I first became aware that this kind of item was available when I saw a cheapo brand version on price-drop tv the year before last. I hadn't ever bought anything off the telly before but I got one for my dad for Christmas, and was quite pleased with myself for finding him the best present ever. He was really excited when he got it, and I decided to have a "borrow" and convert some of my old vinyl to mp3, but when I tried it the sound quality was awful, and the volume of the converted tracks was about half that of normal mp3s. Rubbish! I miserably packed my records away back up to the loft and returned the offending object to my dad. I was slightly embarrassed that I had got him it to be honest!

This Christmas, almost as if to completely shame me, he bought me the Sony version. To be fair, it wasn't even that much more, I don't think. I paid £70ish for the crap one and these are available for around £125 - almost twice the price admittedly but around a million times better quality.

It comes with a usb and a lead for attching to your computer or speakers, and a disc with the software for converting the tracks. All of this was very easy to use, my only complaint with the computer program being that it doesn't automatically name tracks for you, but since there's zero digital information stored on vinyl, I guess it would have to be psychic to do that anyway. You have to tag everything yourself, but if you're a control freak like me, thats ok cos you can do it your way!

The best thing about it was the sound. I had forgotten about the special organic quality vinyl has
compared to digital music - little "moments" in the background that invariably get cleaned up nowadays, and a softer edge generally. Somehow, this machine manages to capture that whilst converting the music to a format you can put on your ipod, and it sounds kind of crystal clear at the same time as having the warm fuzzy vinyl atmosphere. Really good. The volume is also at the right level, so you don't end up having to reach for the clickwheel when you're out jogging, just because an ex-vinyl song has come on, and then get ear-bleed from the usual digital tracks if you don't turn it back down in time.

As I find all turntables fiddly and slightly nerve-racking because of the whole scratch risk issue, I won't complain too much about this one - the needle and arm are very light, which means its easy to handle, but it can also mean that tracks jump when you close a door too hard or otherwise disturb it.

I would recommend this turntable to anyone who has vinyl - although I must stress that I am an ageing indie-kid rather than a super-hot dj, so I use it to play records rather than doing whatever it is that djs do.