Arkrocket Neptune Teaser: The Record Player Everyone Mistakes for a Lamp

Turn the lights off in a room with Arkrocket’s upcoming Neptune on the shelf, and most people guess it’s a lamp. That is the whole idea behind the first teaser for the record player, released today ahead of its Kickstarter campaign.

A turntable that is also the room’s light

Neptune’s body is a block of frosted acrylic that glows from the inside, under a transparent platter. With no record on it, it reads as an ambient light. Drop a record, lower the stylus, and it becomes a turntable without the light ever going off.

• Seven colors, switched from the remote.
• Two zones: the platter and the body can glow in different colors at the same time, for example a green platter over a pink body.
• Made for after dark: it is designed to be the light you leave on when the overhead “big light” goes off.

Why this matters if you are shopping for a first record player

Most record players are built to disappear into a shelf. Neptune goes the other way and treats the turntable as a piece of lighting. If you already set up your listening corner around lamps, candles, and string lights, it is worth a look. If you only care about sound per dollar, our complete buying guide is the better place to start. Full specifications and pricing have not been announced yet, and we will review it once production units are available.

When and where

Neptune is coming to Kickstarter soon. Follow the project to get a launch-day alert, or read more at arkrocket.com/neptune. The teaser is also on YouTube Shorts and Instagram.

Disclosure: Record Player Lab is published by Arkrocket, the company making Neptune. The visuals in this post are AI-generated previews, not photos of production units.