Audio-Technica AT-LP60XHP Belt-Drive Stereo Turntable (Gunmetal) bundle with Headphones and Bookshelf Monitor Speaker Set and Cleaning Kit (3 Items)

This is a nice, standard automatic turntable. Had a couple of issues: First, the seller sent different speakers than what was pictured and described in the listing. He promptly made it right, and allowed me to return just the speakers and gave a good retail return price on them. This allowed me to purchase my own better speakers for this turntable. Second issue (and why I took off one star) is with the turntable itself. I has a switchable LINE or PHONE output on it. To use this with powered speakers, you switch it to LINE output. This works, but the volume, even at FULL volume on the speakers is still quite low. It's fine if you only chill-out to low volume music, but I was hoping for better output. The built-in preamp on this turntable is not sufficient for higher volumes, so I purchased an external preamp with a higher gain for the output. It didn't help at all---same low volume. I was almost at the point of returning this turntable. BUT---then I discovered something. This turntable has a headphone out on the front of the unit. I took the output cable out of the back of the turntable, plugged it into the headphone jack, and ran this to the speakers......WOW. Nice high volume from the speakers, AND the headphone jack has a volume knob on the front, so I can set the speakers at their highest volume, and then control the volume from the headphone knob. Works great! Nice little hack---I find it odd that the headphone jack has a better preamp out than the actual turntable out, but not going to think about it anymore. It works. Do yourself a favor---don't skimp on the powered speakers (yes, you need powered speakers to use this without a dedicated amp to play through). Make sure you buy speakers that have both Treble and Bass adjustments. This turntable output is definitely heavy on the low end, and a little lacking on the high end, so you need adjustable speakers to accommodate for this.