Vinyl fans and astronomers will love this Saturn-inspired record player

Saturn is a beautiful new record player
(Image credit: Yanko Design)

We love it when a deck doubles as a work of art even when idle – just check out the turntable slipmats in our Christmas stocking-filler gift guide

But what if your vinyl-loving giftee really has been exceptionally good this year? Well, product designer Elham Mirzapour might have just the ticket. Meet her new creation, Saturn: a beautiful vinyl record player inspired by the planet Saturn, its rings and its biggest moon, Titan.

Saturn comprises a turntable platform subtly reminiscent of Saturn’s rings. On top is a spherical speaker (yes, that's a speaker) – or the gaseous planet's upper hemisphere. Attached to the sphere is the tonearm, featuring an orange cartridge head shell designed to represent Titan, Saturn’s biggest moon.

The movement of the stylus is meant to mirror Titan's rotation around the planet – although we're not entirely sure whether this moon (which, as we're sure you know, is larger than the planet Mercury) gets ever-closer to Saturn in its lengthy orbit.

Getting Saturn up and running is hardly rocket science. You remove the upper hemisphere (taking its tonearm and Titan with you) and place a record on the base platform. Replace the hemisphere again and position the Titan-esque needle. Press the Power button, followed by the Play button and watch as the record begins to rotate like Saturn’s rings. Titan gets into the groove and we have lift-off – er, music. 

New Saturn record player at Yanko Design, by Elham Mirzapour

(Image credit: Yanko Design)

You can see more pictures of this exceptional deck at The Vinyl Factory and Yanko Design. We wish we had pricing information too, but it appears that it's all still up in the air...

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Becky has been a full-time staff writer at What Hi-Fi? since March 2019. Prior to gaining her MA in Journalism in 2018, she freelanced as an arts critic alongside a 20-year career as a professional dancer and aerialist – any love of dance is of course tethered to a love of music. Becky has previously contributed to Stuff, FourFourTwo, This is Cabaret and The Stage. When not writing, she dances, spins in the air, drinks coffee, watches football or surfs in Cornwall with her other half – a football writer whose talent knows no bounds. 

  • Al ears
    Cannot see that taking-off whatever the price.....
    Reply
  • Friesiansam
    Perfect for those hipsters who are not in to hifi but, buy records as a fashion statement.
    Reply
  • OMG what on earth were they thinking... gimmick value only. How to ruin your treasured LP's in one easy step.
    Reply
  • Techmoan
    Its a design concept, like a flying concept car at a motor show. These are often design student projects. The thing they’d turn in at the end of the course to get a grade.

    They don‘t actually work and many of them only exist inside a computer not physically.

    They're not intended to become real products.

    Sometimes though these images get spread around the internet so much (like the Elbow cassette player) that people think they’re real. Then the designer sees the interest and has a go at making one (like the elbow cassette player) and finds that reality puts the stops on their fanciful plans. It’s one thing to draw something cool on a computer, but another thing entirely manufacturing it.

    Here’s some other examples of pretend objects

    https://www.yankodesign.com/2017/05/04/hello-cassette-my-old-friend/
    https://www.yankodesign.com/2017/08/14/clearly-cool-vinyl/
    https://www.designboom.com/technology/toc-a-vertical-records-player-roy-harpaz-06-20-2015
    Reply