Ion Audio iPTUSB

I checked out this turntable because I saw that it had a USB connection as well as traditional audio connections. Thus I figured I could use it traditionally and also use it to play vinyl and perhaps transfer my collection. It has a 9V power supply that plugs into the wall outlet. It also comes with a needle and it has a volume knob plus bass and treble controls.
I found that using it with the USB was definitely not a great option. It didn't really sound that good on my computer. The studio I work for does vinyl transfers, and after hearing their transfers compared to mine I had to try something else. I don't know what it is that makes this table sound so bad on USB, because when I used the regular audio connections it sounded pretty good. It's not like a vintage table with a nice pre-amp and a solid speaker system, but it does sound pretty great overall going into a regular set of speakers, probably because of the built it power amp. I like it because it's portable and it's easier than buying a whole stereo set with a vintage table, and it's easier to carry around.
I think that in general, it depends how much you're willing to spend and what your end goal is. If you're primarily looking to do vinyl transfers then I would get something else, preferably something that sounds better and can equip a good needle. The best way is to get a preamp and then run than preamp to XLR and send that to a mic line straight into the Pro Tools system, that way you can get a direct signal without the preamp coloring the sound. This isn't the best table to do that with, though, so if you're looking for a cheap record player to just play records, this is fine. Otherwise look elsewhere.

The Ion Audio iPTUSB is a USB and analog based turn table.  I use this for simply listening to vinyl on rather than transferring vinyl to a digital domain or anything like this.  It is easy enough to hook up to my speakers as it has modern connections rather than what you are going to see on on older record players.  It is pretty basic in design overall, with only volume, bass and treble knobs to control your sound with.  It is powered by the nine volt power supply that comes with it and it has both 1/8 inch output and RCA connections.  It is quite easy to operate and to use even if you aren't familiar with more traditional record players.  While I generally don't use this to transfer records to my computer, I have tried before and I didn't find it to be too effective.  I thought that it would be sending a better sounding signal via USB, but what it has is a built in microphone that it uses to record the sound from the record player.  While this will do the job to a degree, it doesn't sound all that good as a lot of sound quality is lost doing it this way.  This being said, this is the only bad part of the Ion Audio iPTUSB that I can think of.  So as long as you aren't expecting to be able to transfer your whole record collection over (which I'm sure a lot of you would be), this is a perfectly good record player.  For me it provides a cheap option for me to play my record collection with the ability to hook this up to a variety of different speakers quickly and easily.  All in all, I definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a record player on the cheap.