If Apple Designed a Turntable, This Is Probably What It Would Look Like

[theluggage]

Uh, no. Apple’s turntable would look like a Mac Mini with a single slot on the front to load your vinyl into. The interior would use lasers to read the record grooves. There would be no headphone jack and no audio output ports, using AirPlay 2 instead to connect to HomePods, or a Bluetooth connection to Airpods and AirPods Max.

Nice. The single slot would mean you could mount the player in a rack without needing space to open the lid - probably also keep dust off the pickup and turntable. I think the laser reading has already been done, but it is certainly a better idea than wearing out your record by dragging a diamond through the soft, vinyl grooves, and it would probably have intelligent scratch/dust removal. No audio out is a problem - but turntables commonly don't have headphone ports anyway, that goes on the amp. AirPlay 2 - even at 16 bit/44kHz - gives far better bandwidth and dynamic range than you'll get off vinyl anyway (unless you've drunk the Nyquist denial Kool Aid, or haven't got the message that lots of 80s/90s CDs were just badly mastered), and many modern A/V amps can receive it and send it to proper speakers.

So what's the problem here?

 

[Sputman99]

Dieter Rams strikes again - come on - go look him up - I used his design language when I was at Product Design college in the 80s - and its still relevant today. It’s not an Ives, it’s a Rams. Ives is very naughty IMHO - famous and rich - but naughty.

 

[Henry S]

I look at it like haute couture; it's design for design's sake and it's a good plug for Ive's company. If someone wants to pay $60K for it, more power to them.

 

[Feek]

It’s not an Ives, it’s a Rams.

It’s not even an Ives. This is a fifty year old design that he’s added two very small parts on.

 

[GSWForever8]

It's not thin enough, clearly he didn't design it!

 

[JOLoughlin]

I beg to differ. Show me a turntable I can use in my car (where I listen to most of my music).

I meant in terms of sound quality, not convenience of course. This is a very old old debate that won’t get anywhere. Similar to film vs digital for movies or photography, printed books vs …digital; take your pick of an analog medium compared to digital.

 

[Sevendaymelee]

I recently heard this line in a Bad Religion song: "Nostalgia is an excuse for stupidity." When I first heard that, it sort of pinged my psychology, and I started to reflect on my life. I was like, wait a minute... because I was literally listening to the LP at the time, and staring at my sea of CDs and vinyl records.

But he was right.

Living in the past is a form of self-harm. You're literally playing a psychological game with yourself, and you don't even know it. Things change. Actually, things improve. Cassette tapes improved on vinyl records, CDs improved on cassettes, iTunes improved on CDs and streaming improved on iTunes. Not wholly. There were flaws along the way. But overall, the improvements were empirical and what came next was better. And the same holds true for just about everything else, whether your psychology is able to see it or not. So this idea of Apple making a turntable... that's like Ford making the Model T again. It's ridiculous.

 

[gk_brown]

It's interesting how people spend so much money to reproduce music from a piece of vinyl that is far from accurate to the master recording.

Yep. Having grown up with vinyl (and later cassettes), I'm quite happy to stick with digital audio.

 

[ninetyCent]

Apple would not have made this. Steven Jobs wouldn't let you play anything you want on it without taking 30%

 

[Zapski]

But it’s not a 4mm thin featureless grey slab!

 

[Siliconguy]

Cassette tapes improved on vinyl records,

Certainly in terms of mobility, in the living room the cassettes took away pops and clicks, but added hiss. Both of them had wow, rumble, flutter, etc. Now the 1/4" reel to reel tapes had good sound quality, but it wasn't in many living rooms.

CDs improved on cassettes,

True.

iTunes improved on CDs and streaming improved on iTunes.

Not true. iTunes uses compression, and when it first came out quite a lot (128k was standard for a long time). It's better now. Streaming is not better than a CD quality wise.

As for the turntable in the article, my Fisher looks much the same except I can find the controls and it's black. I mean, it's a turntable, it has to look that way.

 

[JOLoughlin]

It's interesting how people spend so much money to reproduce music from a piece of vinyl that is far from accurate to the master recording. Imagine not only $60K for the turntable, but what pre-amps and amps and speakers this is connected to. The total price tag is unreal. To play music from a piece of plastic.

This is absolutely not an absolute truth. In fact for many genres and music of a certain time and depending on the recording, mixing and mastering process of a given album and mastering for vinyl it is the exact opposite and is closer to the master recording than any other medium (aside from reel-to-reel analog tape).

One downside of vinyl is consistency; for any given album there may be a variety of reissues done in different ways, at different levels qualities.

 

[Regbial]

A perfect example of the absurdity of the meritocracies (in this case in relation to "art") we create in our human lives. As another person said, this plus the expensive speakers and amps all to play music from a thin piece of plastic.. These sorts of reminders are good for us to keep ourselves grounded and appreciative of the things that actually do matter in our lives...

 

[MacAddict1978]

For $60K, it better be a transformer and turn into a Decepticon that takes out the idiot who bought it.

 

[TheLinkster]

Came here for the comments. Was not disappointed. Without Jobs to mask or redirect, Ive has become quite the caricature of industrial design. He should stick to designing logos for the royal family.

 

[Moofo]

I beg to differ. If Apple had designed a turntable, it would

1. Use Linear Tracking (Tangential)
2. Have a "Music sensor" of some sort to detect record edges and gaps between songs
3. Be able to play both side of the record without interventions
4. Have some sort of noise reduction mechanism
5. Be vertical.

In a sense, it would look more like Bang & Olufsen turntables.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

That’s really nice. If it was 400 bucks, I’d buy one.

Actually, it’s $400. The remaining $59,600 is the Ive Tax.

 

[Sir_Macs_A_Lot]

Sorry, without pitch control, this is useless for me. I’ll stick with these Technics SL-1200Mk2s

Agree. Spent $500 a piece on 2 Technics SL-1200Mk2s 20 years ago that are still going strong.

 

[Rychiar]

the list of things this company has designed sounds like a joke but sadly isn't

 

[MacDaddyPanda]

In the audiophile world $60k isn't entirely out of line for a high end turn table. But that thing doesn't look like a $60K Turn Table, lol. https://www.whathifi.com/features/10-worlds-most-expensive-turntables

 

[Octavius8]

And no amplifier?. Just a turntable?. The price is absurd. Out of proportion. Just because of his “brand”. 1000 times it’s cost. Abusive

 

[whitby]

This is the pricing for a typical LP 12 setup (taken from Sterophile). Note that the turntable itself is not the most expensive part. Welcome to high end Hi Fi.

 

[darngooddesign]

You missed the joke?

Aren’t jokes supposed to be funny?

 

[darngooddesign]

And no amplifier?. Just a turntable?. The price is absurd. Out of proportion. Just because of his “brand”. 1000 times its cost. Abusive

Most high-end turntables won’t have an amp because it’s better to use a separate amp.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Linn do make some phenominal audio equipment. My brother has had the same set of Linn speakers and Amp now for about 34 years. They're fantastic.

Linn stuff is certainly good… but even if it did last 34 years, that’d still be almost $1,800/yr 🙄

Not sure anything is “that good.” This is a vanity product for the super-rich. Anyone claiming they can “hear” that quality difference enough to justify the price; I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell them.