Avoid like the plague!!!! (Gemini XL-100)

Member Name: MichaelR

Product:	Gemini XL-100
Date:	26/01/01 (1069 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Ummmmmm, it's cheap?

Disadvantages: Just about everything else

This is, without doubt, THE worst deck on the market today.

I've never had the displeasure of owning one, but I have had the displeasure of using one at the home of a friend who has recently taken up DJing. Said friend is now wishing that he listened when I said I didn't think the XL-100 would be much good.

It is very, very cheap, and I think that's what attracts people to it, but you shouldn't go and buy these just because you have very little money and want to start DJing. You will have wasted your money.

Better value for money would be obtained by burning the £150 you would pay for a pair of these just to provide a few minutes heating.

They really are that bad, you would be better off trying to DJ with a pair of 1930's gramophone's than you would be with these.

The semi-automatic, belt driven platter is the thinnest that I have ever seen, and so it is very prone to vibration. Sneeze within the vicinity of the XL-100 and you will have problems. Hell, you'll have problems if you breathe near it.

The motor has virtually no power. It will grind to a shuddering halt at the slightest hint of any pressure being supplied, and when you wind a record backwards, the platter will get wound with it.

The start/stop time is laughable, or it would be if you weren't crying while you were witnessing it. You can try to throw the record to get it up to speed, but the trouble is that the motor is so weak you end up throwing the platter too, and it takes ages to come back down to the right speed.

The tonearm looks like it has been stolen off of a very cheap turntable like you used to get on top of low-end cheap stereos, you know, the type designed to play 7" singles on, before the advent of CD, and it is badly affected by background noise and vibration.

The counterweight is also woefully inadequate. It does not provide nearly enough weight to keep the stylus in the gro
ove during any sort of exertion at all. If you work the record, the stylus will skip basically.

This poor excuse for a deck doesn't even have a proper pitch control. What you've got instead is this weird "speed adjuster" and there are different ones for both the 45rpm and 33rpm settings. This replaces the traditional pitch control slider, which is pretty much a requirement for a DJ deck.

The trouble with these speed controls, is that they aren't progressive like a slider. What I mean is, you can't set the pitch to say, 2.5%, it is either 2 or it is 3.

I just really cannot emphasise how bad this thing is. It's not really up to use as a DJ deck at all. Gemini and various retailers advertise it for DJ use, but it's really not up to the job. It falls a long way short of being any good, and really has no redeeming features at all.

The price will be tempting if you are on a tight budget, but really, steer well clear, unless you have a real desire to waste £150.

If you really want to waste that sort of money, send it to me! I'd be glad of it! :)

Maybe if you've got some old Status Quo LP's or something and you just want to sit in a big armchair and listen to them, then these might just about do. (I still think you'd get better sound quality with those gramophones though!) But for DJing, they are no good at all.

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