Sony PS-LX3BT Review: A Turnkey Automatic Turntable

The Sony PS-LX3BT is an automatic belt-drive turntable aimed above all at newcomers who want something ready to use. Its ambitions are deliberately limited: there is no upgrade path here, so there is no cartridge swap, no counterweight adjustment and no anti-skating setting.

Despite that apparent simplicity, most of the small ergonomic touches survive. There is a button to raise and lower the tonearm, a dial to select rotation speed, a switch for record size, a phono preamplifier with three gain settings, and a Bluetooth module compatible with aptX Adaptive. Affordable though it is, this is a genuine hi-fi product rather than one of the hastily assembled novelty decks that populate the bottom of the market. The PS-LX3BT has been available since January 2026.

The PS-LX3BT adopts the rather elegant elongated design of the model it replaces, and with it most — if not all — of that model's components. Style, then, is not where the newcomer distinguishes itself from the previous generation. The chassis is simple, made from a kind of anthracite-grey plastic with a textured coating, which only partly does justice to Sony's long history with vinyl.

It remains an attractive object, but at 3.5 kg it lacks a little refinement and density to reach genuinely desirable status.

It would be misleading, though, to suggest that nothing has changed. The structure is broadly identical, but Sony has corrected a few weak points, notably the questionable quality of the buttons and switches. Still plastic, and less discreet than before, these tubular controls at last feel reasonably robust.

The die-cast aluminium platter, central to playback, is already a serious component for a deck at this level. There are no flatness problems and no finishing defects such as metal burrs. The budget orientation reappears in the tonearm, however. Thinner than average, this anodised aluminium J-profile design is a little too light, which is likely to show up in its resistance to low-frequency vibration.

The packaging is pared back but adequate given the deck's feature set. It comprises a separate power supply, a Perspex dust cover, a felt platter mat and a centring disc for 7-inch singles.

The PS-LX3BT is a long way from the aristocracy of the turntable world, but its turnkey character comes with a genuine ergonomic richness.

The first good point is that the deck is fully automatic. Pressing the play button not only starts the platter but also raises the arm, moves it to the start of the record and lowers it into the groove. At the end of the side the process reverses: the arm lifts and returns to its rest.

That solution makes some purists wince, but it is genuinely useful for the average listener. Sony has done the job thoroughly enough that the automation works with both standard 12-inch LPs and 7-inch singles, with a switch to select the record size. To retain a degree of manual control, the brand includes a push button that raises the arm.

Unsurprisingly, there is also a speed selector for 33 and 45 rpm. There is no 78 rpm setting, but that follows logically from the non-replaceable cartridge, since 78s require a different stylus profile.

Another strong point is the ability to adjust the gain of the phono preamplifier. Three positions are available: low gain at -4 dB, medium gain at 0 dB and high gain at +6 dB. That latitude is enough to avoid leaning too heavily on a low-powered amplifier. Sony also allows the phono stage to be bypassed so the deck can be connected to a higher-quality external preamplifier.

The final feature is a Bluetooth transmitter compatible with aptX and aptX Adaptive, which sacrifices the fully analogue philosophy in the name of convenience. There is nothing revolutionary about it: a button connects or pairs the deck to a speaker, or indeed a pair of headphones, with range slightly better than that of a phone's Bluetooth chip.

Neither especially dense nor especially rigid, and not fitted with high-end components — the tonearm in particular — the PS-LX3BT does not reach the heights in technical terms. No disaster or major flaw spoils the experience, but the deck is nonetheless marked by clear limitations.

On distortion, one of the key measurements, this turntable is simply at the back of the field, both at the 1 kHz and 100 Hz test points. In practice the order of magnitude matches that of the previous generation, so the difference is small, if not negligible.

As with that earlier model, the real black mark — and this one is beyond dispute on listening — comes from balance in the bass. The lower the signal frequency, the more it tends to be boosted, reaching as much as +10 dB around 20 Hz. That departure from neutrality could come from the phono stage alone, but equally from the deck as a whole, and particularly from the arm's limited resistance to mechanical effects. It is hard to say with certainty. Either way, only the Sony decks in the comparative test group show a characteristic of this kind.

Conversely, Sony has done very good work on rotational accuracy. Not content with turning at very nearly perfect speed — a 3150 Hz reference signal was reproduced at 3165 Hz — the deck records a DIN wow-and-flutter figure of around 0.13%, which is particularly well contained, especially for an affordable turntable.

Crosstalk, finally, is acceptable without being more than that, measured at 24.6 dB. That matches the figure recorded for the Rega P1 Plus, though it trails the previous generation of this Sony deck.

The PS-LX3BT is pleasant to listen to. It lacks a little richness, but its slightly warm tonality — a consequence of the bass lift — is not unpleasant. The Audio-Technica cartridge fitted here manages to hold a very good balance through the midrange, along with genuine linearity in the treble, and a good level of detail throughout.

Higher-end decks such as the Audio-Technica AT-LPW50BT and the JBL Spinner BT still deliver a more sharply defined, more animated sound, the Sony retaining the slightly soft-focus character of the model before it.

Several years separate the PS-LX3BT from its predecessor, and on the evidence of the measurements there is no regression here — but no progress either.

More complete than most rivals at this level of the market, the PS-LX3BT is nonetheless held back by average technical quality. Positioned above the Audio-Technica AT-LP70XBT without genuinely distinguishing itself from it, and less of an object of desire than a Pro-Ject E1 Phono, it is far from without interest — but it is really aimed at those who want automation above all else.