Audio-Technica Sound Burger: A tasty treat for vinyl lovers

This portable, battery-powered turntable lets you listen to your records anywhere

- JONATHAN TAKIFF

Audio-Technica's charmingly compact Sound Burger (fave.co/3Y8Jlgi) is a portable, battery-powered turntable that's just the ticket for bin-hunting expeditions and going on the road to share your beloved vinyl collection with friends. This deceptively small, 2-pound record player streams to Bluetooth speakers or headphones, and it has a 3.5mm line-level output for connecting to powered speakers or an amplifier.

True to the notion "what goes around comes around," the "new" Sound Burger is an updated version of a portable phonograph that Audio-Technica brought to market in 1983, 40 years ago. Marketed in the U.S. as the Mister Disc, the turntable was a belated response to the personal stereo craze sparked by the 1979 launch of the Sony Walkman portable cassette player.

Like the model before it, the Sound Burger's footprint isn't much bigger than two 1-pound boxes of dry spaghetti noodles stacked on top of each other. It can play at two speeds-33% or 45 rpmand it features a well-isolated belt-drive motor that spins a 3.5-inch aluminum platter. Its manually operated tone arm is fitted with a moving-magnet cartridge and a long-life (400 hours) diamond stylus.

IS THE SOUND BURGER A GOOD-SOUNDING TURNTABLE?