- Teenage Engineering unveils APC-2
- It’s a big, very heavy record cutter
- Unlike the brand’s previous effort, it’s definitely not designed for teenagers
If you like listening to records, you’ll have bumped up against how inconvenient buying them is. Either you’re paying an eye-watering sum for the latest releases, or you’re scavenging in thrift stores for tracks so unfashionable, even your grandmother doesn’t want them (she’s the one that threw them out, after all).
Not if you listen to Teenage Engineering, though (not to be confused with Teenage Kicks, because The Undertones’ self-titled album costs upwards of $100 for a first pressing). The Swedish brand has unveiled the APC-2, which is a record cutter that allows you to ‘burn’ music from the digital into the physical realm, to listen with using the best turntables.
Before we get started: this is not a device for your average consumer — unlike the cute toy-like cutter it unveiled back in 2022. The brand makes it clear it’s a “professional” record cutter; no prices is listed, and only a “limited set” of them have been built so far. You can’t just buy this to dump in your garage and cut a record now and then… unless your garage (and budget) is a lot bigger than mine.
It weighs 140g, so it’s over twice the weight of an average human being (which is apparently 62kg, way lower than I thought…) so good luck getting it up stairs single-handed. What I’m. saying is, it is a workshop device.
Record maker
So, what is the Teenage Engineering APC-2? Well, it’s a giant old machine that cuts a slab of vinyl into shape by scratching the grooves that the music comes from. Simple.
Well, over-simple. The device has vacuum, heating, cutting and motor tools to ensure the cut is done accurately and effectively, as this sounds like a complex task.
The APC-2’s listing doesn’t say how you’d actually transfer music to the device; perhaps you need to ‘burn’ lossless files from USB storage, or using the same internet connection that lets you remote control the device, or in another way completely.
Again, Teenage Engineering is no stranger to record-making devices; in 2022 we covered its Record Factory device (which really does look like a kids’ toy). That only let you record four-minute singles in mono, though, so this seems like a step beyond in many, many ways.
Actually, the brand’s not a stranger to… anything, given how it also makes windows PC cases and portable synthesizers, all things real teenagers likely haven’t heard of…
The best turntables for all budgets
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tom.bedford@hotmail.co.uk (Tom Bedford)
