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

Why don't try and contact that old engineer in the promo video? (I forget where that is posted). He may have a smattering of English or I'm sure a Japanese member here would translate for you (or correct your google translate document). That would be the person I try to contact. You're absolutely right, you're going to get nowhere with Panasonic customer service.


Here are their names. I found the video (page 44)

Nagao Tamagawa President Aquatech -- older man, former Technics employee

Hiroshi Miura -- Panasonic (?) Looks like he was chief engineer on this (he oversaw production last run of old 1200 table)
'

Haruyuki Otani - Aquatech -- This the guy who worked with technics engineers on what he needed in specs and insisted it be down to the micron. I think this is your guy.

 

お問い合わせ｜小型チューブポンプ／マイクロポンプ開発・製造・販売【アクアテック】 »

 

Good idea - thank you. At the moment my inquiry is making progress so I'll stick with that for the moment but this would definitely be another avenue.

 

Unfortunately I didn't have any luck coming up with web information on anyone except the president Aquatech. No contact information except through the company

 

I’ve been running some tests on my Technics SL-1200 GAE and here are a few thoughts arising. This is just based on testing, not on listening – trust your own ears by all means but I wouldn’t advise anyone to trust mine!

The turntable is a joy to use after my Michell Orbe with SME V arm. Instead of having to lift up a big, heavy dust cover and place it somewhere else in the room, I can just raise and lower the fitted dust cover on the Technics. I don’t have to fit and screw down a record clamp before I play every record. The Orbe bounced around like a jelly on springs but the Technics is firm on its base so you don’t have to be paranoid about touching it and making the needle skip. Setup is easy and quick. The cue lever drops the needle where you want it instead of going down at an angle like the SME. The turntable starts and stops in a second in spite of the heavy weight of the platter.

Best of all is the speed. I found my Orbe unreliable on speed – if you wanted correct speed, you had to re-set it every day depending on ambient temperature and even then, I didn’t find the wow figure of 0.08 per cent (filtered) acceptable. The Technics actually plays LPs at 33 1/3 RPM every time. Using my Adjust+ Pro software and test record, I find the speed fluctuates between 33.33 RPM and 33.34 RPM (which is correct, since it should be 33.333 RPM) with the occasional momentary excursion to 33.35 RPM, which I consider easily within the bounds of acceptability. The wow figure is 0.01 per cent (filtered) which is well below the specified 0.025 per cent. Verdict: awesome.

With an Audio-Technica AT33PTG/II cartridge weighing 7g (plus hardware), the resonance of the tonearm/cartridge combo was exactly where you’d want it to be at around 7-8 Hz.

The following tests are EQ comparisons with the Orbe + SME combo. Before removing the Orbe + SME, I recorded some test tracks because I was curious to see whether the same tracks would be tonally different when played on the Technics. So I then recorded the same test tracks with the Technics and compared them using the Voxengo CurveEQ plugin.

Being a bit of a hi-fi sceptic, I expected that the results would be virtually identical. In fact, they weren’t far off, but there were a couple of slight anomalies.

In the following picture, I’m showing an EQ comparison of the same pink noise track recorded on the two different setups. (The charts aren’t completely flat because the cartridge - same one for both tests - isn’t completely flat.)

The Orbe is the dark green chart, the Technics is the light green, and the orange dotted line shows how the EQ of the Technics differs from that of the Orbe.



As you can, the EQ is nearly the same in both cases, but not quite. Overall, the orange line slopes slightly upwards, showing that the EQ of the Technics recording is slightly brighter or (slightly less dark) than that of the Orbe recording. I doubt whether it’s audible, though - the difference is only about 0.5 dB from one end of the spectrum to the other if you ignore the extreme ends, which are unreliable.

The other small difference is those wobbles in the orange line, one of them at about 85 Hz and the other at around 250Hz. It’s tempting to dismiss these as random anomalies: after all, if you look at the light green chart and the dark green chart, both have little ripples along the way, and those wobbles in the orange line could simply reflect the fact that those little ripples don’t always coincide.

But look at the next chart. This is another EQ comparison, but this time using real music instead of pink noise. It’s the whole of the track “Everybody Plays The Fool” from the Classic Records pressing of Aaron Neville’s Warm Your Heart. Same colour codes as before.



Again, the orange line slopes upwards, suggesting that the music coming out of the Technics setup is slightly brighter (or slightly less bassy) than the music coming out of the Orbe setup. But the funny thing is, those little anomalies that interrupt the smooth flow of the orange line are still there, and still in the same places.

I don’t know why that is but if I had to guess, I’d wonder if it was due to resonances in one of the tonearms. The way to check would be to put the SME arm on the Technics turntable and do the same test again, but I can’t at the moment because I’m still waiting to hear from Technics as to whether they want to have a look at my turntable for the other reasons discussed earlier in this thread.

I’ll just end with one other curiosity that leaves me completely baffled. One of the test tracks I recorded was a sine sweep from 20Hz to 20 kHz. Here’s the result:



So, whatever is that little hill in the Technics chart? I did the recording three times over, always with the same result. Strangely, the hill is at about 85 Hz, the same point as one of the anomalies in the other charts. Maybe there is a resonant point in the Technics tonearm at 85 Hz and there’s something about the sine sweep that excites it in a particular way. In any event, the hill doesn’t show up in any of the other charts, so I’d regard it as a curiosity rather than as anything that matters.

Incidentally, I don’t know if you noticed but the orange line doesn’t slope upwards in the sine sweep chart. I give up!

 

I'm guessing you actually have an Orbe SE, my full Orbe comes with a fully functioning dust cover that's a bit bigger, but just as usable as the Technics one. Was it you or someone else who was having speed issues with their Orbe in another thread, all I can say is that my Orbe is rocksteady on speed, by far the most accurate belt drive I've owned, it's not going to beat the Technics, but it's close enough to my direct drives that I don't worry so I'm surprised when people post that their Orbes are changing speeds, I'd definitely check with Michell, or perhaps it's a mains issue, I'm lucky to have a very clean supply that doesn't seem to fluctuate.

 

You might try the same test with the aux weight screwed on, if you can get the right tracking force with it, supposedly there is a little vibration in the mount without it, no idea the frequency.

 

Could it be the mat? Here's what happens when I compare the Hi-Fi News Test LP's "Residual System Noise" track. Technics Mat (red) vs Achromat (green)

 

I can't see the image, but wouldn't a mat issue show up at the platter rotation frequency?

 

back2vinyl, I have no idea really about these differences. An idea could be the arm is handling lateral and vertical needle movements a little differently.

 

Ah yes, I forgot there were two versions of the Orbe, so I can see you would have the attached dust cover that mine lacks. Sorry about that.

Yes, it was me moaning about the Orbe's speed in another thread and that's the principal reason why I bought the Technics. It's already been back to Michell but I'd better not start banging on about it here because I'll only be taking the thread off topic.

Really? That's interesting. I'll definitely try that and report back, soon as I get a chance.

It looks to me as if those differences are mainly subsonic and result from the degree to which the differing mats deaden rumble, but I don't rule anything out and will have a think about that. Many thanks for the suggestion.

 

It's one of the KAB mods for the 1200, he sells a light weight plug. May not still apply to the new one, not sure, but sounds like the arms are pretty much the same design.

 

I'm sorry, I've just realised I made a mistake when producing the first wo of those three charts. It's only a small mistake and doesn't change what I said in any way but I accidentally showed the same orange line in both of the first two charts. I've now corrected the orange line in the first chart. Here below is the corrected first chart followed by the unchanged second chart. You can see that the orange lines still show the same anomalies in the same places so as I say, it doesn't change the point I was trying to make.

Pink noise chart:




"Real music" chart:

 

Yes, I think the arms are pretty much the same. Definitely worth a try.

 

I remember now and things make a lot more sense, you've really had back luck buying turntables, it's enough to turn a man to CDs.

 

What I meant in my previous post was: the freq response cut is double mono cut, which means there is only lateral energy: then the res obviously increased the output on the Technics, at about 80-85Hz

The other two cuts have both lateral and vertical energy: then the res reduced the output on the Technics at the same freq.

 

The graphs are fascinating but they don't tell me how the Orbe compares with the Technics sound wise. A description of the audible differences would be useful. It appears both have a similar measured performance. As far as speed issues with the Orbe are concerned, which version of the power supply does Backtovinyl have? The original QC AC supply was stable and the latest NC version with tacho generator should be even better. In between was the VC which I believe had some issues.

 

Well, colour me amazed! Davey has cracked it – it turns out that the mysterious hump in the Technics sine sweep is eliminated simply by increasing the overall mass of the tonearm. Which does tend to support the idea that it’s a problem with the a loose mount or bearing that shows up when using audiophile-grade cartridges but is perhaps suppressed when using heavyweight DJ cartridges.

In his review for Hi-Fi News, I think Paul Miller said he found a tonearm resonance at around 300 Hz. Typically, resonances have “echoes” at other frequencies and I'm wondering if what he was actually seeing was an echo of the node we’ve identified.

But I know very little about tonearms or resonances so I’m really only speculating here.

Turning from speculation to fact, here’s what I found. Following up Davey's suggestion, I screwed the heavier of the two auxiliary counterweights into the back of the Technics tonearm and counter-balanced it at the front end by placing my bubble level on top of the headshell, simply because it was the first thing that came to hand. I then adjusted the normal counterweight to give the same VTF as previously, which was exactly 2g.

I then did a fresh recording of the sine sweep track.

Here is a reminder of how the EQ chart looked WITHOUT the extra weight:



And here is the EQ chart of how it looks WITH the extra weight:



As you can see, the hill at around 85 Hz has gone!

Next question: if we leave the extra weight on, how does the Technics compare with the Orbe/SME setup?

Here’s the EQ comparison, using the pink noise track on my test record. (Note that the charts aren’t flat because the cartridge imposes its own EQ on the results. But the effect of the cartridge is the same in both cases.) The Technics with the extra weight is in light green and the Orbe/SME is in dark green. The orange dotted line shows how the Technics EQ differs from that of the Orbe/SME.



You can see that there are still anomalies but they are not the same as before. Although we still have that slight upward slope in the Technics EQ, there are now strange little dips in the Technics EQ at 65 Hz and 210 Hz.. Of course, this could just as easily be caused by aberrations in the SME but as I will show in the next post, I’ve established that that’s not the case and that these small aberrations are in the frequency response of the Technics tonearm.

 

For this test, I used a CD version of the same pink noise track as a reference. In the first test, I compare the Orbe/SME setup with the CD reference. In the second test, I compare the Technics with e CD reference.

First test: Orbe/SME. The reference CD is in dark green and the Orbe/SME is in light green. The EQ comparison shows a nice smooth line which is in fact tracing the EQ curve of my cartridge. I don’t see any significant anomalies apart from that sharp uptick at the right-hand end which is just some silliness we can safely ignore.



Second test: Technics. You can see the same 65 Hz and 210 Hz anomalies that were visible before. I think it’s therefore safe to conclude that the anomalies are in the Technics setup – and since they vary with the weight that’s placed upon the arm, I conclude that it’s the arm and not the platter.



Does it matter? I think not. These are very small anomalies that I’m almost certain would be inaudible when listening to music. It’s interesting, though, that the SME arm seems not have them, which does tend to suggest that it’s the better arm, even if it may be hard to hear the difference.

 

Important update: I've just run another sine sweep test on the arm, this time with all the weights taken off again, just to make sure the hill comes back when the weight is taken off. And the hill is GONE now, even when the extra weight is taken off! Sigh. I know the hill was there before because I ran the test three separate times and got the same hill every time, as I showed you in the charts. So it must be something loose in the arm assembly that changed its position when I was putting on the extra weight. I wonder whether it's that free play in the arm height control ring? I think I touched that while I was putting on the extra weight. Otherwise, it must be a bearing or something in the arm mount. Anyway, I don't know what's going on at the moment. It seems to me there's something loose but it could be hard to find out what it is.

 

Such low freq would indicate to me it would need something compliant to be involved. Like the headshell mount, or the stub mount.

 

OK, I have been a complete and total idiot. I did all those tests with the lock off. I mean the lock on the arm height control ring. I think this could explain some of the anomalies I've been seeing and I urge you not to waste any more time looking at my stupid tests until I've repeated all of them with the lock in the correct position. I'm so terribly sorry to have wasted your time. I'll come back later with some corrected results.

 

Well, in spite of my bungling incompetence, I've done the fresh charts this time WITH THE LOCK ON and - they're pretty much the same.

Here's the pink noise comparison:



Here's the "real music" comparison (Aaron Neville track):



And finally - you won't believe it, but here's the new sine sweep - and the hill is back again, even with the lock firmly on.



So at this point all my previous conclusions about the Technics arm still stand and I just don't know what's going with that hill. There must be something loose somewhere that's shifting every time I make an alteration to the tonearm setting but I don't know what it is.

 

New video from Technics' YouTube channel:

 

As someone mentioned earlier in this thread, Kevin at KAB discovered that there is a washer in the back of the tone arm that gives a resonant "ring" in hte tonearm. I'm not sure of the frequency though. His fix is to either use the auxiliary weight (if you can balance with your cart) or he sells a nylon screw for a couple dollars. If you look on his sight you can see what he has and find one locally if out of the US.

KAB Electro Acoustics http://www.kabusa.com »

This might be why the 85 Hz anomaly went away with the auxiliary weight in place. BTW, my MC cart is much heavier than the MM Concord "DJ" cart I use to use with my MK 2.