As I mentioned in Micropassatman's Sony PS-10F thread, I have a new toy coming my way, possibly this weekend, a Sony PS-X500. I found this posted for sale on the Seattle Craigslist, but ended up being mere seconds too late, so I was bummed. You see, I've been looking for a decent turntable for a while to upgrade my Onkyo CP-1036A, a direct drive, quartz-locked table, but nothing fancy. Fortunately for our hero, I received an email a couple of days later from the seller; the first buyer never showed, so the table was mine if I still wanted. Needless to say, I didn't hesitate.

Now, I paid $40 for this table, which is a bit on the expensive side in comparison to what I normally spend on my finds, but I think it was worth it. According to my friend who picked it up, the seller, the original owner for 20+ years, was completely honest about the raise button sticking just a little, demonstrated that the table played just fine and even put forward the offer that if I wasn't completely satisfied, he'd refund me my money and I'd still get to keep the table. This dude was a seller we dream of dealing with, wholly honest and a downright good man. Truly rare. Needless to say, I've been having a good week thanks to Hifi Nut's very kind comments and now this seller.

As I understand it, this table, while a little dusty, supposedly looks to be in great condition and is "pretty heavy compared to the one other TT that I've picked up" according to my friend.

I've seen the little bit of information on Axel's Vintage Knob Sony page, but would appreciate anything more. Did I do good? How does this turntable stack up compared to more well-known tts in terms of sound quality? Thanks for any responses and comments.

And of course, before anyone asks, pictures are below. Looks pretty to me.

- JP

Looks nice!

I've got a PS-X600 which is basically the fully automatic version of the same table. Not a world beater certainly but a more than adequate TT. The purists don't care for them because of their complexity but the Biotracers track better than most any other tonearm around. There's a decent review of the 600 here http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/hfw/oldeworldehtml/sonybiotracer.html where they compare it favorably to the P3. You could certainly do a lot worse and you got a good deal, it's not unusual for a 500 or 600 in good shape to bring 3 or 4 times the price you paid on eBay.

Thanks Micropassatman, I can't wait to get it in my hands this weekend and spin vinyl the weekend through.

ByrdWyngs, thank you very much for that review, the author certainly seems to enjoy the PS-X600 and subsequently the X500 to a similar degree, I assume. Did I read this bit right, though?

Even by today's standards this odd little Sony turntable is a capable performer. It's quite up to, say, Rega 3 standards and in many ways better. Speed stability is excellent, giving a solid, confident and musical sound, with remarkably few signs of any particular problem areas.

Isn't the Rega 3 a $400-700 table that gets rave reviews? If so ... oh yeah!

About the vinyl purists, I spent a little time early this morning reading up some posts over at AA and yes, I see your point about them not liking the arm. Then again, I had to stop reading the posts as I just couldn't take so much blattant arrogance and audio snobbery. It's even worse than the Hi-Eff Speaker Asylum! So, I'll pass on their "opinions" and trust what my ears tell me.

- JP

Speaking of new sources...

What DO your ears tell you?

Speaking of new sources...

What DO your ears tell you?
Just silence, but that's because I don't have this table yet. Supposed to get it this evening if everything works out, but its starting to look like that I may have to wait until tomorrow. :worried:

Well, I can use this time waiting to clean up some records with the old Discwasher D4 w/fluid, best nickel I ever spent at a garage sale.

- JP

Funny you say that. I got one tossed in with my turntable purchase. I need a new bottle of fluid, but it is a handy item.

Chari,

Did your table show up yet?

Chari,

Did your table show up yet?
Well, my PS-X500 showed up Friday night (9/30) and I am very happy with it. Overall, it shows its age with minor scratches on the finish that are visible in intense light and the dust cover has a haze of small scratches that comes from too many years of just wiping off the dust too quickly. It did come with a Stanton 680 EE, but the stylus was coated with a dark brown fuzzy something and was worn down to a nubbin anyways. The weight was nice and the construction is solid.

I must say, this is a beautiful table. The plinth and body is made of something hard and heavy and is painted with a black high-gloss possibly automotive paint. There's tiny flakes in the paint, like automotive paint, but much smaller creating a pleasing visual effect when the shiny aluminum is set against it. The control buttons are mounted in a piece of black anodized aluminum plate to prevent wear of the paint and aside from the one button that requires a little more push to work (an issue the seller and original owner of the table told me about and said had been that way since new) everything seems to work just fine.

The platter/motor is the smoothest that I've encountered in one of my tables before and very quiet. I can get absolutely no wiggle at all from the spindle all the way out to the rim, pushing and pulling, it's simply rock solid. The motor itself is sizable, well-shielded, and very stable.

The feet have damping springs in them, no surprise, but the platter itself, which is largely set in the plinth, is firmly mounted so I should be able to use a puck with no troubles at all in that regard.

I pulled the Stanton off and mounted up my Grado Black for testing purposes -- the Grado produced no hum. Using only a printed alignment protractor (there's also one stamped into the back of the platter mat, but doesn't appear to allow too fine of alignment), I managed to rough it in. The tracking force, which appears to be electronic, took a little intuition to adjust due to my not having the manual; hopefully I've done it correctly. The Grado was much lighter than the Stanton, so I engaged the "Zero Balance" function and adjusted the weight so that the arm was perfectly balanced. Once I disengaged it and turned the "Stylus Force Anti Skating" to 1.5 grams. The arm seemed to behave as it would with that amount of tracking force and I didn't detect the sibilance of low tracking force, so maybe I lucked out on that one. Still, I have both an alignment tool and a force gauge at the top of my TT wish-list right now to set this up correctly before I put my good cartridge on.

In my limited experience, the Biotracer arm is the best at tracking I've had a chance to play around with. I threw on my Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon, which I had discovered has a sharp warp to it and is flat on one side from possibly being too hot at some point of time (a wasted $0.25 from a garage sale, but it works as a test). Despite the off-road nature of this LP, the arm skated the first few grooves and followed through the rest fairly well, playing the music to the gentle crashing of waves whenever the flat spot came through. The table had no difficulty with me stomping around, neither skating, skipping, nor passing through the noise of footsteps, unlike all the other tables I've used and didn't even notice when I stepped on the one floor board that has always given the other tables a panic attack. I will say, though, that the arm is very well-damped, maybe too much so. As this is completely manual table outside of the arm auto-lift function, but no return, it's a little less than easy to get the arm to the edge of the record to play without it continuing on its journey a little further. Not sure if it's supposed to do this, but just keeping ahold of it until it is lined up is all that's needed to fix this issue.

I did notice a rubber plug up in the top of the plinth up near the arm, which when removed reveals an adjustment screw down inside. Anyone know what this adjusts?

Also, if anyone happens to have a spare head-shell that will fit on this table, I'd be appreciative. That way, I can have both the Grado Black and my good Grado Gold aligned and ready, so a quick swap will let me play less than perfect records with the Black and extend the life of the Gold.

Well, I think I've said enough thus far. Can't really comment on the sound just yet as I've not played it enough to draw any conclusions. Plus, I'm not exactly qualified to draw comparisons as I listen for enjoyment rather than critically.

- JP

Sounds like an instant winner!

Of course I'm curious to hear how this table sounds in comparison to the 10F Ithat 'm using, but I'm supposing it might be awhile before you do any head-to-head comparisons? It'd be great to hear the differences using the same cart/headshell combo you've got on the X500. Should you decide to hide the 10F away permanently, I'd be very interested in aquiring it as a backup to my current unit, which is working great right now, but might need serviceable parts down the road. I can't wait to see some pics of this new table. Depending on what further listening might reveal to you, I might be on the lookout myself for a Sony X-Model TT in the near, or not-so-near future!

DOH! Forgot there WERE pictures posted. Just scrolled back to re-read the thread(after posting, of course), and re-discovered them.

It certainly will take some time for me to come to any conclusions regarding the sound of this table, if ever. I may only hear that the two tables sound different rather than one being better or not. However, at the moment, I believe the X500 to be the superior table thus far without being properly setup. Comparing the two tables won't be an easy task as, once again, the head-shells aren't interchangeable -- the X500 uses a much smaller head-shell and connection to the tone arm than the 10F. Whatever conclusions I may come to, though, shouldn't act as a basis as to whether you should pick one up for yourself. Still, I believe the Xx00 series is a rather good value when you consider the price for what you get.

As to the PS-10F, I'm kind of waiting to see what Axel has about this table and the rest of the Falcon series before I decide if I want to give this up rather than keep it as a backup. If I do decide that I haven't a pressing need for it, you most certainly will hear from me. While the automatic functions aren't working as they should, I believe it to be in fairly decent operating condition.

Sorry about the pics, what I posted is as good as I have since my camera is on par with a camera phone in quality. It's unfortunate that the finer details, such as the flecks in the paint and such don't show. It's in the details where the quality shows on this table.

- JP

Hi JP,
I´m glad to see you finally got your tt home and are having fun with it.
Curiously your Sony looks very much like my new Denon DP-37F.
Both the plinth and the arm, not to speak of the operating principle of the arm, are quite unique looking.
I´m still trying to gather some courage to tackle mine. Hopefuly your own experiments will encourage me to get going.
Jorge

Charivari - the headshells are (as far as I know) unique to Sony but they were used on a lot of models from the '80s and aren't too hard to come by, they show up on eBay once or twice a month it seems. FYI there are 2 versions, one plastic (which it appears you have), and one is aluminum. I would assume that the aluminum headshell would sound better but the plastic shell is lighter and which works best may depend on the cartridge you are using.

hifi nut - the Sony Biotracer and Denon Servotracer tonearms are very similar. The Sony arms from the previous generation (like the PS-X75) look even more like the Denons (or is it the other way around, I think the Sonys actually came first).

Denon came first with the magnetic strip/reading head, Sony came 2nd with "sensing" arms like the Biotracer (PS-B80), only a few months after Yamaha (PX-1) and then Denon.
JVC/victor was working on sensor-loaded arms too - that stuff was in the air anyway...

Thanks Jorge, I definitely am having fun with this new table, though I'm stumbling in the dark intuiting everything for lack of a manual. I may have break down and purchase a service manual to determine how to bring everything back into spec/calibration and a stylus force gauge to do it right. I have been following your thread on your table acquisitions -- great haul btw, that Denon is an attractive TT -- and have been both envious and listening to comments there on the care and feeding of the Biotracer-esque arm. It seems that we may end up learning from each other as we grapple with these robotized audio gadgets. I must say that the whole electronic damping principle seems like a great idea, if done right.

ByrdWyngs, I do believe you're right about the headshell being plastic. At first I thought it aluminum and rather liked that detail, a feeling that lasted until the cartridge screw heads sunk into the plastic. :worried: I'm uncertain how well I can align the cartridge if the screws are just going to sink and move in the process. That's another reason why I was hoping to find another, preferably metal headshell for this unit. So, it is proprietary? I found that the PS-10F takes other headshells, as found on my spare/old turntables, but the X500 uses a much smaller socket to connect to the arm. Hopefully I can find something.

Say, I noticed that this table can take an accessory light to allow listening in the dark, I suppose. Anyone have a spare floating around? :naughty:

- JP