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 - Very Good ChoiceI really Like the Player and it does a really good job. The only shortcoming is it doesn't have a needle arm to lift the arm up and down. Just a start and stop button. Other than that it is an excellent choice for player your records. Rating:  - Good if you want to replace it in a few yearsWhile it lasts, this is a great turntable. I've had it for a few years and haven't had any problems with it (until now). And if you're considering getting a turntable that's this cheap, you probably don't have expensive enough speakers to notice any difference between this turntable and a high-end audiophile turntable. But as other reviewers have noted, there's not much you can do with this after the stylus wears out. The manual says that happens after 500 hours of play (I listen to a lot of old, beat-up records, so it happened a lot earlier for me). After that, you pretty much need to buy a new turntable. The cartridge isn't replaceable at all (I think this has become standard for main-stream brand turntables), and a new stylus costs about $55, more than half the cost of the entire machine. 500 hours isn't much when you can get a turntable from another brand such as Audio-Technica for only about twice the price that will last you a lifetime. Rating:  - Perfect for my needsGreat product. Easy to put together, works perfectly with my twenty year old system. And I love the controls. My old vinyl sounds so good. Many memories come floodng back as I listen to songs I haven't heard in years. And who can complain about the price. A real bargain. Rating: - Simple, Functional, Just Right.This turntable, after hours and hours of play, has been just what I needed to enhance my love of music. The arm has an automatic return as well as a push-button up/down toggle, which makes for easy playback. The stylus is worthy, but an update to a higher quality stylus/cartridge wouldn't hurt. The only reason it did not get a 5-star review is for lack of outputs. It only has a fixed RCA out, which does not allow for a broad range of applications out of the box or user-specific cables, but a trip to any electronics store/website will get you a converter to go with almost any application. Otherwise, a great product! Rating:  - Sony needs to revamp this machineI would like to start by saying 2 stars is indeed better than one; I have had mine for four years and have been able to enjoy my records for that long. However I should have paid about half what I did (125) considering the quality issues of design in this player. 1) The first model I bought didn't work AT ALL and had to be returned for the one I owned for 4 years. 2) Within the first year that I owned the 250, the 45 speed adj button bit the dust, not surprising how poorly made it felt. 3) After comparing LPs to CD, I found the machine was playing records slightly too fast. Which brings me to... 4) NO pitch adjustment? 5) Sometimes the automatic mechanism would drop the needle, then immediately lift it and put it back on the rest. Very frustrating. The START/UP-DOWN/STOP buttons are ALL very unreliable and malfunction from time to time. 6) Installing a new stylus was like pulling a tooth without proper tools, than trying to hammer a new one in with your thumb. Not intuitive or simple OR easy, to say the least. All that being said, I could listen to 33 rpm records for four years and was able to upload a lot of those to CD with this thing. By the way- YOU DON'T HAVE TO FALL FOR RECORD PLAYERS THAT ADVERTISE TO BE AN ALL IN ONE CD/MP3 CONVERTER. All you need is a 4 dollar chord from RadioShack (or Amazon) your computer (assuming you will use the one you are right now,) and a freeware recording software. There are a few you can download, such as Reaper. Look it up online, it's so easy. (I Just have to redo mine all now that I realize they were playing too fast) I don't recommend this turntable to anyone, not unless they cut the price in half. It's simply too much of your hard earned money for an inferior piece of machinery largely made of plastic in China. There are other record players for about 100 dollars that are very reliable, play well and are just great stand-by-me machines. Mine just bit the dust FINALLY, started playing records at 1.5 times the normal speed. Then the cartridge broke when I was removing the stylus (and I do know what I'm doing with uninstalling it). Save your money, buy a nice used Technics, Audio-Technica or give one of the newer brands a shot. I hear Stanton makes a good one.
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