Lenco L-3808 White digital USB record player

Having been quite impressed with the last L-3808 (in grey, my review for that can be found on the pertinent Bax page), when I wanted another turntable it made sense to me to buy another in the L-3808/LP-400 family - and to buy it from Bax. I've also made the same recommendation any time over the last year when anyone has asked me about a "budget" turntable. This time the white model was the cheapest (153 GBP including shipping at the time of ordering). Personally, I don't think the gloss white adds anything to the experience. The lid & base are traditional enough, the white is not going to blend with most other hi-fi separates. That said, free standing it's probably going to match something in the room, even if it's just the skirting board or ceiling... I'm happy with the service I got from Bax this time, however, if they'd said three to five days delivery I would have been very pleased that it arrived on the third business day - but instead was promised a rather unrealistic 48 hour delivery time, Followed by make excuses when it was obvious it wasn't going to arrive within that window. The oversized Bax outer box (stuffed with 80 small air pillows in strips) survived the trip unscathed, but the actual product box had an L-shaped spilt from some sort of blunt force trauma before or during packing. If it had been a gift it would have been annoying, and if it had been any deeper it would have surely damaged the clear smoked plastic turntable lid. The lid, platter, felt slipmat, headshell (with pre-fitted cartridge, stylus & guard), and jukebox 45 adapter are all separately bagged & need fitting to the main body of the turntable. The mains power lead is of the fixed variety and ends with a 2-prong euro plug, but Bax supply an adaptor free of charge. Separate RCA and USB leads are provided, so you can upgrade. Also included is a CDROM with the freeware recording/editing software Audacity. This is quite a powerful tool if you take the time to get used to the rather clunky interface, and the manual provided does give you a head start. Something to note is a small amount of mains power hum evident on the "silent" bit of such recordings, possibly coming from the direct (rather than belt drive) motor, however it's not evident during normal playback of vinyl through the USB or RCA leads. The absence of any sort of earth lead may also be playing a part. Other reviewers have described the sound as being quite bassy, but to my (late 40s) ears the sound is reasonably well balanced and only needs a tweak on the treble knob on my amp. Due to the mass of the unit & the large rubber feet it handles small knocks to the cabinet I have it standing on and footsteps around it without skips or jumps. However, it doesn't like being moved - even sideways or vertically a couple of feet, let alone to another room - doing so means needing to repeat the tonearm setup. To clarify what's in the manual: - Set the anti-skate dial to zero - fit headshell assembly & remove the stylus guard - fit the weight & scale, make sure the scale faces forward & the assembly is as forward as it will go - move the tonearm lowering arm all the way forward - ignoring the scale, adjust the weight rearwards until the tonearm returns to a level position. - Theoretically, you now have zero tracking weight (or VTF - "vertical tracking force"); - without moving the weight, turn the dial until 0 shows at the top; - hold the weight and dial together and move them forward until 2.0(g) shows. - Set the anti-skate to the same value as the VTF, i.e. 2. I've had issues with both my L-3808 decks: specifically, the stylus skipping across the lead in on records & over into the first track – from a standing or running start. I had to increase the indicated VTF to 2.5g (and the anti-skating to match) to avoid this. Having bought an electronic stylus scale & checked the VTF, it was clear that the mechanical setup dial was under-reading by around 0.5g - i.e. a reading of 2g on the deck was only 1.5g, increasing it to a nominal 2.5g increased the VTF to 2g. A nice feature of the L-3808 is a built-in preamp - which a lot of modern amps, most boomboxes & powered speakers don't have - meaning that you don't have buy any extra kit to hear it properly, just move a small switch on the back from "phono" to "line". The cartridge supplied is the Audio Technica AT3600L, pre-fitted with an ATN3600 stylus. It's the same as fitted to a lot of budget turntables, meaning that you should able to get replacements for years, if not decades to come. Running costs are currently quite low with a genuine replacement stylus around 15GBP. A stylus and cartridge combo for 18 GBP looks very tempting, but would require some extra, fiddly setup. I went for a whole stylus, cartridge & headshell for 27 GBP as there's a hole in the right rear corner of the deck top to store it. Unbranded Chinese equivalents are about half as much. I found the aim, spread and colour choice of the strobe light to be on the poor side - it's functional enough, but throws a lot of orange light about. The same can be said for the target light – a small incandescent bulb with a wide spread of rather yellow light seems very "last millennium" when a brighter & more tightly focussed LED would do a better job. The target light body is nicely machined but has very sharp edges to the slot. On my grey deck it pops up (and latches back down) with a thump, on this white L-3808 the popup action is quieter, but not necessarily in a good way as it sounds a little "floppy". On the plus side, other reviewers have stated that they needed to adjust the speed via the pitch control, but I found that wasn't the case. Playing a record involves turning the deck on, lowering the stylus onto the vinyl, and pressing the start button - not much extra faff compared to an automatic (or semi auto) turntable. However, you do have to remember to at least lift the tonearm up at the end of a side, or it'll keep spinning and playing the final groove forever ... To summarise, plus points: - superb value - decent sound - always going to be able to get a replacement stylus. neutral points: - strobe & target lights a little poor - needs a bit of a tweak on the treble knob, IMO - some hum evident on digitally recorded tracks - white deck top an odd choice - no auto-stop. Negatives: - none, as far as I’m concerned at this price point. I'd fully intended to make this shorter than the last time I wrote up my experiences with an L-3808, however I seem to have waffled on even more, so: TL; DR - If you're on a tight budget & _have_ to have a strobe & pitch control, this is the deck for you. Even if you think it looks a bit “too DJ”, as long as you can remember to lift the arm at the end of each side, it's probably _still_ the right deck for the money :)
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Really impressed with the quality of this turntable, in gloss white. I was apprehensive about the colour but very glad now that I chose it over Matt grey. I have owned Garrard and Marantz turntables in the past and this one eclipses both. I had considered one of the belt-driven clones at £100/£130 but I knew that I would not have been happy with the straight arm and I really desired a cast aluminium platter with strobe. Good decision. Negatives? Well, it is a manual turntable, fair enough. However, I would have liked an auto return when a record finishes playing. The only other mild disappointment is the platter mat, which is made of felt, when I had expected rubber. Finally, the unit is big. Very big. Not in width and depth but in height. It has a thick base and high dust cover and the feet are chunky. Make sure that you have the space for it and allow for the hinged cover to open at the back. Sound wise? Perfect. And it comes with cable to connect to your amp, so don't waste money as I did on ordering a package with cable. All in all, I am delighted.
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