Petition launched to reintroduce Technics turntables (Update: The SL-1200 is Back!)*

Happily I trust my ears, I need to for work, but although your charts are interesting and complimentary to using ones ears I don't see why anyone would base their choice on anything but which sounded best to them and I bet you would hear a difference between the two decks assuming the cartridge, electronics and speakers were up to the job, expectations colour all of our judgements, but acknowledging that helps one to compensate for it, you expect them to sound the same, I expect the Michell to sound better, but hopefully we'd both be capable of declaring the Technics the winner if it turned out to be the case.

 

Experience tells me that a Michell and an expensively modded SL1200II sound quite different so would expect a difference in presentation if not quality with the new Technics v Orbe. There is certainly a belt drive sound and a direct drive sound.

 

I just found out something about my 1200 MK2 that likely applies to the GAE and G and that is that using a different headshell can really screw up the VTA setting as stated in the manual. When using the stock Technics headshell and my Ortofon Cadenza, I had the VTA ring set at approximately at 3.5 to have the tonearm level but with an Ortofon SH4 headshell, the setting has to be all the way bottomed out -- and I'm still slightly head down on the tonearm. It never occurred to me that headshells could make such a huge difference. I don't think this caused the problem found in this earlier post but it could be a way to adjust height by finding a higher or lower headshell rather than shimming with thicker/thinner mats or headshell shims, the latter which, add weight.

 

I have a GAE and both the stock and SH4 headshells. The mounting platforms of the two headshells do seem to be at a different angle to the naked eye, but it could be an optical illusion. Eyeballing it is extremely difficult. I have given up on trying to get the headshell mounting platform or arm tube parallel with the record and rather set VTA/SRA of the stylus itself with a microscope.

 

It's very interesting to hear you're getting different results from different headshells. Are you saying that the top of the Ortofon headshell is at a slightly higher level than the top of the stock headshell, relative to the height of the barrel connector? Sounds like it but I'm curious to know for sure. Strictly speaking, of course, it's the height of the underside we're looking at, so the thickness of the metal could make a difference.

 

If you take the headshells in your hand and compare the mounting surface to the part that goes into the tonearm (I used a straight edge on the mounting surface) you'll see a difference of maybe 3/16 to 1/4 inch between the stock and SH4. It's deceptive when mounted and looks about the same. The SH4 weighs quite a bit more than the stock and to get things to balance (even with the 4g aux wt) I had to drill a couple holes in the top of my SH4 to lose some of the weight.

 

Wow! That's a HUGE difference! 1/4 inch is well over 6mm. That means

a) just as you said, the arm height setup instructions in the Technics manual would be completely meaningless if using the Ortofon headshell, and

b) you'd have real problems using many of the cartridges popular on this forum - you'd need to use either a spacer in the headshell or a thicker turntable mat, or very likely, both.

I'm glad you pointed this out - it's a very important consideration for anyone thinking of swapping out the supplied headshell.

 

I haven't looked to see if there are any headshells that go the other way -- which would really be helpful. Also a consideration, my Cadenza weighs 10.7 g which is really heavy and hard enough to balance but the Ortofon headshells seem to go up in weight with price. The Technics stock headshell is the lightest I've seen. What I don't like about them is that they are not completely flat at the mounting surface. The Cadenza's have little projections on top that aid in azimuth adjustment but they don't work with the stock headshell -- hence the reason I went with the SH4 and ran into this whole thing. (KAB makes a reproduction of the Technics headshell that might be flat but it weighs a couple grams more too.)

 

That's very true - a headshell that went the other way would be really useful for "shallow" cartridges.

When you say the stock headshell isn't completely flat at the mounting surface, are you just referring to the holes? If so, no problem, but I'd be worried if you thought the mounting surface was uneven or not on the same plane as the tonearm.

 

There is a recessed area between the screw slots in the mounting platform on mine -- from 2007-ish. I have a cart mounted so I can't see it completely. It looks like they were trying to save as much weight as possible. Unfortunately for the newer Ortofon design, there is a nub on the cart top that gets swallowed in this recess. Certainly not an issue for most carts.

 

Ah, ok, thanks very much for explaining.

 

I contacted KAB to ask about their repro headshell and they said it's identical to the stock Technics. They suggested using their 3 gram headshell weight to lower the cartridge, if needed. It would add 1 Hz to the resonant tonearm frequency.

 

If I needed a headshell spacer I'd go to eBay and search for "cartridge spacer". Among other options, I'd find the Oyaide spacers

Oyaide spacers

but they're a bit pricey.

 

Those are nice though. KAB's is a single 3 gram spacer/weight for $3.50, plus shipping, but he doesn't say how thick it is. The Oyaide spacers look like they wouldn't be quite so heavy.

 

Yes, that's the thing, the Oyaides are very light. Another consideration is whether the KAB is magnetic, which might be undesirable. But at that price, you could always just use it as a template to make your own.

 

That's a ridiculous price to pay for three little CF spacers.

jeff

 

The New York Times tries a good news for people who love bad news approach to the SL-1200 re-launch. It’s basically an attempt to foment a culture war between audiophiles and hip-hop.

A Turntable Reborn Turns Its Back on Its Hip-Hop Legacy

My take is that since hip-hop culture has a genius for appropriating luxe brand quality and hates being pandered to, this big wrong-headed dose of woke scolding wasn’t really necessary....

 

I last read reviews of audio electronics on NYT when Hans Fantel was still around

 

The Times has gone full digital gadget-mad and mostly ignores hi-fi stuff. The Wirecutter site, which the NYT just bought, does a much better job at reviewing quality low-priced audio gear.

This Technics SL-1200 coverage is pegged as a business story, which is why the nasty cultural edge seems so gratuitous. The description of all the great engineering and craftsmanship that goes into the new turntable would be inspiring if it wasn’t embedded in a story about how these clueless Japanese dudes at Technics are dissing and hating on hip-hop.

 

Technics was for decades a division of Panasonic. These days, Panasonic is primarily a manufacturer of Lithium Ion batteries for Tesla. It is not clear to me what former business lines the current Panasonic still retains or it might just have lent its name to other companies and collect royalties on products sold under the Panasonic name ...

 

Well put.

Yeah I really don't know what the aim of this article is. Seems a little like yelling into the wind.

 

Well, at least we all learned that all DJs are hip hop DJs. And that it makes more sense to sell a $300 product to a small niche then a $4000 product to an equally sized niche. It's not the first time I've struggled to get through a NYT editorial without laughing I suppose.

 

The only part of that article I find interesting is the all too brief description of the manufacturing process. As a long-term reader and subscriber, I find the NYTimes to be at its worst when it dons its Authentic Cultural Champion mantle. (See http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/nyregion/chopped-cheese-ginia-bellafante.html for another example.)

Unfortunately, the market for people who want to use a turntable as an musical instrument isn't large enough to keep the 1200 in production at a inexpensive price. While I respect the innovative uses that these turntables have been put to over the years in a variety of musical genres, I also have no issue with the owner of the brand making a high quality product that excels at musical playback, the original purpose of the machines.

 

^ Makes a good point that most DJs use laptops these days. Even the ones that are pretending to use turntables.

 

Didn't many who are using laptops used CDP's first? They did not go straight from turntables to laptops ...