Status, October 2026: current. Pioneer DJ still lists the PLX-1000.
What it is
The PLX-1000 is a professional direct-drive turntable from Pioneer DJ, launched to mark the company's 20 years in DJ equipment and on sale from late August 2014 (Pioneer DJ product page). It uses the classic DJ turntable layout.
A quartz-lock direct drive with a three-phase brushless DC motor gives a starting torque of 4.5 kg·cm or more and reaches 33⅓ rpm in 0.3 seconds. It plays at 33⅓ and 45 rpm, with no 78 rpm. Tempo ranges are ±8, ±16 and ±50 %, and a reset button returns the pitch to 0 %. The platter is die-cast aluminium, 332 mm across.
The S-shaped universal tonearm sits on a gimbal bearing, with a 230 mm effective length and 6 mm of height adjustment, and is rubber-lined to reduce feedback. With the supplied shell weight, balance weight and sub weight it takes cartridges from 3.5 to 13 g. No cartridge is included; Pioneer DJ suggests its handmade PC-X10, sold separately.
The chassis is heavy die-cast zinc over an 8 mm resin layer and a 9 mm vibration-damping base, and the insulators use rubber and springs. Power, ground and phono cables are detachable, and the single phono output uses gold-plated RCA jacks, so it needs a mixer with a phono input or a phono preamp. It measures 453 x 159 x 353 mm and weighs 13.1 kg.
The box holds the turntable, a platter sheet, a slipmat, a slip sheet, the dust cover, a headshell, the balance, sub and shell weights, an EP adapter, a power cord, an audio cable, a ground wire and the operating instructions (Pioneer DJ launch news).