My mom held onto the old record player my grandpa had had since the 1970s; a Longines Symphonette combination turntable and AM/FM radio.
This thing isn't a typical first record player, but from what I can tell it's just as shitty! Even looking past forty years of degration, it felt incredibly cheap and the sound quality was awful. The thing needed a few quarters taped to the stylus to even play without skipping, which I'm sure was really good for the grooves...
It did have a cool looped playback feature where it would move the stylus back to the outer edge once it reached the runout groove. perfect for if you have a record you only want to hear one side of forever. You could also have several records stacked on the spindle and the player would drop them onto the platter to continuously play records. However, dropping records onto other records really freaked me out and I never did that.
I used this thing from September 2019 up until March 2021. Granted, I only owned one record until mid 2020. Record collecting was my lockdown project, I suppose, and I began pouring basically all my income into buying records. I still lived at home at this time so I very few expenses.
To the left you can see me spinning my first record the day I got it, 2019-09-05!
On 2021-03-26 I finally decided to upgrade my system, and picked up an Audio-Technica AT-LP120XUSB. After a bit of research, I determined it was pretty much the bare minimum good turntable. They can still get quite a bit better then this, but they're a hell of a lot better than the worst out there. Plus, USB out has proved to be a great feature.
To the left you can see its inaugural spin; Aphex Twin's Windowlicker single.
I also picked up a set of Edifier R1280T speakers, which are again the bare minimum of good.
I haven't so far been too concerned with getting the absolute best sound out of my records. Honestly I mainly collect them for the collection aspect, but I also play an album nearly every day. My turntable and speakers get the job done to fill my home with music!
What's funny is when I bought my new turntable, I completely forgot to also buy speakers until I got back home and unboxed the player. After realizing I had no way to hear the records, I sheepishly drove back to the store to get the speakers.
(P.S. I know the speaker placement is horrible in that photo. Five years later I promise they are spaced out better.)
Since then, my setup hasn't changed much. I've steadily gotten more IKEA Kallax shelves as my collection has grown, but the tech has been unchanged.
The only changes I can say have happened since are that in May 2022, my stylus broke and I went out and got a replacement that same day.
I replaced it again in March 2026. It hadn't broke, but I could definitely tell it was worn out. Actually, it was fascinating to hear the improvement in sound quality after switching. The high-end became much sharper and vocals were clearer.