Audio Technica AT-PL50 Belt Drive Turntable

I read a number of AT-PL50 reviews before buying it. The reviews were either very positive or very negative. I decided to take a chance and buy the unit and return it if I got a bad one.
I am very pleased with the unit I recieved. There is no hum despite the absense of a ground wire: no skating so far, and the quality of the reproduction is excellent. The power cord length is ample but the signal cords are very short so I had to extend them.
The bottom line is that I am pleased with my purchase and intend to use it to copy vinal to CD. It's a great value.

I gave this 4 stars because especially for the price, it gets the job done.

Aside from the very short interconnects, this table is adequate electrically. The supplied Audio Technical cartridge is the venerable CN5625, and the .6 mil conical stylus is a great choice since it will track slightly lower in the groove than the older .7 mil styli that probably last played your records. The built-in preamp allows connection to high level inputs on a stereo receiver or sound card. The preamp is is OK, but even a modestly priced outboard preamp is an audible improvement -- the built-in one sounds just a bit "mushy" though that might just be what's needed for worn records and scratched 45s.

The speed accuracy on two samples (I bought one new on Amazon and noticed JR's Amazon store had reconditioned ones very inexpensively -- about the price of a replacement stylus so I bought one) is good, one sample within 1% measured using a 1 kHz. test tone on a test record and an accurate frequency counter. The other one was 3% fast on 33 and dead on on 45. There are two holes on the bottom that allow access to the two adjustment controls on the motor servo but probably not worth the bother since to adjust the speed you need to have the turntable completely level and supported in some way that allows access to the bottom of the unit -- then you need either a stroboscope disk or a recorded test tone and frequency counter. Wow is almost unmeasurable at 33 RPM on both samples.

What keeps this from getting 5 stars is the arm. First -- The arm effective length is quite short and it introduces a fair amount of tracking error. Second, both samples were out of azimuth alignment -- it is fairly easy to rotate the cartridge slightly to get the stylus perfectly perpendicular however, as it's just a friction fit between the cartridge holder and the arm tube.

But what's most frustrating is that the lateral pivot friction is very high -- so high that it renders any discussion of lack of "anti-skating" or changing cartridges totally moot! The lateral friction is so high in fact that on an even slightly out-of-round pressing you can easily seen the stylus shank swing side to side noticeably before the arm will follow. As it happens, the match of this stylus to the arm dynamics is such that unless the pressing is severely out-of-round, having the stylus move slightly instead of the arm will actually prevent excessive record wear.

Since it's not possible to statically balance the arm, I improvised a setup to measure the lateral friction which I found on both samples to be grater than .5 gm. This is on the 'hairy edge' of the 10% rule (10% of vertical tracking force) but after several hours of listening to many different records, I honestly couldn't actually hear where it intruded that much -- the stereo image stays nice and stable and things never got to the point where I could hear where either groove wall was being worn in a "once - around" fashion.

The arm isn't particularly massive, and the turntable mechanism is not engaged by the arm during play, only when the arm actually tracks into the spiral lead out grooves.

The problem with friction this high is that more seriously out-of-round or warped pressings will cause the arm to jump grooves if the stylus shank is pulled to the point where the arm starts to move. Inertia takes over and the energy stored in the stylus shank will toss the stylus out of the groove. To minimize: make sure records are as clean (dust free) as possible; make sure the stylus is clean; make sure the turntable is precisely level side to side especially, and isolated from vibration.

Nothing's perfect, and for what it is, this table delivers value, but Audio Technica could in my view have easily designed the arm pivot differently, which would have made this 5 stars. Mechanically, this thing is amazingly good, accurate and quiet.

I doubt any golden eared audiophiles who claim to hear oxygen molecules in their speaker wires will be looking at a product like this, and if all you want to do is transfer your LPs to MP3, I doubt you can do better for the money. Low cost "DJ" turntables in this price range will probably perform no better overall. If you're more serious about rediscovering vinyl for serious repeated attentive listening try the ProJect, Music Hall or Rega entry level machines. Be aware however you're looking North of $400 for the table itself plus cartridge.

In short the PL 50 probably represents the best available value at its price point. It won't wreck your records, and probably the most frustrating thing will be that the combination of arm tracking error and lateral friction make this device somewhat skip prone. (This said, it will track Band 2 of the Telarc tracking test disk bass test bands).

Post Script: I listened to several records played repeatedly on the PL 50 afterward, using a Harmon T 60 with an ITO Microtrace arm fitted with a Grado Prestige Gold cartridge and on a Rega Planar with ITOK arm fitted with an Audio Technica 150 ML using a Grado phono preamp and Grado headphone amp and Grado SR-2 phones. No noticeable deterioration on the samples tested (Alice Cooper Lace and Whiskey, Chicago Transit Authority, KEZX Second Album Project, Joni Mitchell Court and Spark -- all original pressings, not reissues).

P.P.S. Why did I buy this if I have better machinery? I have an aging relative with a very old Miracord automatic turntable that finally quit for good. The Pioneer receiver and AR 4s still work.

Audio Technica AT-PL50 Belt Drive Turntable
Turntable is nicely designed, functioning perfectly, and arrived promptly well packaged. I'm more than satisfied this product.

I just started listening to vinyl. I do consider myself an audiophile. I'm a Berklee College of Music Grad. I was going to buy a more expensive turntable, but all the other ones were meant for DJ work. I just want to listen to the records, not scratch them to hell. This table sounds great, i might get a better needle and stylus for it however, but the one that came with it is just fine for average listeners. If you want to listen to your beegee records this is a good table. I'm listening to Vivaldi and it sounds fantastic. Enjoy!

I bought this turntable to be able to transfer vinyl records onto CD via my home PC. This turntable fits the bill perfectly. It has a built in pre-amp so the input voltage is just right. It is not a sophisticated hi-fi product but it is not meant to be - basically it does what it is supposed to do!