Changing from my pl600 (silver, DD) but I have shaky hands

@tweak1 

I appreciate your concern, but this is something that has been passed down through my family and I have seen multiple doctors. I have also done a lot of research as well. This is not a new issue for me. But thank you. I am open to things that would work.

wvl OP

for an automatic TT, your existing PL600 TT gets some very favorable reviews, and having a spare for parts, unless something else appeals, it may be best to simply keep it and go for a new cartridge, perhaps MC, perhaps add a SUT if needed to use your existing MM Phono.

 by pdemara

INTRODUCTION...

Feb 2013,

In my humble opinion this turntable is a total sleeper...

I think part of the confusion about his unit is that there other low cost Pioneer PL-600 models from other years and hence people get confused. This unit is truly awesome.

It's heavy (25 lbs) has super specs and very quiet operation along with a great list of features. And of course what matters most, it sounds great...

FULL SUSPENSION...

It's actually a full suspension turntable and uses stiff springs with damping foam to minimize resonance...
Seems to like my Sure 97xE cartridge as well as a Grado Gold... The tone arm uses a photo coupler to sense arm location which means no interaction during playback. The unit also has auto start when moving the tone arm and an electronic braking system when you manually move the tone arm away from the record... The automatic motor drive disconnects from the tone arm when playing a record and so there's no playback interaction with the automatic portion of the design.

THE SOUND...

I guess what impressed me the most is how quiet this table is... Specs say -78 dbm for noise, which is excellent but as we know, specs can be deceiving.

From my listening tests I can confirm this table is very quiets. It's also excellent at vibration control. Having my sub right next the the turntable causes no feedback issues... As well, no skippy skippy when I walk across my hardwood floor... Something I can't do with my Oracle Delphi...

FIT AND FINISH...

One of the things that caught my eye about this turntable is that it's champagne gold coloured and made from solid metal...No plastic... Pretty much all my other gear is also champagne coloured so this unit looks right at home with my champagne Sony ES gear.

The other great feature is the main buttons seem to be solid and feel like metal. They are also located outside the dust cover which means you can control the turntable without lifting the lid...

ONE ISSUE...

The only issue I had with the turntable was it seemed to have a speed stability problem... Every so often the unit would go out of quartz lock... I cured this problem by realizing all the LED lights in my house are quite noisy so I added and EMI/RFI filter power bar...

Problem solved... Perfect speed control now... LOL, they didn't have switching power supplies back in the late 70's so they wouldn't have ever noticed the issue...

IN SUMMARY...

If you can find one in good condition at a reasonable price (~$200) I would recommend an audition... I know purists think you can only achieve sonic accuracy with a full manual turntable. In my humble opinion, the Pioneer PL-600 turntable breaks that rule.

@elliottbnewcombjr 

Wow! Thank you for posting that review. Maybe it is worthy of a really nice cartridge after all. And a SUT won't be required with my Gold Note ph10 

Another thread, I’ve been finding and posting many interesting TT’s, some are Automatics.

In any case, some of you might enjoy my finds

Mitsubishi Fully Automatic Linear Tracking, very nice condition

needs provided belts installed, perhaps you have someone who could do that, and, mentioned previously, arm adjustments probably needed, instructions are clear, but steady hands needed for that also.