Home > Reviews > Numark TT-100 Direct Drive Turntable

Review Date : July 2000

This is Numark's latest deck aimed at the low-mid priced turntable market.  It is packed with features that you would normally find on higher priced decks such as reverse play and 0% quartz lock.

Weighing in at 10.3kg it's heavier than the superb Vestax PDX-2000 making the deck pretty sturdy.  It is similar in design to the Technics SL1210 finished in a very nice black gloss making it pleasing to look at!  

As I said earlier, the machine has one or two decent features installed.  The forward/reverse buttons are found next to the 7" 45 adapter and when used can add a new dimension to your mixing.  Holding the 33 and 45 buttons down together spins the platter at 78rpm.  If you find that the +-10% pitch fader range is not enough, holding down the quartz lock button for 3 seconds expands the range to +-20%!

Having all these features doesn't matter much if the turntable's performance isn't up to much, so how well does it play?  With a starting torque of over 1kg-cm and the wow & flutter at <0.13% w.r.m.s. it's not too bad.  The platter responds well to the pitch fader which is good news for all us beat mixers out there!  Unfortunately, when cueing and adjusting speed manually (by using your fingers on the record/platter edge instead of using the fader) there is a noticeable pitch wobble, this can be a problem for any beginners out there using these decks for the first time.  Only time and lots of practice will cure that problem.

The manual pitches the deck as the TT-100 Professional direct-drive turntable.  However, I would have to say that the performance does not make this deck worthy of a 'Professional' title!  

Overall though it is a pretty decent starter deck, so if you're thinking of giving djing a try you could do worse.

Price approx. £429 a pair.

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