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Jason in McMinnville, Tennessee and asked: “I have some older records but I don’t have a good speaker system. I’ve seen on Amazon and a couple other sites that they’re selling a Bluetooth turntable. I was wondering how that works. I know there’s special electronics in a turntable that gives you that great old sound. Do they digitize that music? How does that work exactly and should I get one?”

Jason, they are usually just turntables that can output audio to a Bluetooth speaker. The way they get the music from the record is still the same, the way they feed it to the speaker is different.

As for whether you should get one or not, the only advantage is the convenience of the wireless speakers, if that interests you then it’s a good way to distribute your speakers without having to worry about wires, if you plan to keep it in one place and plan to have speakers around it, it won’t really make much difference.

The signal going to the speakers will be digitized, so if that’s a dealbreaker for you, this is probably not the kind of turntable you want, but realistically, the odds you’d be able to notice any difference at all in the sound quality are slim.

Still, you did ask about that “great old sound” and it is something audiophiles are sometimes very serious about so, be aware of the digital component if you use a Bluetooth turntable.

By the way, there are also bluetooth adapters that will plug into any audio source. That means that if you already have a turntable and don’t want to spend the money just for the bluetooth functionality, you can buy one of those adapters for much less.

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