Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony PSLX350H Stereo Turntable System

Purchased a Sony PS-LX350H to replace 25 year-old Technics belt drive turntable. The Sony appears to be one of the few Reasonably High Quality options for an Audio (as opposed to "DJ") turntable in the sub-$200 (or even sub-$300) price range.
If it runs as long as the Technics, will be quite a buy - for now this must be considered a "preliminary" report(!).

Out-of-box Picks: Looks good (& matches other Sony components in system); appears to be solidly built (& comparatively Heavy); gold-plated RCA plugs with removable cables (a nice feature! - although cables themselves do NOT have gold plating, they can easily be replaced); built-in strobe w/slider pitch control; platter/mat combo appear higher quality than Technics.

Out-of-box Nits: Gee, manuals have gotten Cheap looking & provide Sparse information! Where is the overhang guide? CHEAP "no-name" cartridge (conical, bonded diamond), NOT properly mounted in included headshell (overhang / alignment guide would be helpful...).

Notes: this is "manual" turntable: you lower & raise the tonearm manually. Not as nice as "semi-automatic," where you lower but turntable raises at end of LP. Manual is OK for 'active listening' - but you won't want to forget about a playing LP. At least the arm lifter works well - smooth in operation & easy to control.
It also has an "S" shaped tone arm, which takes a standard mount cartridge. P-mount might be more convenient, but there is more choice avail in std mount - Plus, I have two fine cartridges, each mounted in own headshell (will use the Sony-provided cartridge to play Really Old LPs / children's records!)- AND, can use existing overhang/alignment tool.
There is no built in phono amp/equalizer, an issue for many modern 'home theater' receivers. (But you can buy an off-board unit at moderate cost if needed.)

How does it work? Just fine, thank-you - using one of my existing cartridges, played parts of several LPs & was rewarded with crisp sound & no obvious noise (at realistic, but still moderate, listening levels). May not sound any BETTER than the old Technics did at one time, but speed control appears spot on & songs sound as they "should" (Subjective, of course!).
Controls all appear to work with precision, and strobe marks are easy to read / adjust. Two nits here: 1(Minor): Start/Stop button can be hit by mistake - but care should avoid; 2 (More Irritating): Anti-skate control is POORLY marked: you basically just ball-park it if setting between whole numbers. (Tracking force instructions are not intuitive - at least compared to Technics - but if you've done before will pose no problems.)
These last two items are only of significant concern if you plan to switch cartridges on a routine basis (alas, something I traditionally do).

Oh yes: The unit is taller than my Technics: so much so that there was no hope of using it with the supplied dust-cover. Unit is placed inside a cabinet, so cover not needed in this case, but might be an issue if your space is tight and you 'must' use dust-cover.

Bottom line: only the poor markings on the anti-skate control are Truly disappointing, and then primarily because of usage within cabinet, AND personal preference of changing cartridges on a frequent basis. (Cabinet location makes Anti-skate setting doubly hard to confirm: if you can view from directly above, 'ballpark' will be Very Close, but placement within cabinet calls for flashlight & mirror; will have to work in this!)
The balance of the unit seems to work fine, and certainly sounds fine - which basically means that it doesn't add noise / speed inaccuracies, nor otherwise impede working of selected cartridge.
To that extent, it is all that one could hope for, and looks good to boot.

Other units considered included: new Technics belt drive; Music Hall; Stanton; Gemini, & several others (at least "looked at" everything I could find in the sub-$500 range - though budget never called for exceeding $400...). If you eliminate the cheap "impulse buy" models - which includes some brand name items, such as the 'entry' Technics - and draw a fairly strict upper price point (say, under $300), there are not a lot of choices left. Now specify Standard Mount Cartridge, and focus upon basic Audio Performance and Controls - as opposed to "DJ" performance & controls - and your choices really narrow. The Sony PS-LX350H is arguably the best among those that remain, although differing priorities could yield a different alternative.

My PSLX350H turntable exhibited the same type of erratic speed that previous reviewers have noted. It ran well for about five minutes, but after that period, it was simply impossible to set a constant speed using the "strobodots" no matter how hard or often I tried. It seems pretty obvious that there must be some consistent defect in the motor or the control hardware, at least in examples coming to market in the past couple of months. At the very least, Sony's quality control is extremely disappointing for this model. I've arranged to send my unit back for a refund. The experience makes me yearn for a turntable like my father's old Thorens TD-265, which is still running flawlessly after some 28 years...

The Sony LX350 sounds absolutely great, but it has wide variations in speed that result in significant changes in pitch, even within a single 3-minute song. I could actually hear it slowing down and speeding up.

Belt drive turntables are prone to drift, of course. My 25-year-old Dual 506-1 has a strobe that shows speed variations, but they've never been audible. The pitch on the Dual is adjusted by slight changes in belt diameter, and not electronically as on the Sony, yet it's a much more consistent turntable.

That said, when the Sony is holding its own, it really does sound super. I checked the alignment of the pre-mounted cartridge with an old Mobile Fidelity GEO disk and, to my surprise, it was just about spot-on. The cartridge doesn't track warped disks as well as the Ortofon OM-20 that's in the Dual ULM arm, but its sound quality cannot be faulted. Big, full, detailed, spacious, warm but not blurred, etc. All of the typical non-technical, subjective adjectives apply.

Overall, a frustrating, hot/cold experience. I'm going to spend 50% more money and buy the direct-drive Audio-Technica PL-120. Obviously, the Sony and the A-T are coming from the same design team and, presumably, production line. The similarities in detail are unmistakable. The cartridge on the A-T, however, tracks at a whopping 3 grams, so it's a D-J thing. I'll give it a try and replace if I have to.

The Sony PS LX350H is a good entry point into the "retro" world of good sounding vinyl if you're tired of somewhat "mechanical" and less than "open" sounding CD's and other digital formats. This turntable is TOTALLY manual! Cool if you don't mind "tweaking" the 'table every so often. The unit itself is pretty heavy-about 15 pounds-and very solid-what you want for full sounding analog. The pitch control works great once you get the motor adjusted-overlooked in the so called owner's manual. The 33 and 45 motor speed adjustments are on the bottom. The supplied cartridge sounds pretty good-again once you properly align it-another point omitted in the "manual." If you overlook the sparse info in the manual and take your time setting it up you'll be rewarded with a surprisingly good sounding system! If you can get this 'table on sale you won't be disappointed. Don't forget it's not and doesn't pretend to be the equivalent of a Thorens, Music Hall, Rega or other high end unit. The bottom line is this table is a GOOD SOUNDING GOOD DEAL!

I do believe that this turntable is of exceptional quality. The problem? Many complications to recieve a consistant audioplayback of an LP. When I had the inital adjustments correct, when playing an album, it continually needed adjustments. I found that to be aggravating, so I returned it due to frustration.