I am not a DJ! I wanted an inexpensive Direct Drive Turntable. This unit fit the bill, the dollar bill. The unit works good enough me, not that I'm easy too please. The pre amp is very clean and has good power. I've had Belt Drive before and had problems with aging , the belt streaching and breaking stuff like that. So for an inexpensive unit it work for what I wanted! The stylus is a big plus being elliptical and does sound dissent also upgradeable. As for the pitch slider it is not so stable to fit the correct RPM to strobe light. Very touchy way to sensitive, possible more Assembly Quilty Control is needed. Does not come with Dust Cover, which I knew so I made my own. Works well?
M
Mark Ratajczak
★★★★★
Will order again
I love the Gemini Turntable. The sound is amazing. Very easy to put together. I would have to say it's wierd that there is a spot for a dust cover which you cannot get. The holes are there to place the hinges but didn't come with one. I replaced the stylus with an ortofon 2M-red. Beautiful
JuryDuty
★★★★★
HIGH quality direct-drive turntable, EXCELLENT for recording to Macs
There's NOTHING quite like the sound of vinyl, but so many record players on the market today are low quality and gimmicky. When looking for a turntable, you want something that will LAST, that has some strong DJ functions, that can record audio to a computer, but--most of all--sounds really great. That's why, when I saw this Gemini Sound TT-5000 turntable, I had to try it.
The turntable comes packaged well with only a few items separated for protection. Once plugging in the needle, counterweight and dropping on the record pad, it's pretty much ready to go. I plugged mine into a monster speaker/amp, dropped on a record and hit play.
What sound! The record played smooth all the way through with a clear signal to the amp. The bonus DJ features like pitch control and even the play/pause button work great. Because it's direct drive, when you hit play/pause, it stops on a dime. No "slowing down" or "speeding up" here. Just start/stop when you need it. The feet are also have thick rubber stabalizers that absorb vibrations. Even with a gigantic speaker right next to the player, it didn't skip a beat.
Next, I tested out the USB out. This is the one that really blew me away. I plugged one end into the player USB out, and the other end into my Mac and opened a recording program. It INSTANTLY recognized the signal and started recording. And what a recording! Crystal clear and smooth with a high sample rate of 48k. This may be the stand-out feature. (Ironically, the turntable comes with the Audacity app on a CD...why, I don't know. It's a free download and not only do most of us not use CDs anymore, but wouldn't you rather have the latest version from the website? They should just include a card with the download link instead.)
Some tech stuff: It does include the ability to play 33, 45, or 78 RPM at the touch of a couple buttons. The platter is aluminum and feels extremely substantial. The needle is a Gemini HDCN-15. Just snaps right in.
All in all, this turntable is a MONSTER. I'd say for its price-point, it's one of the best turntables for the money. Highly recommended!
R
Robyn R. Humphrey
★★★★★
Perfect for amateur
I wanted something to play albums again. This is perfect. Comes with RCA jacks and hooked up to my speakers flawlessly. Easy to set up, great turntable.
C
Cheshire_Cat
★★★★★
Good sound! Perfect for converting records to digital!
It arrived packaged very well and set up was pretty easy, though the instructions were a little lacking.
At first I had trouble with it skipping very easily, but then I figured out how to adjust the weight on the back of the tonearm, which made it much better. The instructions tell you how to install the weight, but make no mention of how to adjust it.
I think the sound is really good. I put on an old Foreigner record and hearing the warm crackle really brought back memories. This turntable came with a cd to install Audacity (you can also just download it directly form their website), which I already had on my computer. I did a test recording of 'Urgent' and it came out sounding really excellent. I'll definitely be using this to digitize the rest of my brother's record collection.
As far as using it to DJ, if I plan to do any creative scratching/mixing I'll probably stick with digital controllers. The brake (pause) works really well and brings the rotation to a stop within about half a second, but when it starts up again it takes a few seconds to get to the right speed. I found that while scratching it helped if I gave it a little clockwise push so it would get up to speed more quickly. I also had to be really gentle with scratching though, because it was prone to skip. I haven't scratched on real vinyl in a long time though, so I might just be out of practice. For straight playing music it's great though. In a couple months I'm DJing a high school class of '74 reunion and I definitely plan to bring this turntable along.
I compared it to a Numark TT-1625 and I thought the Gemini did much better overall.. The only thing I really liked about the Numark was that it has the power button right on top. To get to the power switch on the Gemini you have to reach to the back and underneath. It's not much of an issue though, because the Gemini powers off on it's own after a while and to power it back on you just hit the play button. You don't really need to mess with the switch all that often (again, I didn't see that in the instructions, I just had to figure it out).
One other thing that perplexes me though is that it seems to be designed to have a lid, like you see on traditional record players, but it didn't come with one. So there probably IS a lid available somewhere, but if you want it you'll have to find a way to track one down.
M
Marlon Macklin
★★★★★
Good, solid unit!
This is a very good turntable/record player! I did really know what to expect since I was used to the older models of record players, but I was impressed when I finally got to try this unit. It has some assembly out of the box, but it's easy and minimal. It comes with all the parts you need to get started. Feels like a very solid construction. Playing records was easy and sounds great! I also hooked it up to my dj equipment and it performs well. A very solid choice for the money spent.
