Braun PS-350 (c. 1970)
A Rams-era Braun turntable that looks like a museum piece and, by more than one owner's account, tracks like a compromise.
Overview
The first thing you notice is the cabinet. The service documentation describes the PS 350 as a one-piece plastic housing finished in anthracite-grey textured lacquer - Kunststoffgehäuse einteilig, lackiert mit anthrazitgrauem Strukturlack - and that one sentence tells you more about the real product than any glossy photo. This is not a machined-aluminum statement piece. It's a molded plastic deck in Braun's house clothes. It was built in two versions: the standalone PS 350 with its cabinet, and a P 350 X variant supplied as a bare Einbauchassis for mounting into a console or cabinet. Two service manuals exist for the model, which fits. A deck sold in both finished and built-in forms would need two sets of documentation.
What the PS 350 does have going for it is its link to Dieter Rams. Sellers mention it in the same breath as him - one German listing calls it "ikonischen und minimalistischen Dieter-Rams-Design" - and the design backs that up: flat surfaces, no ornament, controls reduced to the minimum. Whether Rams personally drew it or simply signed off on a department effort is a question the surviving documentation doesn't answer cleanly. Treat the attribution as strong but not nailed down.
The trouble starts when you actually use one. A long-running owner thread on the German analog forums is blunt about the tonearm: "Der Tonarm ist allerdings wirklich nicht besonders" - the arm really isn't anything special. Another owner found the vertical bearing already damaged and wallowed out on arrival, and gave up on the arm entirely in favor of a replacement.
Key Features
One-Piece Anthracite Cabinet (and the Built-In Variant)
The standard PS 350 ships as a single molded plastic shell in anthracite-grey textured lacquer - a finish chosen to hide fingerprints and read as industrial rather than domestic. The P 350 X version strips the cabinet away entirely and leaves the raw chassis for flush installation. Built-in turntables were a European convention that never really took hold in the American market, and surviving P 350 X units show how Braun expected these decks to be used: as a component in a larger furniture system, not as a standalone showpiece.
Two Documentation Sets, Two Configurations
Manual repositories list two separate Braun PS 350 manuals, including a "Technische Information" sheet, which lines up with the two hardware variants.
Black Finish
At least one dealer listing describes a PS 350 "in Schwarz, sehr guter Zustand" - black, very good condition - though the manufacturer document specifies the cabinet finish as anthracite-grey textured lacquer. Beyond that, finish options aren't documented well enough to state with confidence, and anyone claiming to know the full color palette is guessing.
Historical Context
Dating the PS 350 is difficult. One forum poster states their unit is from 1973. Another seller's listing gives "Baujahre ca. 1907-1972," which is obviously a typo for something in the 1967-1972 range. Neither source is authoritative, and no factory documentation pins the production window down. "Circa 1970" is a reasonable working estimate and nothing more.
Collectibility and Market
Asking prices cluster in the low four figures. A Finnish listing shows €1,000, though it's posted alongside a Braun PCS 52 E, so confirm which item the price belongs to before quoting it. A Russian Avito listing asks 50,000 ₽. A unit went to auction at Stockholms Auktionsverk in February 2026, though the hammer price isn't public. One Reddit user reports finding a "basically mint condition" example, which suggests clean units are still surfacing. The sample size is tiny, though, and no verified sale price exists in the record.
The seller framing is consistent: "Ein absolutes Must-Have für Vintage-HiFi-Liebhaber und Sammler." If you're buying the design, the PS 350 delivers. If you're buying a turntable to play records on, the tonearm reports are a warning.
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Service Documentation
A 30-page service manual — "Braun PS 350 Service" / Serviceunterlagen, sheet Blatt Nr.: 1 — circulates on archive.org, wegavision.eu, and manualmachine.com. Vinyl Engine hosts a page titled "Braun PS 350 Idler Driven Turntable Manual" with a German-language service manual download, which raises an unresolved question: the drive system. The narrative sources describe the PS 350 as belt-driven, and the manufacturer document describes a belt-idler hybrid — "Antrieb: Von der Motorrolle Über Riemen auf konische Zwischenrolle und Reibrad auf Plattenteller" (belt to conical idler wheel and friction wheel to platter). The manufacturer document settles it as a belt-idler hybrid, so anyone restoring one should confirm against the actual mechanism before ordering parts.
Related Models
- Braun PS-500 (1968–1977)
- Braun SK4 (1956)
- Braun Atelier 2 (1965)
- Braun PCS-4 (1965)
- Braun PCS-45 (1965)
- Garrard SP (1975)
- Luxman PD-310 (1981)
- Luxman PD-555 (1983)
- Thorens TD-124 (1957–1967)
- Harman Kardon kardon-turntables (1975)