People like to argue a lot in the hifi world, especially when it comes to belt drive and direct drive turntables. These arguments lead to confusion for people interested in buying a turntable and can cause paralysis analysis.
Friends tell me, “I want to buy a turntable but I’m confused on the difference between the models so I don’t know what to buy”. Often they are worried they will purchase the wrong kind of turntable and regret their decision.
They often have the same questions about direct drive turntables in particular so I decided to compile my most common answers in this article to hopefully help people’s decision be easier.
This article will start with some basic questions, probably best suited for first time turntable buyers…
Are you interested in using a standalone phono preamp instead of the built in phono stage in your receiver? Are you using a receiver or preamplifier that does not have a phono input? Does your turntable have a built in phono preamp and you would like to use a standalone preamp that sounds better?
If the answer is yes to any of the questions above, you may find yourself purchasing a separate phono preamp for your sound system. I’ve had a few friends buy phono preamps but are unsure how to hook them up properly.
We’ve already covered how to hook up a turntable to the aux input, but in the event you would like a quick and easy guide on how to install a separate phono preamp in your system, please read more below:
The resurgence in vinyl has caused a lot of my friends to buy record players in the past year. I’ve owned various turntables over the last 20 years and these friends usually text me whenever they don’t know how to fix their record player that sounds slow.
I normally give them 5 reasons why their turntable sounds bad, but often, the turntable platter itself isn’t moving at the proper speed which causes the music to sound slow. In this article I will give you the main reasons your turntable or record player might sound slow.
What I love about this sleeper direct drive turntable.
Last summer, we snuck away for a family vacation in Gatlinburg, TN. Whenever I’m out of town, I always look at local selling sites for any interesting finds. I found the above turntable on Craigslist and scheduled a time to safely meet with the sellers to buy.
The JVC JL-F50 is a fully automatic, direct drive turntable released in 1977. Personally, I love the overall black and silver look of the turntable and jokingly called it “Darth Vader’s turntable” while it was in my possession.
A few weeks ago, while scrolling through Craigslist, I stumbled on a listing for a Pioneer PL-518 turntable that was a few months old. I emailed the seller who got back to me and we worked out a price and a time to meet. Then things got weird…
First, I own a Pioneer PL-560 turntable that I bought about five years ago. It was my first vintage turntable and a pretty good find for the time, considering how much they’ve increased in price. It’s a direct drive model with automatic stop/start features and metered speed control. The dust cover on my unit still looks brand new. I haven’t had a single issue with the table in the last five years. Owning the PL-560 is what piqued my interest in buying the PL-518.
Back to my story…when I emailed the seller and finished negotiating the price, I asked him where he’d like to meet. He replied, “Don’t you want to listen to it?”. I was willing to risk that it played fine but I replied yes, agreeing to meet him at his home.
This is where things get interesting. He then emailed me his address and said, “After you listen we can head to the bank.” Huh? That puzzled me. Why would we need to go to the bank? So I asked him that question to which he replied, “No offense but I don’t know you or your money.”
At this point I decided I might not want to bother even going to his house. I didn’t really have time to go there and the bank just to pick up a turntable. I asked if we could simply meet at the bank and he said yes.
We met at the bank and the elderly gentleman said I could look at the turntable in his truck and then we would go inside the bank where I would give the teller my money and they would confirm it was not counterfeit. I agreed and when we entered the bank, I noticed the confusion on the teller’s face. I gave her my cash, she confirmed it was real and then the seller asked me to sign a document stating I was buying the turntable “as is” and for the agreed upon price.
Now, I’m all for safety and meeting at the bank was actually a great idea. But going inside to confirm my money was not counterfeit and signing a “contract” for the used item was definitely new for me. In the end, I got the table home and it worked great.
So let’s talk about why I love the PL-518 as a turntable in case you find one in the wild and want to consider purchasing one.
First, the only negative thing about this table is the isolation feet which will most likely have rotted off. This was the case on my table, something I was aware of when purchasing, and seems pretty common from my research.
Thankfully, the feet are easy to replace. I ordered a set of four feet from Ken’s Vintage Audio on eBay for just $44 shipped.
One of the new feet I installed on the table to replace the rotten ones.
The table is direct drive and technically a manual table, but I like to call it “semiautomatic” instead. Pioneer calls it manual because you have to manually set the tone arm on the record to begin playback, however, at the end of the record, the arm will return on its own to rest.
The PL-518 also features a S-shaped tonearm with a removable headshell. I’ve been experimenting a lot during the pandemic with listening to different cartridges and greatly appreciate a removable headshell when having to install a new cart.
Lastly, and something I’ve never encountered before, this turntable came with a leather cover that you can leave rested on the table when not using.
I found some PL-518 tables online where the metallic looking veneer on the plinth had been removed and replaced with a wooden veneer that looked beautiful. I’m not ready to apply veneer to a turntable yet (I’ve only tackled veneer on receivers) but that would be a wonderful upgrade to a solid performing turntable.
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