it will always remain a very unsatisfying toy from the POV of an actual record collector because the playing side of the record, and the stylus riding in the groove, are hidden from view. Watching the reflection patterns of the groove walls that correspond to the music recorded and are unique for every record, and watching the stylus pointing to the current spot within that pattern that is currently being heard, is a major part of the fun that is in playing records as opposed to listening to the same music from a CD, a tape, or a digital file. None of that is happening here. It might just as well be a fake machine that just makes a record turn for display and plays the music from a memory card - you'd never know because you can't see nor touch nor handle the tonearm that sweeps over the surface to retrieve the recording!

Why Ortofons 2M, its cheaper to have a cartridge which not have to be replaced, but instead only the needle (stylus) it self. If you got Ortofon to design at cartridge where one of their OM styli would fit on, people would have it more easy when the needle needs to be replaced and they would also have the entire freedom of choice which one it should be in the entire OM series.

@@syntrilliumc.e.p.9326 The 2M styli are replaceable, sir. That is precisely why I said they'd be a great addition to the Miniot Wheel ...and the 2M Blue, in particular, comes preinstalled on many turntables in the same price range as the Miniot Wheel. It's inclusion would make the Wheel look as if it's on par w/ similarly priced turntables. Also, the 2M series is upgradeable as well....much like the OM series. The 2M Silver, Red & Blue styli all use the same cartridge body....and the 2M Bronze, Black & LVB250 styli also share a cartridge body. So, basically, you're saying they should do the exact same thing that I said....except they should use a different line of cartridges/styli.

Or perhaps the next version should come without a cartridge and RIAA amp altogether, so that the buyer could decide for themself what to use..

I'm really curious, if you actually polled every currently living person that has ever played vinyl, whether they gave any thought about what preamp to use. Or if, they did, would they have, if it had not been a mandatory decision due to the fact that the player came with none. (Which is a fairly recent consideration, since before, you would just use whatever your existing receiver had connected to the inside of the Phono Input jacks.)

@@nickwallette6201 Poll everyone who has ever bought an expensive dedicated vinyl player instead.

@@nickwallette6201 I would say people start caring once the fourth digit shows up in the price tag. At least that's the point for me where I start caring a lot more about even minor details on a product before I am willing to commit money towards it.

@@BertGrink That's what the "remove" would be for, whether on the product page or later wouldn't be the most important thing to me, but it would definitely be nice if it could be removed for a small discount / have a cheaper bare bones version without them.

Where or when did you see this?

@@ericvanderaa I do not know exactly. it could be 1 year ago or 2 years. They were also working on speakers, also in LP format. The turntable on the wall and then the speakers on the left and right. They had to invent a lot to get everything just right.

I feel like they need someone who knows how to run a business. Seems really shady to go from 7 months to 7 years.

Well not everything. The cartridge and stylus are probably the most important thing and that is a massive compromise. For most audiophiles, or even vaguely enthusiastic individuals, a complete deal breaker.

There’s a lot of compromises, especially considering the insane price point

Absolutely

Successful Russian op, make no mistake about it. Same with MAGA. Any isolationist movement is pretty much guaranteed Russian. Now Westerners are paying the price.

It's VAT and a handling charge, so little difference.

The retail import duty Techmoan shows here actually contains a little hint to help _work around_ it. If you know your TOPS classes for UK trains, you'll know what sort of train a *373* is and where they normally operate. If you pick up your player at the factory and then bring it home on one of those (Or it's newer Siemens counterpart, the 374) you might be able to avoid the import headaches completely! 🚄🇪🇺⭐💨😉

Every day, tpaul2866 would ask the mail carrier: "Is it here?" And the mail carrier would always respond with a cheerful variation on a theme of, "Not today! Maybe tomorrow, hey?" Finally, after seven years, on his deathbed, tpaul2866 asked for the mail carrier. "Did it ever come?" "No," said the mail carrier. "It hasn't been delivered." "The web site just kept saying my order had been processed and I should be receiving my unit soon. Why would they do that? They must have known..." tpaul2866's voice trailed off, and as he breathed his last, he could just register the mail carrier placing a parcel in his arms. "Because this delivery was specially for you," said the mail carrier. (Apologies to Franz Kafka.)

Miniot: „Your parcel has been dispatched using Amtrak RailFreight.“ Me: _Pleasantly surprised when it takes _*_only_*_ seven years to arrive..._ 🐌💨🚂📦😉