Sony PSLX250H Turntable

I started buying records a few years ago to hang up on the wall but recently decided that I wanted to start listening to them. A friend had this record player at his house and I really enjoyed it and wanted one of my own. For being a Sony product, this is definitely a great price. The records sound great and this machine is simple to set up and use. I did my fair share of shopping around for this specific record player and Amazon was the only place that I found it at this price.

TIP: This record player has the stereo (red/white) output cables built in, coming out of the back. Since I don't have an up to date stereo system that has a receiver with the stereo (red/white) input, I bought a stereo to 1/8th (headphone jack) cable. This allows me to connect the record player into this cable and from that plug it into my speakers that have a headphone jack (1/8th) input. This lets me listen to the record player through my speakers without having the required stereo (red/white) input anywhere.

Maybe some of you know this already, but I thought this might help.

I got this record player from a friend who wasn't using it any longer. It's a great player, and the built-in pre-amp is great. My player, however, was playing slowly, so I got a new belt, and it was still slow. I went to a local record shop and he said it could cost me as much as the player for him to figure out what was wrong and fix it. He then said it was probably a slippery slope and it will just break more even if I did fix it. I called Sony, and they said they knew nothing about how to fix it, but I could pay to ship it to them in Texas and then pay $51 for a refurbished replacement.

As it turns out, nothing was wrong with it at all - it just needed a speed adjustment, which I found was right on the motor itself. There are 2 rubber slots that say 33 and 45 that can be accessed from the bottom of the player. After doing an online search for a "printable strobe" (a device that has lines or circles, that under a fluorescent light [it won't work under normal lights] will appear to be still while the player is moving), I was able to use a VERY small flathead screwdriver (like, for fixing computers or eyeglasses), which inserts right into the black rubber slots on the motor, and tweak the speed with VERY slight adjustments. It now plays wonderfully and at the correct speeds.

The player itself is extremely easy to use - and while not quite an audiophile player, it will get the job done for those of us that wanna hear the hiss and pop of our old records for nostalgia sake.

Good basic turntable. Can be started by push button, but I prefer manually placing the needle on the record. Very easy to hook up, like the dust cover better than the clear plastic on my old one.

I really Like the Player and it does a really good job. The only shortcoming is it doesn't have a needle arm to lift the arm up and down. Just a start and stop button. Other than that it is an excellent choice for player your records.

While it lasts, this is a great turntable. I've had it for a few years and haven't had any problems with it (until now). And if you're considering getting a turntable that's this cheap, you probably don't have expensive enough speakers to notice any difference between this turntable and a high-end audiophile turntable.

But as other reviewers have noted, there's not much you can do with this after the stylus wears out. The manual says that happens after 500 hours of play (I listen to a lot of old, beat-up records, so it happened a lot earlier for me). After that, you pretty much need to buy a new turntable. The cartridge isn't replaceable at all (I think this has become standard for main-stream brand turntables), and a new stylus costs about $55, more than half the cost of the entire machine. 500 hours isn't much when you can get a turntable from another brand such as Audio-Technica for only about twice the price that will last you a lifetime.