My Love, The Anabas

I have a sizable and well-loved record collection, and there's nothing I'd love more than to have a record player in college to play them on. Dorm life being as it is, I doubt I'd have enough space for a proper turn-table system, so I enter the realm of portable record players. With the vinyl market being as it is (novelties for people who shop at Urban Outfitter), most portable record players manufactured nowadays are cheaply sourced crud. Usually housed in a cheap wooden briefcase and selling for roundabout 40 dollars, these are - to put it gently - dogshit. Not only are they "retro-cool" ugly, with wood grains and pleather and whatnot, but the turntable mechanism is a 5 dollar assembly of ceramic cartridges that will undoubtedly kill any record you play on it. I'm ashamed to say this was my first record player, and the copy of DEVO's "New Traditionalists" that I lost to it will forever be mourned in my heart.

Instead of getting one of those, I've found a very polite little battery-operated player I'm hoping to import. Enter the Anabas GP-N3R. A Japanese import selling in the 200 dollar range on eBay, this is everything I'm looking for. It's got a playfully childlike yet durable plastic design, it comes with a solid AT needle, and most importantly - it's small as shit. This thing can even be played vertically, if one so desires. You can wall mount it. I may be salivating.