Pioneer PL-7L

Late-in-the-day turntable, made when CD clearly was becoming a winning format and not much Pioneer could do to top the incredible sales of the PL-70 / PL-50 / PL-30 series and their L and LII versions.

The PL-7L is therefore all-black, sports an SHR motor (of the "LII" size, not like the biggabig original) and alumina ceramics DRA to reduce parasitic vibrations off the tonearm, as on a PL-707.

One thing was however added to try and bank on the also incredible success of Yamaha and its GT-2000 and GT-1000 vinyl spinners : enlarge the turntable itself to 36cm : better inertia for sure and... better looks as well.

The electronic tonearm therefore has a longer effective length than usual : 28,2cm ! Same as that of a PL-70LII.

The black looks hide a very heavy item (17,3kg) and a special set of insulators which sandwich a (semi-)floating structure, leaving aside potential dustcover influences, adding (hidden) U-shaped side dampers and an overall low center of gravity.
Two small rubber dots each side (on the front isolation clamps) further damp the dustcover's resonance.

The 7L was later in the early 1990s slightly relooked and put by Pioneer USA into its Elite lineup as PL-90. Pioneer Japan probably had stacks of unsold 7L to get rid of...