SONY PS-HX500 Review and Test - May 2016

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JonUrban

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So, I had these useless "gift cards" in my wallet. One was a refund from DirectTV for over $100, the other was a $100 rebate from a refrigerator I bought recently, and a few others. These things are a pain in the butt to use and I am positive that the reason these are used as refunds and rebates these days are that people just get frustrated and don't use them, leaving $$ on the table for the issuer.

Anyway, I decided to trot down to Best Buy and get this turntable and use up these gift cards. Fortunately, the Magnolia Best Buy guy was versed in gift cards, and although it took over 15 minutes to get them all validated, I managed to get the turntable for half-price (well, not really, but half gift card), and ordered it. It took only 3 days to get.

So, I got it today and unboxed it. Put it together and am about to check it out but figured I'd start the review thread now so I don't have to do it when I'm ready to review. So here are some looks at the thing




Here is the box, exploded, with the internals all over the floor:


unboxed 1.jpg



A look at the back jacks. There's a "Output Select (Line/Phono)" selection, the stereo audio out, ground, USB out, and power. That's about it back there.


back jacks.jpg




When you put it together, you have to attach the belt to the platter. It's very easy using the red ribbon the have already taped to the platter.

belt.jpg
 
It's very easy to put together. I haven't purchased a new turntable in decades, so it was fun to remember attaching the dust cover and setting the balance and all. Very easy. The cartridge comes already mounted and spinning on the weight for the arm is very easy.

Here's a look at the turntable with the "in store" advert on the platter (I put it on just for this picture)

ad view.jpg


And here is a look at the assembled beast, ready for testing, sitting by my PC atop my trusty Sansui XP-99 that has been by ripping turntable for the past few years.


final view.jpg
 
So I downloaded and connected and did a quick test. I don't have a lot of time for a real in depth deal today, but I at least wanted to check it out. So the software is very simple. Fired it up, set it up for 24/96 and away I went with a Chicago IX SQ LP I had lying around :music.

Software Capture.jpg

I only did one tune. When you are finished you save the wav files and label them as you like. Much like any other audio software around. One thing I noticed here is that the left channel appears to be at a lower level than the right. There is no adjusting this on the turntable or in the software, so if this is in fact an issue with the LP it would have to be corrected in the editor software you choose to use. It also may just be that I was recording an SQ encoded LP.

Saving Files.jpg

So recording was pretty easy. I went over to Sound Forge to see if I could record directly into Sound Forge and bypass the Sony app. There in the preferences I saw the Sony Turntable Driver!! Sweet! When I attempted to save the setting in Sound Forge, however, the program crashed and closed itself. This could be caused by me not rebooting the PC after loading the driver, Sound Forge not initializing the driver after a reboot it expected, or I may have to patch the Sound Forge. I tried both Versions 10 and 11, and both crashed.

Sound Forge.jpg

At any rate, that's it for today. I will do some more testing and will report back in a few days.
 
More updates:

I took my "new generation" Neil Young's Greatest Hits, the 200 Gram Classic Records Quiex SV-P LP and recorded the song "Ohio" into the PC from the Sony into the Sony Software at 24/96. Again, I noticed that one channel looked lower than the other in amplitude.

I then went to the "Super Saturated Stereo DVD" of the same album and ripped the same song directly to PC using DVD Audio Extractor and put both version into Sound Forge. Here's a look at both, just as they appeared after ripping/recording. No futzing at all. Obviously the LP rip can have the volume increased to match the DVD, but it's worth look at what you get straight out of the USB port of the turntable.

SoundForge.jpg
 
Now here is an interesting look at the two files using MusicScope, which looks at the spectrums and such. First, the DVD file, straight from the WB Super Saturated DVD

OHIO DVD.jpg
 
Now here is a look at the USB recorded audio of the exact same tune, only this time from the 200g LP. You can see that the raw audio is in fact skewed to one side confirming the visual look that the wav files are lower in the right channel.

OHIO LP RIP.jpg
 
So it appears that my Sony turntable has an issue with one channel being at a lower level than the other, or it could be the cartridge. Interesting. Not that it could not be fixed in Sound Forge or any other audio editor, but for $600 you would think that this would not be an issue. I have yet to try the normal audio outs into an amp, but that's not really what I bought this turntable for.

Another update: I again tried to use the Sony Turntable Driver directly into Sound Forge 10 and 11. They both still crashed as soon as the driver was applied. So I sent the crash report into SF using version 11 since that is the current version, and it came back with an update link. But, of course, the way things are going for me with this thing, the patched SF11 crashed as well, so I sent in a new crash report.

Since SF is Sony, and the turntable driver is Sony, maybe they'll work things out. Somehow I do not have huge hope, as Sony seems to have a way of keeping different segments of their company in the dark about other segments. Sony - no baloney. Well, not really.

:(
 
All is not lost, as I took the USB recorded file and ran it through WavePurity which is my current go-to vinyl NR and clean up program, then boosted the volume levels in Sound Forge, hitting the right channel an extra 2db, and the resulting scope looked much better, but still not as pristine as the DVD, which I don't think is possible anyway - but the results are pretty good.

WP FIX.jpg
 
I have a feeling that this is going to be headed back to Magnolia:)

Could be. The improper levels render the turntable useless for input to a Surround Master. This weekend I plan to test out the standard RCA outs into an amp and see if the level differential is also on the analog audio out. If so, it could be a crappy cartridge.

Stay tuned. If anyone else dares to get one of these, I'd be real interested to know if they have the same problem.
 
Just a couple of comments here jon, gain differentials usually have to do with the cartridge either misaligned or tracking weight. Sony apparently recommends a hefty 3grams for that cartridge while My old ass B and O tracks smooth at 1.25, double check the tonearm/ headshell for loose screws, and make sure it is squarely in place, you may need a mirror.

Secondly, and I say this with love and respect but all of those fancy waveform/ spectral analyzing tools can't tell you what your ears can tell you with a 10 minute listen. Just cuz it be louder don't mean it be better. Kevin
 
Just a couple of comments here jon, gain differentials usually have to do with the cartridge either misaligned or tracking weight. Sony apparently recommends a hefty 3grams for that cartridge while My old ass B and O tracks smooth at 1.25, double check the tonearm/ headshell for loose screws, and make sure it is squarely in place, you may need a mirror.

Secondly, and I say this with love and respect but all of those fancy waveform/ spectral analyzing tools can't tell you what your ears can tell you with a 10 minute listen. Just cuz it be louder don't mean it be better. Kevin

Good points, and that's exactly my next step this weekend. They do tell you to set it to 3g and I did. I still have a shure scale/mirror to verify the tracking weight and it's level to 3g but I did not modify the mount at all.

I'll have time over the long weekend (US) to futz with it more.

As for the "sound" over data, well the whole point of this particular turntable is digital data capture, so if the captured data is not perfect, than it's a fail in my book. But I have not given up hope yet. As I said above, once the data's on the PC it can easily be adjusted with software.
 
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