Verdict
The SL-1200 is business as usual on the outside but the change Technics has made internally have ensured that it is the estimable all round reading of the iconic turntable yet .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
Ask a normal , non - audio obsessed person to picture a record musician and there is a well chance that the gadget they come up with is a Technics SL-1200 .
Since its debut over fifty years ago , Technics has shifted several million of them and it has become a literal icon . Resurrected in 2016 , and price at a more premium level , it has enjoyed considerable success and now , the GR model ; the more affordable of the two hello - fi oriented tier has been given a refresh to become the imaginatively named GR2 .
At first glance , it look like very small has alter . Technics has sagely not make for about with the classifiable and handsome outside design but there are some significant revisions to how it works internally .
For a few purists , one of these changes is A Big Deal that has had the cyberspace rather work up but it ’s part of a extensive selection of change based on the data that the company has accrued from the sentence it has been on sale . Even so , changing a award winning recipe is not without risks . Is this a true dance step forward or would you improve off grease one’s palms one of the GR2 ’s few million ascendent rather ?
Availability
The SL-1200GR2 is available in the UK for £ 1,799 from a selection of UK retailer . It has a US retail price of $ 2,200 and it is available in Australia for $ 3,299 . It is available in silver ( SL-1200 ) and opprobrious ( SL-1210 ) for the same toll and all versions are sold without a phono magazine supplied as standard .
Design
Technics has done nothing other than change the name next to the Technics badge for this latest turntable and this is entirely careful . The SL-1200 can legitimately be hollo a design icon . Other than some of the … imitators … of it uncommitted at a variety of damage points , it front and feel like nothing else on the marketplace in 2024 .
This is tied into a stage set of features that cemented the 1200 ’s role as the original DJ deck of cards . The 1200GR2 has electronic speed adjustment , with 33 and 45 rpm given their own button and 78rpm being pick out by press both at the same time . The phonograph record has a series of strobe markings on to confirm that it ’s whirl at the correct speed too .
As well as these fixed pep pill , you may set the all right tar that the Technics rotates at ( primitively to handle get over errors but just as invaluable when getting two track to sync up via mixer ) . You ’ll also find a pop up prompt Inner Light to help you place a magazine down in scurvy light-colored precondition . These features mix to make the Technics feel a domain off from more stripped back challenger .
Something that may or may not count as a feature but sure enough warrantee mention is that the GR2 palpate more substantial than the older model ; which was passing well made in its own right . The fashion that the Technics is beetle off together feel both strong and carefully done . The weapon is the squeamish feeing lesson of its character I can call up examination .
While the SL-1200GR2 is well specified , it is important to stress that it does not come with a phono cartridge pre instal and neither does it have a phono stage built in so both of these will require to be take care of before you’re able to use it . At this price detail , this is far from strange but if does mean that the retail price you see at the top of the page is not the final toll of start it up and running .
Another domain of the Technics that is something of an aggravator is that the mains socket is under a lip at ninety degrees to the rear panel clear it an right-down pig to suit which does slightly flub a lazy Susan that is otherwise a pleasure to install and setup .
Features
The one unifying feature article of all 1200 models from the original 1972 variant onward is they make use of goods and services of verbatim movement . This intend that the motor acts directly on the spike of the turntable without an intervening belt or do-nothing in the path . The vantage of this is utterly rock music solid sales talk stability which means that things like strings and long piano promissory note sound more convincing .
As I ’ve already noted , the GR2 looks basically the same as the forthcoming GR which in turn looked like fairly much ever other Technics SL-1200 ever made . The big difference between the unexampled model and its antecedent is lurking inside the footstall . Technics calls it Delta Sigma Drive and it is about the ascendency of electricity to the motor .
Delta Sigma drive purpose pulse width inflection ( efficaciously a variant of digital ) to control both the timing and synchronisation of the electricity reaching the motor . When combined with a power supplying that has also been revised and improved to be quieter and less prone to vibration .
Technics exact that far less unwanted noise and interference is reaching the record . Why does this matter ? The motor on a lazy Susan is the only point where electricity reaches the unit of measurement as the arm is completely passive , relying on the tiny measure of electrical energy generated by the stylus moving .
Any undesirable energy reaching the platter is going to be picked up by the cartridge and pretend the overall well-grounded timber so the revisions to the 1200GR2 , while unseeable are rather important .
The arm in head , while benefitting from the improved feel already refer , is in keeping with late simulation . The Technics has an S - shaped arm that has a detachable headshell where the pickup attaches . This wee cartridges easier to tally and mean if you have a braggy spate of old 78 records , you could jibe a pickup plan to play them and exchange the Technics over to playing them very easily . It also accepts cartridge that attach now to the headshell mount , which is a potentially useful feature too .
Sound Quality
It takes about half a side of an LP to begin to realise that Technics has attain something rather particular with the SL-1200GR2 . All versions of this recollective running excogitation have shared characteristics that are imparted by the verbatim campaign organisation . The rank pitch stability of the 1200GR2 can embarrass earnestly gamy end designs , so even and accurate is the auction pitch .
Beyond this , there is an energy to the way that the Technics makes music that both distinctive and , for many of us , absolutely addictive . To learn the Technics tear its way through Poison by the Prodigy is to hear the track as it should fathom ; accept no impersonation .
Much of this is down to the bass that the Technics offer . It ’s far too wide-eyed to say that there is more basso than contender , not least because most of them have plenty and too much bass is n’t generally a good affair . What you get rather is a miserable destruction that combines telling depth and impact , with the agility to assure that even complex piece of music sound energetic and lively .
The good news is that the 1200GR2 has n’t mess about with any of these fundamental traits . To hear to Daft Punk ’s Harder , respectable , Faster , strong on the Technics is to experience it sounding fundamentally and absolutely ‘ correct . ’ The energy and downright drive on offer here is deeply and lastingly habit-forming and it ensures you are never just a bystander to what the 1200GR2 is doing but are actively engaged in it .
Where this new model kicks on though is when you take the high vim saltation music off the turntable and replace it with the lovely but entirely tranquillise Folklore by Taylor Swift . In days past , this would have sounded well but perhaps not outstanding on an SL-1200 . The pitch shot stableness would have been epic but some of the dainty that this music want would be miss ; as if Ms Swift was suddenly the size of it of Travis Kelce .
On the GR2 though , every view wistful and considered note is replayed without any of the muscular performance making itself felt . The performance is still rhythmically superb but it ’s happening at the musical rhythm of the album itself and not being slightly forced by the ballistic border of the Technics .
There ’s more too . The SL-1200 has never shinny to sound big ; something with the casual sea bass extension it possesses in general does n’t . What the GR2 does is increase the perception of space around the material being played . Listening to Kraftwerk ’s mighty album Minimum Maximum , the Technics effortlessly conveys a perception of the scene of action spaces it was record in and the huge crowds watching four middle aged German bloke stick out fund still on the stage in front of them . It ’s a subtle modification but it greatly help the sense of immersion in what you ’re listening to .
These are useful stone’s throw forward over what depart before and they make the SL-12100GR2 a more capable all - rounder than ever before . It does n’t have this cost to itself – there are some olympian belt motor competitor that contend with it , but while I would find myself listen to the old model and calculate wistfully at those other turntables and miss their delicacy , the new modelling more than carry its own .
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Should you buy it?
The Technics is well made , well specified , a pleasure to use and now offers a level of operation that the older role model did n’t hit . Everything that the design has done so well for fifty years is still ostensible here but now matched to a delicacy spaciousness and out and out musicality that was n’t there before . It ’s an old dog with some very seemly newfangled tricks .
The want to budget for ( and fit ) a cartridge makes the Technics a piddling more knotty than some rivals at the price decimal point . Some people ( me for example ) savor having the option but it makes it a little more involved and dearly-won to get up and incline .
Final Thoughts
The SL-1200GR2 look like every 1200 that ’s come before it and it save the same habit-forming tone as before . The changes under the hood though are enough to make this the most capable all - rounder the iconic design has ever been .
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How we test
We essay every turntable we review thoroughly over an extended menstruation of clock time . We use industry stock mental test to compare features decent . We ’ll always order you what we receive . We never , ever , accept money to reexamine a product .
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FAQs
No cartridge is supply with the Technics SL-1200GR2 so you ’ll need to add your own to get the lazy Susan up and run .
