There’s something mesmerizing about watching a vinyl record spin around on a turntable, but unfortunately the vast majority of record players spin horizontally, and aren’t really designed for easy viewing. Luckily, vintage audio design company Gramovox has built a solution — a turntable that turns your records vertically, without compromising sound quality.
If you took your average record player and propped it up on its side, you’d end up with all sorts of problems. For starters, you’d have a hell of a time keeping the record from falling off, and the tonearm probably wouldn’t go where you want it to, so your tunes wouldn’t play back correctly.
Gramovox’s “Floating Record” solves these problems with a few simple innovations. In addition to a clamp that holds your albums in place vertically, the player’s carbon-fiber tonearm uses a small spring to apply the force that keeps it in touch with the record’s surface. According to the company’s Kickstarter page, the player’s tonearm is also precisely balanced so that it doesn’t skew and head for the center of your record.
On top of that, the Floating Record does not require cartridge set-up or purchase of additional outboard gear like phono pre-amps, amplifiers, or speakers. Everything you’ll need is incorporated directly into the design of the player.
“We’ve engineered the Floating Record to flawlessly play your vinyl vertically and output full-range stereo sound. We deconstructed the elements of a premium turntable setup and reconstructed them in a manner that maintains their high-performance standards,” according to Gramovox.
Gramovox recently launched a Kickstarter campaign for the player last week, and despite the fact that it’s only been live for about six days, the project has already raised more than $744,000 in pledges. It shouldn’t come as a shock that Gramovox hit it on Kickstarter, though. Over a year ago, the company’s Bluetooth Gramophone raised about $241,000 during the course of its campaign. It’s safe to say the Floating Record blows that achievement out of the water.
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