iconvert.media publishes buying guides and setup advice for people getting into vinyl and home audio. The aim is narrow: help you spend the right amount on the right equipment, and avoid the purchases people regret.
Who writes this
Guides on this site are written and edited by Charity M. Broyles, who is responsible for what gets recommended and what does not.
No claim is made here to be a recording engineer or an equipment reviewer with a lab. What this site does instead is read the specifications carefully, check what things actually cost today, and write down the trade-offs that product pages leave out. Where something is uncertain or contested, the guide says so rather than picking a side for the sake of a clean answer.
If you spot an error, a stale price, or a recommendation that looks wrong, tell us. Corrections are made and the page is re-dated.
How recommendations are decided
Four filters, applied in this order:
- Does it protect your records? For turntables this is the first test. A player with a sealed cartridge tracking at 5g will wear your collection, whatever else it does well.
- Can it be repaired or upgraded? Equipment that becomes scrap when one component fails is worse value than its price suggests.
- Is the price current? Every price is checked against live retailer listings and dated in the article. A buying guide with year-old prices is not a buying guide.
- Is the trade-off stated? Most equipment is good at something and poor at something else. A guide that only lists strengths is advertising.
What we tell you not to buy
Plenty of popular equipment is a poor purchase, and the guides say so. Suitcase-style record players under $80 are the clearest example: they sell in enormous numbers and they gradually wear the records played on them.
Equally, some criticism is overdone. All-in-one players are widely dismissed in vinyl forums, and a few of them are genuinely good. Where the received wisdom is wrong, the guides say that too.
Where to start
- New to vinyl: Best turntable for beginners
- Buying a complete system: Turntable and speaker packages
- Just bought a turntable: Turntable setup guide
Contact
Corrections, questions and feedback: [email protected], or use the contact form.