Review

Review - Ion Audio iTTUSB USB Turntable

Monday, May 7th, 2007 at 9:00 AM - by

I have never owned a vinyl record. My first albums were cassette tapes, and I wasn't very old before I was purchasing my music on CD. My parents, though, have stoutly maintained their record collections, and I've always thought it'd be nice to fold them into my carefully maintained iTunes library.

That's why my ears perked up when I heard about Ion's iTTUSB, which the company is pitching as a solution for ripping your Beatles-era music. Ion Audio is a new brand from veteran audio manufacturer Numark, so they already know how to make a good record player.

The iTTUSB comes intelligently packaged with all the components and cables you need to set up. But (as I quickly learned) records and record players require real TLC. The player needs to be isolated from vibration. Drive belts can get twisted. The stylus arm needs to be balanced just so. Needles can break. Records need to be wiped clear of dust before each use.


There's only so much a manufacturer can do to alleviate these issues, and Ion deals with them all quite nicely. The player's feet are spring-loaded to provide some vibration relief. (Vigorously tapping the table or stomping on the floor is still likely to make your records skip.) The drive belt comes pre-positioned on the platter. The counter-weight for the stylus is pretty easy to install and calibrate. (I still managed to put it on incorrectly the first time.) The needle cartridge is easy to install. All in all, Ion does a good job of leading analog-stupid types like myself through the process.

Now we get to the fun part: playing your music. The iTTUSB has RCA outputs, which can play directly into powered speakers or a conventional stereo system, but it gets its name from its USB output, which will run straight into your Mac. Clean off a record (I found a lint brush and a can of compressed air did the job nicely), get it playing, and you're ready to record. The iTTUSB includes the free recording application Audacity, which captures the record's audio, let's you split it into tracks, and exports the whole mess as a handful of MP3s (or WAVs). Incidentally, I preferred using Rogue Ameoba's Audio Hijack Pro and Fission, which come in a bundle for $50.

There's just one complaint I have that Ion might have addressed. It's frustrating to have to work so hard naming files each time you play in another album, making sure each song gets the proper song title, artist, genre, and date tags, importing them into iTunes, and making sure the album art downloads properly. A fairly simple application could have made the LP-to-MP3 transition much less point-and-click intensive.

Clearly, the biggest single issue with the TTUSB is that it's still, well, a record player. That means it's mechanically finicky. It can't import your albums without playing them through. It can't divide up your songs automatically, and it can't import album info and track names. That's right, folks -- a vinyl record is (surprise!) not a digital format. So don't expect to swipe your (or your parent's) record collection over to a computer in an afternoon, or even a weekend. If digitizing your LPs is something you're wanting to do, plan to make it an ongoing project.

The Bottom Line
The good news is that if you've got a record collection and you're not facing a deadline for getting it on your iPod, the iTTUSB is a great product. It's a solidly-built turn table that's as happy piping tunes to your Mac as it is playing them through your stereo. If you've been looking for a digital-era solution for playing your LP collection, the iTTUSB is for you. Since Ion bills the TTUSB as a way to digitize your record collection, though, we have to ding them with a 3/5, rather than a 4/5, in the final scoring.

Just The Facts

iTTUSB from Ion Audio

MSRP US$199

Pros: A solidly built, super sounding record player that's digital age-ready. Analog (direct-to-speaker) outputs are a nice touch.

Cons: It's a still a record player. Don't think you'll transfer your whole LP collection in a sitting. Ion hasn't done much work to make importing, splitting, and tagging albums easier.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon May 07, 2007 12:05 pm

I looked at this TT just about a month ago. I'd gotten a lead about an old timer with some albums from the 60s of my college vocal group, and wanted to copy them over. In the end I decided to go with a slightly more expensive TT that had direct drive instead of the belt, and a couple other frills, such as reverse playback and quartz timing. The catch was that the other TT didn't have USB. I already had an RCA-to-USB converter box, but thinking back, the mac has line-level input. So I could have just as easily plugged the RCA line out from the TT into the mac with a basic adapter and let the mac do the analog-to-digital conversion instead of the box. Ditto the comments about time consuming. I use SoundStudio to record, SoundSoap2 to clean, and CD Spin Doctor (came with Toast 7) to define and name tracks. CD Spin Doctor sends directly to iTunes, where I do the bulk tag editing for album, artist, genre, etc. My workflow is straightforward for me, but your mileage may vary with the bundled tools.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon May 07, 2007 1:32 pm

Wait a minute, You said:

"Since Ion bills the TTUSB as a way to digitize your record collection, though, we have to ding them with a 3/5, rather than a 4/5, in the final scoring."

What? Isn't this the ONLY way you can digitize your record collection? So therefore, doesn't it do exactly what they claim? They supply the hardware and the software. You don't need anything else, no pre-amp, no RIAA decompressor, it's all there.

If it's the software that you don't like or feel is otherwise lacking, then use that as a reason, but just because this USB turntable can also connect to your stereo shouldn't reduce it's overall score, it's another feature. If it JUST had USB would you give it a higher score?

Put another way, what would you (realistically) prefer to see in an LP digitizing system that this system lacks?

Ctopher

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Ricky said:

member since 12 Jun 2001 with 266 posts, TMO Staff, send him a message or view his profile

Mon May 07, 2007 2:37 pm

Guest wrote:
Wait a minute, You said:

Put another way, what would you (realistically) prefer to see in an LP digitizing system that this system lacks?

Ctopher

A fair question. Perhaps in the review I did not sufficiently emphasize this point:

Review wrote:
It's frustrating to have to work so hard naming files each time you play in another album, making sure each song gets the proper song title, artist, genre, and date tags, importing them into iTunes, and making sure the album art downloads properly. A fairly simple application could have made the LP-to-MP3 transition much less point-and-click intensive.

In this sense, Ion does *not* supply the software. They supply a free application that "gets the job done," but not more. There are many software features I can imagine that would have made this job far less tedious. Some examples:

--Automatically dividing an album into tracks based on breaks (Rogue Amoeba's Fission does this)

--Finding track/artist/artwork info via online databases

--Streamlining the migration of audio files to iTunes

--Keeping track of which albums you've broken into tracks and which you haven't

There's no way for Ion to engineer away the reality that you have to play the record through in order to digitize it. My point is that Ion has only *really* addressed the hardware aspect of this problem. There's a lot of room for improvement on the software side.

Cheers,

--Ricky

TMO

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gslusher said:

member since 13 Nov 2002 with 2088 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon May 07, 2007 3:24 pm

For those who already have a decent turntable, you can do the same thing a lot more cheaply ($40 or less) with Griffin's iMic. It can accept either a line level output or a microphone-level. One advantage of the iMic is that you can use ANY line-level output, including tape decks.

One warning: if your turntable does not have a pre-amp (many older ones do not), you cannot connect it directly to the line-level input on your Mac (assuming that the Mac has one). One solution to that can be to have the turntable connected to the proper input on your amplifier/receiver and use its tape output (the one that would go to a tape deck).

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Rainy Day said:

member since 07 Jun 2005 with 607 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon May 07, 2007 6:12 pm

gslusher wrote:
One warning: if your turntable does not have a pre-amp (many older ones do not), you cannot connect it directly to the line-level input on your Mac (assuming that the Mac has one). One solution to that can be to have the turntable connected to the proper input on your amplifier/receiver and use its tape output (the one that would go to a tape deck).
I was wondering about that issue exactly. I know my old TT, which i have in storage somewhere, does not have an amplified output. But i can’t see any reason to replace it with another TT.

Many of my old vinyl records never made it into the CD era. I had originally just planned on buying them when they became available on CD. Think i’ll have to dust off the old TT and start spinnin’!

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon May 07, 2007 6:52 pm

Mr. Spero,

Thanks for the clarification, Audacity is not the best solution, but it is free. I agree with you, they could have licensed or written a better app. I use the "CD Spin Doctor" approach the other guest describes, and so long as you get the album name right, iTunes will indeed find the artwork. (If it exists!)

gslusher: If you have a preamp or a receiver, you can connect your turntable to that and then by an RCA to 1/8-inch stereo adapter for a few bucks and connected it between the receiver's tape outputs and the mac's input.

I really enjoy this process 'cause it forces you to listen and rediscover your old favorites.

Ctopher

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gslusher said:

member since 13 Nov 2002 with 2088 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon May 07, 2007 7:00 pm

Anonymous wrote:
gslusher: If you have a preamp or a receiver, you can connect your turntable to that and then by an RCA to 1/8-inch stereo adapter for a few bucks and connected it between the receiver's tape outputs and the mac's input.

Ctopher

Is there an echo here? Isn't that just what I wrote, minus the bit about the connectors?

"One solution to that can be to have the turntable connected to the proper input on your amplifier/receiver and use its tape output (the one that would go to a tape deck)."

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ctopher said:

member since 25 Aug 2006 with 134 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon May 07, 2007 9:22 pm

Gslusher - Did you say that?

Man do I look like a dope.

Ctopher

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed May 09, 2007 1:09 am

Since no one else mentioned it, a quick reminder that record players old enough to lack internal pre-amps need an external phono input that applies standard RIAA equalization to the TT output. Once you could take that for granted, now it pays to check. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization>.

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A guest said: (hide)

Sun May 27, 2007 11:56 am

I have been burning vinyl to CDs for about five years now. I have an old Technic belt driven turntable that has a pre-amp. I connect directly to my PC and use Microsoft Plus Digital Media Edition as my software. I have also used Audacity software. Both software packages were unable to "copy the sound" for both sides of the speakers. My example is; after the CD is burned and played, the sound comes out of one side of the speakers when played on other media devices. I have noticed this with several albums. I know it is not the turntable but the way the album was orignally recorded. Vinyl recordings were based upon "channels" and the number of "channels" used. Is anyone aware of how to address this issue? Thanks.

DD

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A guest said: (hide)

Fri Oct 26, 2007 11:32 am

As an obvious antique from the hippy days, the comments/complaints regarding the care and feeding of both turntable and (especially) vinyl stopped me in my tracks. OF COURSE you need to be extremely careful with your LP's - we who bought them when they were new releases had tools for dusting them off - although kept safely in their slipjacket and then into the cover they were fine. Unlike CD's and DVD's, there are actual grooves in the vinyl, and once you have scratched it, there is no way to repair it; just hope the needle won't skip when it hits it in the future. A soft chamois dust rag will do the job best - if there is any static you won't necessarily be able to use the can-o-air to blow it all away. Post-baby boomers have been spoiled with electronic audio players that can take a beating. Their predecessors are not going to take any abuse at all - you have to be careful and patient with them!

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magisterpat said:

member since 11 Dec 2007 with 1 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue Dec 11, 2007 12:43 am

No one has mentioned turntable speed. A Brookkstone catalogue mentions all three speeds "...digitalizing sound from your 33, 45, or 78 rpm vinyl recordings...." However, ION' s site says nothing about 78 rpm. I am assuming the catalogue is wrong. So, does anyone know of a similar USB turntable that will accommodate 78 rpm recordings (non-vinyl)? Thanks.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Dec 17, 2007 11:22 pm

Does the ION contain any equalization in its circuitry. RIAA is required. €if it is not in the circuitry is it in "Audacity" or other software or must you have a preamp?

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue Dec 25, 2007 4:33 pm

[quote="magisterpat"]No one has mentioned turntable speed....So, does anyone know of a similar USB turntable that will accommodate 78 rpm recordings (non-vinyl)? Thanks."

The last page of the Ion TTUSB owner's manual has a section on "Converting your 78 RPM vinyl" which basically says the Audacity program handles this concern ("Please install Audacity and follow the instructions below to record your 78 RPMs."). Audacity speeds up the inputed music from the turntable speed of 33 or 45 RPM to the desired 78 RPM. This will slow down the analogue to digital conversion process since you need to not only play the record, but then listen to it again as it is converted to 78 RPM.

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed Dec 26, 2007 7:38 pm

Does anybody know frequency reponse of needle/cartridge used in TTUSB? I have a Pioneer PL12D TT and am hoping to swap out

the pickup arm on it to the TTUSB to get full freq. response. If undoable, I'll probably ret. the TTUSB and use iMic instead.

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A guest said: (hide)

Thu Dec 27, 2007 10:05 pm

I bought one of these last week. I run a Mac OSX I spent an hour trying to get the cd soft wear to work. I finally called up and the tech guy said 'Oh, you can use that for a coaster." He sent me the right program in an E-mail without apologizing for my hour of exasperation. At about my second record I got static. I called again, spoke to two people and the second said I had a "sheild" problem and should return it. I returned it and plugged in the second one. Went fine for the first record, then static again. Called back and spoke to two more people. This time they finally admitted they didn't know what was wrong and suggested I call "Level 2" assistance. Called Level 2 and this guy finally admitted that they had been having trouble with the Mac OSZ's. He didn't apologize or anything but at least admitted there was a problem. He said I should try my lap top. I did, and that didn't work. Wouldn't you think they would call level one and tell those guys and call the store owner and tell them to tell the consumer or at least teach their employees to say they are sorry for making me spend about 5 hours of frustration?!!!!!!! If you own a MAC OSX do not buy this product, period!!!!!!

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A guest said: (hide)

Sun Jan 20, 2008 4:19 pm

Totally agree about using this TT with MAC OSX, and had the same problems as with user post 12/27/07. First record pretty good, then progressively worse with each LP I put on. Tried figuring out Audacity, but had to download tutorial and spent alot of time trying to 'clean' tracks, but finally gave up...takes a true techie for that! At least I won't bother with calling ION Level 1 or 2---this TT is being packed up and returned and my 30 year old LP's are finally going in the trash!

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue Jan 29, 2008 4:01 pm

Will Ctopher respond to the two MAC OSX users of 12.27.07 and 1/20/08?

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bn454612 said:

member since 24 Feb 2008 with 1 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Sun Feb 24, 2008 1:36 pm

Guess what? THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE DECK.

I have the Numark TTUSB Professional USB Turntable - which as far as I can tell is exactly the same as the Ion Audio iTTUSB USB Turntable - just a different badge.

I have used it on a P.C. (entry level Dell) since Xmas and it has been fine. Now that Mixmeister is available on Mac I decided to attic my P.C. and move all vinyl recording and mixing to my Mac (A G5 1.8 Single processor with 3.5g ram, 150g HD).

The deck and Audacity both work and a recording can be made - the problem is the massive amount of static, crackle, background noise, feedback. From the first record.

I have also tried recording through USB on the Mac using my ARTcessories USB Phono Plus - which is fine on P.C. - Using the RCAs on the Numark - heavy static, RCAS on a Technics 1200 - heavy static, Stereo jack to RCA from an iPod - heavy static, Stereo jack to RCA from a brand new Phillips Personal Cassette Player - heavy static.

Recording via USB on Mac OSX does not work regardless of the sound source and I can find no mention of this anywhere. I am going to try on a friends brand new Powerbook next weekend and will post some 'feedback' - pun intended!

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Mar 31, 2008 2:17 am

This is my first time on this site. I was about to buy an iTTUSB05 for my Mac OSX until I saw the last few posts about heavy static. Any updates or further information?

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A guest said: (hide)

Thu Apr 03, 2008 8:44 pm

On the static issue, I had a problem that may be related. I had used the TT on linux for quite a while without problems, and then used a Mac. At first everything seemed fine, but then I got these weird high static areas in the recordings, seemingly random.

I found the problem was caused by having iTunes and an audio interface attached, in my case a presonus firestudio. It seemed that whenever I started iTunes while recording, the static was introduced. And it was not apparent on the waveforms as recorded in audacity. Strange. So I just used a linux system to do all the recording and conversion to ogg, and then I copied it to the mac.

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A guest said: (hide)

Thu Apr 03, 2008 11:07 pm

I've had the same "static" problems as other users, but saw a recommendation on another forum to plug it directly into the Mac, rather than going through a USB hub as the unit doesn't appear to like the multi-USB adapters. I tried this and have had no problems so far, am burning my 3rd LP in a row without any static.

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A guest said: (hide)

Sun May 11, 2008 12:34 am

I'm doing my research before I purchase an Ion, but for the last 4 years I've been digitizing all my vinyl with a 15 year old JVC TT, a Griffin iMic, and a Sony minidisc player (which I used as a mixing board to get the right input levels). I ran it all into a program called "Final Vinyl" and they came out great. Then the TT died. Time for a new one, but what I've learned through experimentation is that you can make anything work as long as you're not afraid to experiment! I'm on a Powerbook G4 and I think I'll give this a try.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Jun 02, 2008 8:12 pm

MY NEW ION TURNTABLE IS BEING RETURNED. I WAS DISSAPOINTED TO KNOW THAT IT IS NO QUICKER THAN MY OTHER RECORDER FOR LP'S.

THE ENTIRE LP HAS TO PLAY THRU AND EACH SONG TITLE NUMBERED MANUALLY. I HAVE WAY TOO MANY LP'S TO TRANSFER TO CD'S!!

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LaurieF said:

member since 15 Jun 2001 with 3545 posts, TMO Forum Mod, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Jun 02, 2008 9:16 pm

Sigh - read my sig...

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