Hi, I have a Sony PS-LX250H turntable. I need to find speakers that will work with it. The turntable has an output. It looks like two black wires, both end with a silver metal plug, and both have a red or white plastic part before the plug. The metal plug part looks like a thin circle and then a thick cylinder coming out of the middle. Can anyone help me? I obviously have no idea what I'm doing. Thank you!!!
Nancy, you need to connect the turntable to an amplifer or reciever. This unit has a built in phono pre-amp so it can be used modern amplifiers. Speakers then attach to the amplifier. Hope that helps.
those plugs are called "RCA" jacks (male... self explanitory). red = right and black or white = left
(yellow = video)
you'll not only need to connect the RCA cables to the inputs of a reciever or integrated amp (MUST have phono inputs!), but you'll also need to ground your turntable to the amp when you connect it. otherwise, your turntable will be extremely noisy when you listen to it.
if you don't have a 3rd thin cable with bare wire on the end, you'll need to buy a ground cable that will fit your turntable.
on a technics turntable, the ground wire plugs into a little hole about the size of a pepper corn. they MIGHT be universal like RCA cables.
when you ground your table to your amp, you'll look for a screw that should be right next to your phono jacks (inputs) that has a symbol that looks sort of like an antenna and wrap the ground wire around it and screw it tight.
turntables put out very low level signals (lower than CDs etc.) that first need to be boosted by a preamp (included with recievers) before it gets sent to the amp. an integrated amp = a reciever without a tuner (radio)
you also need a phono preamp because phono preamps change the EQ (tone) of the sound going through them to compensate for the way vinyl changes tone. it's called an RAII curve.
if you buy a reciever or integrated amp that DOESN'T include a phono preamp, you can buy one seperately for as little as $20 up to $20,000!
like paul said, your integrated amp or reciever is what supplies the power needed to make your speakers work. everything on the back of a reciever should be clearly labelled, but some 1970s units aren't labelled.
there are a few other ways to get your system to work that are too complicated and expensive for a beginner. eg. seperates... preamp > amplifier. (whaich are BOTH included with integrateds and recievers) then you could even get a line level or passive preamp that needs an additional preamp just for your vinyl.
your simplest and cheapest route would be to just look for a reciever that has a phono input. 1970s recievers (which almost always have phono jacks) can easily be bought used for under $100
getting your system to work isn't as tough as building a space shuttle once you learn what everything does and just read the labels for your jacks.
on the back of a reciever... "<name> in" means that something that makes sound goes into that input and "<name> out" (tape or video usually) means that the sound goes out of your reciever and into the inputs of your recorder.
this is the basic info you'll need. if you have any other questions... that's what this forum is here for.