A wooden, nostalgic, music player from back in the days. Could a gadget me any more quaint? I hardly believe so. And yet, if you combine the looks of a past era with the technology of today, you get a really cool product. The Victrola VTA-600B (or more commonly called 8-in-1 Nostalgic Entertainment Center) combines the looks and functionality for your music listening needs if you’re into retro design.
The Nostalgic Aviator Wood 8-in-1 Bluetooth Turntable Entertainment Center by Victrola comes in 5 different color options. They are available in mahogany, black, white, espresso, and oak. The cabinet is made of real wood too, and it’s not just a decal someone put on a piece of plastic.
Victrola itself isn’t exactly a new startup either. They were founded in 1906 in Camden, NJ, US, and are now owned by Innovative Technology, a company with a not so creative name. But we won’t judge names here, we want to see more of the gadgets.
While the tech innards give you a lot of modern-day tech options to load your music, this product manages to keep a neat classic and quaint design. The only little thing that stands out a little is the 90s-style time display. Everything else looks almost steampunk-ish.
What’s in the box?
So, what can you play with the Victrola 8-in-1 Wooden Music Center? The system plays vinyl records at either 33 1/3, 45, or 78 RPM, so if you’re a fan of the medium or want to try some old records from the basement, you’ll be able to do that on this unit.
It also comes with a CD player that plays standard CDs and mp3 files burned on CDs, cassette player and radio to cover everything you might have had in the 90s. The more modern music playback options are wireless Bluetooth connectivity and options to load media via USB stick.
It gets better. You can digitalize (“rip”) your old media by recording it onto the USB storage as you play it from vinyl, cassette or CD deck. So no extra devices or software required to do that at all. If you don’t need that much of a retro user experience, you can also use the remote control to navigate through your music instead of going there and tapping the buttons on the device itself.
In case you’re not yet on the Bluetooth train or simply prefer the quality of actual cable connection, you can also plug in a 3.5mm jack in the auxiliary input port. If I counted correctly, that makes eight ways to play your music. Not bad for a box with the dimensions of 12.1 x 20.4 x 12 in. The whole thing weighs a little under 20 lbs though.
Under the hood
- Amplifier: 5W + 5W
- Frequency range: 60 – 20,000 Hz
- Speaker: 1-way, 8 ohms, max. 10W input
- FM radio range: 88 – 108 MHz
- AM radio range: 530 – 1710 KHz
If you want to figure out how the system works or check some more of the detailed technical specifications, you can have a look at the PDF manual here. If you don’t trust the demo videos from the manufacturer, you can also check out some of the user reviews and check the user video shorts on Amazon. I agree that it’s hard to judge sound quality only by text and even on video, but people who tried it are rating it rather well.
Their website says its sold out currently, but you can get it on Amazon for $139.94. I think this is a fair price for a stereo with that much functionality and proper wood chassis. What do you think about this one? I’d love to know your thoughts. Share your comments below!
YouTube: 8-in-1 Wooden Music Center (VTA-600B)
Photo credit: VTA-600B music player feature image by Innovative Technology / Victrola
