Technics doesn’t simply make a turntable, it makes the turntable. For many years, there hasn’t been a DJ price their salt, or a venue price its alcohol license, that doesn’t depend on Technics SL-1200 turntables to get the social gathering began and preserve the social gathering going, evening after evening.
However ever since its rebirth in 2014 following its inexplicable termination by dad or mum firm Panasonic in 2010, Technics has been on a mission to exhibit that there’s extra to the model than now-discontinued DJ decks. It wish to set up itself as a producer of high-end high-fidelity stereo gear that deserves to be spoken of in the identical breath as these long-established audiophile manufacturers.
The newest product designed to boost its status for elite-level gear is—you guessed it—a model of its file participant, the SL-1300G. Sure, it ticks fairly a number of of the “Technics turntable” design containers established a long time in the past, however this isn’t a turntable to be flung behind a van and hauled from gig to gig advert infinitum. It is a premium merchandise, made from premium supplies, and nicely definitely worth the premium price ticket that’s connected to it. Or, no less than, that’s what Technics hopes.
{Photograph}: Simon Lucas
The New SL
There actually appears to be some justification of the asking value in the event you decide the SL-1300G purely by way of heft. It is a substantial 29 kilos, and it’s made out of appropriately luxurious and tactile supplies. From its very strong, extraordinarily pliant and completely engineered silicone rubber insulators (that’s “toes” to the likes of you and I) to its clear Perspex mud cowl, the SL-1300G is 6.8 x 17.8 x 14.7 inches of uncompromised and uncompromising engineering.
A full 8 kilos is accounted for by the platter. It’s a three-layer monster, made out of aluminum with a hefty slice of brass throughout the highest and a good heftier amount of vibration-deadening rubber throughout the underside. It’s extremely inflexible, rejects resonance like no one’s enterprise, and ensures easy rotational stability and loads of inertial mass.
It sits on a chassis constructed from bulk molding compound with a layer of die-cast aluminum throughout the highest, and it’s turned by a motor that’s had an terrible lot of consideration paid to it. It’s a motor primarily based on the “coreless” direct drive ideas Technics first launched in 2016.
