SOLD Pioneer PL-L1 turntable

SOLD

Beobloke

Wammer
Wammer
Jul 29, 2005
7,663
1
4,468
158
AKA
Adam
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
Hold onto your hats – Beobloke is SELLING a turntable! I’ll give you a moment to process this momentous news….

…right then, I bet you haven’t seen one of these for a while (or ever). It’s a Pioneer PL-L1 – the Japan-only bigger brother of the well-known and very lovely Pioneer PL-L1000. It’s direct drive, quartz locked and has a linear tracking arm powered by a very swish linear motor. This motor even works in both directions so it will play those fancy audiophile records that are cut from the centre outwards. Not all linear trackers will do this!

Vintage Knob page here: http://www.thevintageknob.org/pioneer-PL-L1.html

I acquired this one a good few years ago and it had a rough journey from Japan, arriving a bit battered and barely working. The buyer could find no-one to look at it except a friend of his, who promptly plugged it into 240V whereupon it failed to work at all! He eventually gave up and I bought the wreckage.

As it turned out, all that 240V had done was blow the main fuse, and the main damage done to the arm was simply that it had come off its rails. However, I stripped it down, cleaned and lubricated everything and reassembled it, and it has worked perfectly ever since. The only casualty was the arm locking pin, which had snapped off, so the arm can no longer be secured in the right hand ‘park’ position, which isn’t a problem in normal use. The other casualty was the lid so I had a new one made. Unfortunately, as can be seen, this hasn’t survived very well and has cracked and crazed along the joints to the side panels as can be seen in the pictures. I had second lid made for my Garrard 301 at the same time and that has gone exactly the same way. This was a bit disappointing and I notice that the company who made it are no longer trading – not surprising really! On the upside, the lid is still sturdy and the hinges support it fine.

The deck is in excellent working order and sounds absolutely superb – I’d easily put it in the top 5 of decks that I have owned. Sadly, it’s very big, very heavy and I just don’t use it enough, so I thought I’d see if someone else fancies taking it on. I’ve fitted it with a NOS Ortofon VMS30 cartridge and it has a lightweight Pioneer headshell. This isn’t the correct item but the original carbon fibre headshells do turn up on eBay in Japan from time to time. In operation it is smooth and silent and is unusual as it is not fully auto – you manually cue the arm to the start of the record using the rotary control or by hand using the finger lift. It lifts and stops at the end of the record, whereupon you need to return the arm manually.

As to price, I’m looking for £2,300 but the deck must be collected from me in Hampshire and I will happily demonstrate it to you whilst plying you with a hot beverage and biscuits. Absolutely NO shipping at all due to that aforementioned arm lock issue, plus the fact that you’d need a box the size of a washing machine to pack it properly. Remember also that it is a Japanese market deck that requires 100Vac mains however, as I’m such a lovely person, I’ll throw in a step-down transformer with it.

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Last edited:

Beobloke

Wammer
Wammer
Jul 29, 2005
7,663
1
4,468
158
AKA
Adam
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
Thankyou! I am truly touched by your concern!
 
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bencat

Amplifier Destroyer
Wammer Plus
Feb 6, 2010
10,311
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Liverpool
AKA
Andrew
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
Oh get a life he is only selling one which means he has at least 10 + more to use .
 
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Beobloke

Wammer
Wammer
Jul 29, 2005
7,663
1
4,468
158
AKA
Adam
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
Wowsers! That’s stunning!
Did you have that at scalford one year Adam?
Yes I did - I forgot that! Used it with Yamaha CX-10000 preamp, Proton AA_1150 power amp, Pentachord A speakers and Mordaunt Short Performance 9 subwoofer, as I recall.
 
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belloire

Wammer
Wammer
Jul 19, 2011
2,606
200
108
West Yorkshire, UK
AKA
Darren
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
Yes I did - I forgot that! Used it with Yamaha CX-10000 preamp, Proton AA_1150 power amp, Pentachord A speakers and Mordaunt Short Performance 9 subwoofer, as I recall.
i thought i'd seen it before.
now i'm even more sure it's a stunning bit of kit, and a proper end game for somebody! (would be me if i had any money at all....)
 
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