A turntable weight that looks like a giant ecstasy pill

Berlin’s H.A.N.D. Hifi, an offshoot of Kreuzberg record store Sound Metaphors, is known as a designer and builder of bespoke active loudspeakers for clubs and smaller listening spaces.

So far, so safe.

However, H.A.N.D. Hifi’s latest product, a turntable weight introduced in the back half of 2024, repeatedly skirts the edges of controversy. An introductory Instagram post claims: “At 523g, this record weight applies firm pressure on the record to the platter lessening unwanted vibration coming off the record, resulting in smoother and richer tonal balance with vast improvement in soundstage clarity and instrumental definition, increased dynamic range, improved bass response and substantial reduction in vinyl noise floor.”

This is not the controversy you are looking for. Many vinyl enthusiasts use record weights to: help flatten warped records; stabilise the record’s position on the platter for better stylus tracking; and reduce the negative impact of airborne vibrations. The net result in many (but not all) cases is a better-focussed stereo image and more emphatic micro dynamics. That’s how I hear it with pucks in general. Sometimes; and not with all ‘tables.

However, not all turntables are designed to withstand the extra weight of stabilising pucks. They can stress the motor, strain the bearing and cause rotational speed inaccuracies. Readers are advised to check in with their turntable manufacturer before dropping a weight onto their spindle.

I bought two H.A.N.D. Hifi weights – one pink , one blue – to add half a kilo to the centre of a direct drive Thorens TD124 140th Anniversary in Berlin and the same to a direct drive Technics SL-1210GR in Lisbon. Neither appears to have impacted the turntable’s rotational speed — their strobes don’t lie. However, I wouldn’t dream of dropping something so weighty onto the middle of the low-mass, belt-driven Rega Planar 8.

Then there are the turntable enthusiasts who use a stabilizer weight because of its appearance. Now we get to the meat of this story.

The H.A.N.D. Hifi weight has been designed – and coloured – to look like an oversized ecstasy pill. The (presumably unlicensed) Mitsubishi car logo cut into the topside kicks any benefit of the doubt into touch. It’s a heavy nod to the most popular ecstasy pills of the 1990s that bore the same logo. You can read how that came to pass here — it’s a wild ride that reads like an urban myth.

Doubling down, H.A.N.D Hifi has etched ‘MDMA’ into the record weight’s underside with methylenedioxymethamphetamine making way for the Trump-echoing ‘Make Dancefloor Magic Again’.

When I stopped by Sound Metaphors to pick up my second weight, the store clerk conceded that they had taken some heat for its design. It’s not hard to see why; but it’s also not hard to see why this stabilizing puck’s visual appeal will leapfrog bemused baby boomers to grab the attention of those coming of age during the 1990s UK techno scene. Now, the sales numbers don’t lie: the first two production runs of H.A.N.D Hifi’s MDMA puck sold out within hours of going online leaving the Berlin company’s Instagram account littered with comments asking for more. If you can get one, the Mitsubishi MDMA design sold for €99.

But it appears H.A.N.D. Hifi has already gone legit. Its latest turntable weight looks like an official collaboration that puts Ibiza club Amnesia’s logos on the top and the side of a yellow puck for €125 to echo Brass Eye’s ‘cake’ spoof.

H.A.N.D.? ‘Have A Nice Day’.

Further information: H.A.N.D. Hifi