Very Good For the Price

A very good entry level turntable. Sound is clean, wow and flutter are inaudible, the rumble that plagued early belt drive turntables has been engineered out. I've been using mine for over six years with no problems. It plays 45s and 33s, but not 78s.

Turntables are not CD players. Vibration will make the needle skip, that's why you can't play them in cars. They are also susceptible to "acoustic howl" or "woofer pumping", where the vibration from the speakers feeds back through the turntable. Make sure your turntable is on a stable surface and not too close to your speakers.

Vinyl records are recorded using something called RIAA equalization, which compresses the low notes and expands the high notes. If they did not, the grooves for the bass would be so wide the needle would bounce around inside them, and the grooves for the high notes would be too narrow to track. When you play the turntable through an amplifier, this is reversed.

However, many modern amplifiers were designed for CD players and don't have dedicated phono inputs. No problem, as the PS-LX250H has a built in preamp. To access the preamp switch, just lift up the rubber mat on the platter.

The built in preamp also makes it possible to directly record into a computer's sound card using the Line In jack. (You will need a cable to convert the RCS plugs to a Line IN plug. This costs about $6.) Don't let some salesman sell you a separate preamp with some nonsense about "impedance matching." I've been using my turntable to record my LPs to CDs to play in the car, and it sounds just great.

The turntable is shipped with the belt uninstalled. This keeps the belt from wearing out when the turntable is in storage, Installation is simple and takes only a minute. The cartridge cannot be replaced, but the needle (stylus) can. Cartridges rarely fail, needles should be replaced after 500 hours of playing time. The Sony PSLX250H uses the Audio Technica ATN3600LX, a popular and easy to find needle from a reputable company. This is a .7 mil conical diamond needle with a carbon fiber cantilever. In a pinch, the slightly cheaper, slightly stiffer 3600L with an aluminum cantilever can also be used. If you're going to play your records a lot, you can buy an elliptical needle for about $30. You probably won't hear a difference but there will be less wear and tear on the grooves.