The Victrola Journey+ Cassette is a suitcase-style record player with a cassette player on the side. But that doesn't justify it costing twice as much as the model without the tape player, and it has a muting circuit that steps on the music way too much -- but with a little skill you can easily disable it.

UPDATE: Just after finishing this video, Victrola sent me this reply: "Thank you for the detailed explanation and video. What you’re describing is consistent with the auto-mute or noise-gate circuit used in the internal amplifier. This circuit is designed to reduce background hiss by muting the amplifier when the audio signal drops below a certain level, then reactivating it when the signal increases. As a result, very quiet passages can be cut off, the beginnings and ends of songs may be missed, and a small click may occur when the audio turns on or off. Because the issue happens with the built-in speakers and headphone jack but not with Bluetooth or line outputs, it indicates the behavior is occurring in the internal speaker amplifier stage, not the turntable or cassette mechanism. Based on your description and testing, your unit is likely functioning as designed rather than experiencing a defect."

Time flow:
0:00 Introduction & Overview
2:53 Not all suitcase players are the same
4:32 Record player
7:22 Cassette player
8:45 Muting problem
13:02 A look inside
15:09 Solving the problem
17:07 Conclusion

#RecordPlayer #CassettePlayer #Victrola