Sony PS-HX500

Time and tide wait for no man, as Chaucer so wisely counselled. And if turntables had been around in his day, he would no doubt have agreed that they, too, fall under time’s inevitable spell. The fact is, the Sony PS-HX500 is no spring chicken. Once upon a time, its USP – the ability to rip vinyl to digital files – was quite the novelty. Now, though, it’s nothing new.

The power of three

Three things, however, have kept the Sony relevant. First, it can record up to DSD 5.6 (so Sony calls it a ‘hi-res turntable’). Secondly, despite the appearance of quality rivals such as the Audio-technica AT-LP5X (see p37), as a former Award-winner it can still hold its own its performance terms. Finally, it has undergone a significant drop in price. All these things combine to make this player still deserving of its five-star banner.

Equipped with an internal analogue-todigital converter and USB type-b output, the PS-HX500 simply hooks up to your laptop or computer’s USB input and, via Sony’s Mac- and Windows-friendly High Res Audio Recorder software, records the vinyl either as a WAV (up to 24-bit/192khz) or DSD (5.6MHZ) file.

Just choose your desired format, hit ‘record’ when the vinyl starts playing, ‘stop’ when it’s finished and hey presto! You have a hi-res song. And, of course, you can split recordings into individual tracks too.

Invariably, some will jump at the chance to digitise their collection while others will be less bothered. If you belong to the second group, you’ll be interested to know that elsewhere the PS-HX500 behaves and looks very much like a typical turntable.

The straight-edged, angle-cornered rectangular plinth is an understated, all-black affair that leaves nothing to the designer-in-you’s imagination, and the low-sitting platter adds to that simplistic aesthetic. Vertically challenged it may be, but the build quality is fine.

Assembling a turntable can be a finicky business, but all the Sony asks of you is to plonk (with care) the die-cast aluminium platter and 5mm-thick rubber mat onto the 30mm-thick MDF plinth, hook up the belt drive, and balance the tonearm using the counter and anti-skating weights.

The tonearm is a one-piece affair with an integrated headshell. Sony claims that by locating the stylus point in the centre of its axis and limiting rotational movement you can achieve a more precise, stable trace.

Clarity and texture

Hi-res ripping is all well and good, but if the sound is poor it’s something of an own goal. We settle Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms down on the spindle and there’s no mistaking the Sony’s penchant for detail as the synthesized pan flute and African-influenced drums in Ride Across The River come through with clarity and texture. The Sony is articulate with the track’s offbeat rhythmic pattern, tying the multiple strands together for a coherent and layered delivery, and has the dynamic dexterity to bring fairly tenuous sonic shifts to our attention.

The Sony is quick off the bench too, springing into action with the upbeat opening of One World. It thrusts the drumbeat forward with gusto and agility.

It’s with the more sanguine tunes that the PS-HX500’S slight tonal inclination to the light side of neutral reveals itself, the presentation favouring a crisp consistency over the full-bodied solidity of some of its rivals. It’s not something to penalise the Sony for, but is noticeable when listening to it next to the Audio Technica, and perhaps something to bear in mind when it comes to system pairing.

Elsewhere, the Sony’s big, open sound lends itself to the lamenting guitar lines and aching organ in the album’s eponymous finale too, and there’s a delicate naturalness to Mark Knopfler’s pensive vocals too, which are confidently presented in the soundstage.

We move on to the sundry piano notes in Miles Davis’s So What and the trumpet-playing that wheels over the top. Both are engaging, informative and staged with convincing stereo imaging.

It might be getting long in the tooth, but this remains a best-of-both turntable that caters for anyone torn between their affection for the nostalgia and tangibility of vinyl, and the convenience and practicality of digital. Though not, perhaps, the classiest-looking turntable on the market, it has all the class in its sound suite instead. A very good buy.

“The Sony’s big, open sound lends itself to the lamenting guitar lines and aching organ”