I think that the PL-300 is a fundamentally decent turntable, although some people knock them because of their 'plastic appearance'. Have a look on the Bay as there are a couple of places that make replacement suspension spring boots. They fit PL-200, PL-300 & PL-400 tables. Be careful removing the springs as the front left one is different from the other 3.
I have stripped and rebuilt a number of these units (PL-200/PL-300/PL400) over the years. There is also a version (slightly different unit numbers). which has a black straight dynamically balanced arm and these are actually pretty good.
Good points:
Nice heavy well machined platter. The hanging rotor system needs no lubrication. All the platter mass hangs below the bearing which is inside the spindle rather than at the bottom as with most turntables making it fundamentally stable. Apparently, this was the thinnest direct drive motor ever made. The speed control is excellent, when working correctly, and wow & flutter are very low. The semi-automatic mechanism doesn't touch the arm assemble while a record is playing - it has a hair trigger mechanism to operate the auto return. The plinth looks like standard plastic, but is actually resin filled polymer. These decks are very reliable workhorses which will give a decent performance when set up properly. Service manuals for these are available on Vinyl Engine.
Bad points:
It's worthwhile getting a good used spare motor assembly as the control ICs are unavailable - They are Pioneer bespoke chips and were last made in 1982. The tonearm is an average quality medium mass S shaped arm with a technics style removable headshell - typical of mass produced Japanese units at the time. It has no height adjustment for different height cartridges. It suits a decent AT magnetic cartridge such as the AT VM95 series.
