Welcome back as we dive into another classic turntable from the golden era, the beautiful Pioneer PL-L1000 linear tracking direct-drive turntable.

My apologies for the lack of articles so far this year. As one of the few people creating in-depth content like this from scratch, brain & device to page, whilst also attending to a crazy customer booking schedule, there is just never enough time. I know how much people enjoy this content, though—I do, too, so here we are again!

I’ve been so busy that I’ve stopped creating videos, but I’ve made one specifically about this deck and uploaded it today, ready for this article. I hope vinyl lovers enjoy this long-overdue dive into another classic turntable and one of my personal favourites.

Dedication

This Pioneer PL-L1000 turntable repair and article are dedicated to my lovely customer, Brian, who recently suffered a devastating family loss. I won’t go into details here as it’s not my place to do so, but I’d ask that we all send Brian and his wife and family solidarity, love and best wishes. You are also welcome to leave Brian a comment below. I know he will see and appreciate them!

Pioneer PL-L1000 Video

That video I mentioned gives me a chance to go much further into deck operation and talk more about the virtues of these wonderful machines. Feel free to watch it here:

Features

The Pioneer PL-L1000 direct-drive linear tracking turntable has several interesting and genuinely useful features that contribute to its fantastic sonic performance. The first is direct-drive – the drive type used on record cutting lathes because of its stability and ability to remove platter speed variations from the equation, when implemented properly as it is here, of course.

The next and, I think most interesting feature though is the tangential or linear tracking tonearm, more on that in a moment. Finally, the soft touch controls on the PL-L1000 mean that everything from arm lift/lower and track selection can be done with the touch of a button or rotation of a lovely weighted scroll wheel. Only the Japanese can engineer and build things like this. But you already know that. Nothing like the Pioneer PL-L1000 is made today, by the way.

Linear Tracking

Normal radially mounted tonearms are fixed at their rear ends and scribe an arc across the record surface. This arc is more like the ideal straight line the longer the arm is. Therefore, the best radially mounted arms are the longest ones as they generate the least tracking distortion. I’ve written about here for example. Of course, nobody wants a one-meter-long tonearm, so there are limitations.

Linear tracking arms take this one step further and remove tracking distortion altogether by having the arms move tangentially, across the record, along what is a radius from the record centre to the edge, and a perfectly straight line, impossible to do any other way. A 100m long radially mounted tonearm would not be long enough, and all arcs are a compromise. Straight lines are best, hence linear trackers.

There are a few legendary linear tracking turntables, including two great decks from Technics that I’ve worked on many times over the years – the Technics SL-10 and the Technics SL-M3. Both are highly worth seeking out, but I like the Pioneer PL-L1000 even better. It has the best tonearm of the lot in terms of bearing quality, smoothness and performance. I love and highly recommend all of these, though.

Pioneer PL-L1000 Specifications

Adapted by Liquid Mike, courtesy of the legends over at Vinyl Engine

Drive system: direct drive

Motor: quartz PLL Hall motor, hanging rotor design

Platter: 310mm aluminium alloy diecast

Speeds: 33 and 45rpm

Wow and flutter: less than 0.013% WRMS

Signal-to-noise ratio: more than 78dB

Tonearm: linear direct drive motor, static balance, linear tracking

Effective length: 190mm

Overhang: zero mm

Cartridge weight range: 4 to 24g

Headshell weight: 10.5g

Dimensions: 494 x 154 x 456mm

Weight: 12kg

Accessories: EP adaptor, screwdriver, overhang gauge, level, cleaning cloth, cartridge mounting parts, cartridge (PC-600)

Repair and Service

I repaired my first Pioneer PL-L1000 many years ago, so Brian’s deck – the one you see here – was not my first PL-L1000 rodeo when I completed it in 2023. These decks suffer from several degradations and issues that are commonplace now. Typically, when I see one of these decks for service, I try to attend to all of them.

I will avoid describing all those technical details here for reasons you may already understand, but you’ll get the gist. The key issues with this PL-L1000, and most others, were problems with decaying arm lift/lower motor mounts and the associated mechanisms and motor, the unit desperately needing cleaning and service and electronic gremlins including control panel and mainboard issues causing erratic operation.

We solved all these, thank goodness. Time to get stuck into this repair!

Results & Sound

Thankfully, and after a visit back to me to resolve one niggly issue, gratis in this case, we finally have this wonderful turntable running perfectly and sounding sublime. I’m especially glad about that because Brian deserves it. Good on you, Brian.

Brian sent me his thoughts after reading this article:

Hi Mike,

Firstly thank you for your lovely and kind review of the PL-L1000.

I had no idea at all it was in such a dilapidated condition. I inherited it from my father, and it has basically moved from home to home (4 in all) and hardly ever been played until now.

The deterioration of the suspension rubber dampers is amazing.  I can’t thank you enough.  I’m still staggered at how nice it sounds, in spite of it being in a cr#p room!

Thanks again for everything Mike.

A privilege to know you.

Brian R

Brian, you are very welcome.

So, how does she sound? Superb, as all Pioneer PL-L1000s do when carefully set up with the right cartridge. This is a lower-mass arm due to its short length, so stiff, low-compliance carts like the Denon DL-103 don’t work here. But, use a nice medium to higher compliance coil or top-grade magnet and you will be blown away by the beautiful, quiet, low distortion playback possible with a PL-L1000.

The noise floor is loooow, and the suspension means the PL-L1000 is quite a room and location-friendly turntable. There is NO tracking distortion at the lead-in, middle or inner grooves. When you hear a good linear tracker, you realise how much distortion is added by poor setup and radially mounted arms, especially short ones.

Compared to a few contemporaries like the Kenwood KD-500/550 or Technics SL-1200, I’d take the Pioneer PL-L1000. Decks like the Kenwood KD600/650 and Denon DP-1200 will also get a serious run from one of these lovely decks, though they have other virtues. They don’t have the lovely automation of the PL-L1000, though. The PL-L1000 is very similar to the Pioneer PL-50L, like a linear tracking version. I like both of these equally.

Compared to what’s available new, this thing kills any sub $3K turntable I’ve ever seen and heard, and in terms of coolness, well, that’s a flawless victory to the PL-L1000. I don’t love the plastic base of the Pioneer, but the alloy top is nice. I love the push-button functionality and the jog dial. Most of all, I love the sonic performance that the chassis, tonearm and motor combine to achieve. Superb.

I don’t need one, but if anyone has a PL-L1000 they’d like to sell, please let me know 🙂

Thanks!

As always, thank you for visiting. I hope you enjoyed this article on the venerable Pioneer PL-L1000 and perhaps learned a thing or two. If you’d like me to take care of your PL-L1000 or any other lovely Pioneer turntable, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Please like, subscribe, share, etc. You are always welcome to shout me a coffee or something stronger. I generally need it, especially after the 5 or 6 hours it takes me to put one of these articles together. Remember, everything here is free- no paywalls, etc and everything is original and created here.

A big shout-out to my loyal customers, including Brian 😉

For those interested, this is a new review block I’ve had to use since the old style is no longer supported.