I know nothing about electronics and have few questions for all you experts. I have purchased a iProfile turntable which converts music from vinyl to ipod. It says that i can just play my vinyls on it also but that it has to be plugged into some kind of systen. The turntable has a fixed wire from it with a red and a white plug on it. Do i need to have an amplifier and speakers please can someone enlighten this technophobe. Cheers everone and hello by the way im new to the forum and appreciate any reply's very much.
The red and white plugs are probably RCA connectors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA_connector) (so you can connect it to a hi-fi), but the FAQ says you only need to connect the turntable to a PC via USB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus).
Edit: never mind, it says "no computer needed" for just transfering the vinyl to the iPod. It doesn't sound like you need to connect the turntable to anything.
The red and white plugs are probably RCA connectors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA_connector) (so you can connect it to a hi-fi), but the FAQ says you only need to connect the turntable to a PC via USB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus).
Thanks for the help.
"Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler", Albert Einstein once famously said. IMO, devices like this are dangerously close to "too simple" territory. While the concept is certainly novel, you should not have overly great demands regarding sound quality - it's the bottom end of hi-fi at best. What's the point of spending all the time doing vinyl rips only to end up with subpar results?
I'm fairly certain that even a basic '80s Technics belt drive unit like the SL-BD22 with an original stylus in good shape (even some of its slightly more upscale direct drive cousins can commonly be had for a song) plus a TC-750 phonopre would handily outperform the ION already, for a fraction of the cost. You could even throw in a basic soundcard with decent recording quality (like a SB Live! 24-bit as an internal card that does 24/96 even if driver operation is not particularly technophobe-friendly, or a Behringer UCA202 if it has to be external and onboard audio is no good).
The diminishing returns curve in vinyl playback is a lot less steep than for digital audio. As it is all-analog, quality in general counts a whole lot, and quality is rarely cheap when it comes to things like mechanics. As such you are virtually always better off with a decent used 'table. (But do pay attention to the seller's packing skills or pick up yourself. Record players are fragile and easily damaged in transit when not packaged correctly.)