You'll see tonnes of record players for sale, and many starting at under £50, such as the little suitcase/tabletop jobs like this
Mersoco or this
Crosley clone. They are, without exception, complete junk, but you expected that. Right? I mean, come on, under £50 for something that includes speakers (built-in) and has Bluetooth as well. How could it not be junk? So, you did the sensible thing and upped the budget; £150-£200. "
If they can make something for <£50 then 3-4X the budget should nail it?" But it doesn't, or it doesn't and still tick all your boxes.
The cheap decks are part of the problem Take this £190
Denver system. Setting aside that no teen would be seen dead with something that looks like a throwback to Downton Abbey, it's still junk, there's just more of it. A cassette player, a CD player, an FM/DAB radio, USB, remote control, and it's all topped off with the same crappy record deck used in the £39 suitcase players.
The decks are rubbish, but because they're made in such huge volumes they are produced for buttons. This skews the perspective of the market.
Now for the bit they don't tell you about. The stylus. The ones in these decks wear out really fast. 50~80 hours - yes, seriously. After that, your kid is dragging a plow shear around the record groove. That £20/£30/£40 album she saved up for is going to get hammered because no one remembers to change the stylus. By contrast, a diamond stylus last around 1,000 1,500. Okay, a bit of maths next.
The cheap deck stylus costs £5 to replace. The diamond stylus in the better deck lasts longer, so if we say 1200 hours for that, and we give the cheap deck the benefit of the doubt and say that you only need to replace it every 80 hours, then you'll still end up replacing the stylus 15 times. 15 x 5 = £75. Your cheap deck will cost £75 to run just in replacement bits, whereas a better deck with a diamond stylus will cost £0.
"
So, there has to be a catch, right? The diamond stylus costs a fortune. That's it." - Nope. It's more expensive, yes, but not outrageously so. The stylus for the cheapest proper record decks costs under £20. Here's a
link to the AT3600L stylus. £18.99. That's way better mpg.
Let's have a think about how your daughter might want to use the deck, the actual steps involved in playing a record. Is she prepared to do all the cueing and lifting the record arm off by hand, or would she prefer press-button automation? Is just the novelty of playing records more important than the absolute fidelity?
Some of the guys here - myself included - are more interested in fidelity, to we'll go for a deck where everything is done by hand. That means more of the money has gone into the engineering of things like high quality bearings, precision tonearm construction, a quiet motor etc. That would be decks such as the Rega One and many of the Pro-Ject decks.
For others, convenience is more important. Decks such as the
Audio Technica LP60XBT (£199) and a pair of active speakers such as the
Edifier R1280BT (very good value here on the OC site, just £79) does everything they need, and pretty competently too.
It is possible to chop some money out of the budget. The Denon DP-29F is the old version of the Audio Technica AT-LP60. It's £120. However, there's no Bluetooth feature or USB output. This, plus those Edifier speakers gets you a basic record player system with far better sound quality than the cheaper decks, and it comes in under £200.
If you were able to find a little more money, but still wanted all the auto features and Bluetooth, then I can recommend the Sony PSLX310BT at £249. Your daughter might have to forego speakers until the birthday treat, but it's as cool as a cucumber and includes Bluetooth too.
