Vinyl/Cassette player recommendations?

[ultrablue123]

So I'm finally starting to want to collect some vinyl. I'm a child of the 90's, so I've never had a record player, my dad just had a stereo with a turntable, cassette decks, and cd changer, that whole shebang. I know I could find probably a pretty good vintage record player, the problem is I also want something to play cassettes as well (and preferably CDs too, so I can get some use out of all my old and new CDs I've collected). I have an old boom box that plays cassettes and CDs, but I'd love to have a whole package that I can also hook up to my own speakers so I can get some decent sound.

Does anyone know of anything like that, that also gets decent sound on its own? I'm looking at all these amazon reviews for things I'm describing and that often seems to be the one drawback for getting a combination like that; you sacrifice sound quality (though admittedly, I don't know if the reviewers are just talking about the stock sound systems or not).

I'm not a 100% die hard audiophile, so I don't need like PERFECT sound or nothing else, but obviously something decent. I figured this might be a good place to come. Any help would be appreciated

[Perch]

I don't know much about vinyl, so I'll admit that upfront. Are you looking for something big? compact? what's your price range?

I did at one point grab one of these little combo machines that had tape/vinyl/cd, something small like this

In its defense, it is hard to screw up a tape or cd player, so those worked perfectly fine. However the turntable has been prone to all manner of problems. The arm balance is always off or changing, doesn't have any way to adjust it other than taking a dime to the top or something sketchy. It has gotten a little off center, so every record warps a little. There's next to no support online for the stuff. Not worth listening to records on after 2 years or so. It was a fun little buy, but oof it hasn't aged well. if you want something really good that'll last, then you'll have to dig deeper or look into a trusted brand. I'm sure you could find some small tape/cd to have on the side or something. I've learned not to trust products that split up their attention to detail in too many directions.

[ultrablue123]

Yeah, I've been looking at those and like you've said, many on Amazon reviews have had similar problems. I guess you're right, those 3 in 1 deals are just too good to be true for the price. I'm trying to spend under $200, and really preferably under $150, but maybe I should just invest that money into a good record player? And then I'll just play my cassettes on my old boombox for the time being until I find a nice alternative that has an output for other speakers.

[Perch]

I'd say that's a great idea!