The DIY Spinbox — it’s just a deck in a box

The Spinbox is a DIY bunch of bits in a cardboard box that makes a turntable. Just don't throw away the box, because that's the chassis. No really.

After years of reporting about gloriously heavy and expensive turntables that work straight out of the box, we appear to be in a new age of DIY. Portbalism has adopted a more home-brew ethos, which now has filtered right down into the actual turntable itself. The Spinbox is a decidedly low-key and fully self-contained entry into the turntable market, where the box it comes in is actually the turntable chassis itself.

Basically, some smart people have assembled OEM components and wrapped a selection of different cardboard boxes around them to make a self assembly turntable. IKEA must be kicking themselves right now — imagine the popularity of something called SPÏNN? They’d sell so many at £30 a go just for shits and giggles.

When I think about it, it’s the very same principle (and ironically the antithesis) as high-end audiophilia — taking individual components to make a fully tailored system that suits the end user, except in this case it’s using the lowest budget components.

Spinbox kickstarter DIY turntable portablism (1)

It offers 33, 45, and 78 playback, has line in and line out ports, and integrated speakers. Importantly for portablists, the Spinbox isn’t battery driven. It is however USB powered, and can run from mobile chargers, leaving scope for power packs to be added for fully portable play.

The above video shows a few scratch DJs having a go on the Spinbox, complete with the usual stick-on fader in a box. It’s a matter of time before someone crafts a double walled cardboard or MDF box that has the fader inside.

I have no details on price, but this is going to be a Kickstarter project soon enough. Keep your eyes peeled. But given that they’ve published a picture of the complete kit, the portablist community will absolutely reverse engineer it and put out their own version — that’s how they roll.

The DIY Spinbox — it's just a deck in a box

The Future?

Perhaps this will truly define the portablism market, providing the basic components and schematics for portablism in a box and let people go mad from there. But for me there’s a bigger picture that could change the industry.

Since the early days of skratchworx (check this from 12 years ago), I’ve wanted for DJs to be able to build their own systems to a component level. And while the Spinbox is a tad entry-level for most, perhaps this thinking could help the industry find a new path in delivering gear that people want, because right now it struggles to decide on standard fittings for faders. Sort it out — you’re holding back your own game.

Big thanks to Adam Bell aka Kutclass from Cut & Paste Records for the heads up.

Mark Settle
Mark Settle

The old Editor of DJWORX - you can now find Mark at WORXLAB

Articles: 1228

8 Comments

  1. I’d like to get one just to build my own box/case for… i’m no electronics wiz so having all the parts ready to go would be ace.

  2. It’s the same components as pt01 touring /ion. They want to sell it for 100 whole you can buy that oem part without cardboard for 50. Lame

  3. This is welll wicked! Now we need someone to start selling enclosures. USB power is the way to go as USB batteries are easy to come by and get cheaper and better every year. They should also make the schematics available so we could start tweaking these boards at the PCB level.

  4. I’m a little worried about feedback caused by the built in speakers – especially due to the card box housing.
    It would be a fun project to build your own chassis, though.

  5. Kickstarter is starting it for 89 us dollars saving 40 bucks… I can buy a for deck for 80 and durable. This is only a cardboard and its 89 dollars discounted? Idk man. Too pricey for cardboard

Leave a Reply