Home theater has become so sophisticated that nobody cares if they have an LP-spinning turntable anymore. But for those who enjoy the warm sound of analog audio, it’s time to revisit the grooves-y past and put the needle back down on those classic and soon-to-be classic tunes.
A record turntable may be a product of the past, but there are many who prefer the way a record sounds. Besides, there are still many recordings that haven’t made their way to compact disc. A vinyl recording can give you a sound that is wholly different from the bits and bytes of a CD - not to mention a larger case where the cover art and liner notes can be easily read by those of us no longer in our 20’s. The fact that there are so many companies, both big and small, producing vinyl recordings again attests to both the demand of vinyl as well as its worth.
All of this is useless if you don’t have a turntable. Fortunately the PL-990 not only provides for that, but prices itself well below the threshold of having to explain away spending the money on 20th Century technology.
The PL-990 is a fully automatic turntable; that means it has the smarts to know where to place the needle arm when there’s a recording on it, and when to pull the arm back when the recording has finished playing. The two speeds take care of LPs and 45s, and the moving magnet cartridge on the tone arm is geared for a quality sound reproduction. A nice touch is that audio equalization is built-in and so always active. This basically works to moderate the audio being produced and for all practical purposes can be forgotten about. But it’s good to know some updating of the basic technology has been put in place. Good for you Pioneer.
Setting up a turntable hasn’t changed through the years - although adding an uninterruptible power supply to keep the needle from gouging the vinyl should there be a power failure isn’t something I would have thought about doing back when I was a teenager. The RCA audio left and right stereo plugs go into your amplifier or to your powered speakers - you should first assemble a few parts on the turntable, though. And because the RCA cables are attached, most likely you will need to get an RCA extension stereo cable. All of this is not a big deal.