Well that's mostly because those turntables were simple belt drive units and if they did publish specs it would have been embarrassing to the builder. After all, the Japanese builders of DD turntables were all to eager to show just how accurate they could build a turntable. Now a company like Micro Seiki that could build a really good belt drive turntable would readily publish those figures as they were built so good they were competitive with DD tables. Bottom line is if you have nothing to hide, you publish the numbers, let the customer decide if he or she wants to compare them to other tables. BillWojo
This was common enough back in the day that the local dealer knew exactly how to "fix" it, and could do it in about 10 minutes with a roll of electrician's tape and an x-acto knife. My Planar 2 received this fix. jeff
Given we are at 15 pages, I suppose the answer to the title of this thread is clearly “no” for the majority of participants.
Eye of the beholder.. Just in aesthetics I find both tables are the epitome of mediocrity and boredom. While I have spent a lot of time with examples of both I have never been impressed with either. In fact I found the sound of the rp6 to be inferior in every way to my Pioneer PL530, a Music Hall Ikura, a Sansui SR838, a Michell Gyro, My Roksan 5.2, Several Thorens… in fact I think the Rega stuff I’ve been exposed to were always worse when I did shootouts between them.. The techniques is a table my buddy seems to buy sell, buy sell, buy sell… I’m not sure why he goes back to it. I guess he likes it. Almost everytime he sells a table and goes back to the 1200 I think it’s a backward step sonically.. but that’s just me. The ongoing debate to me is like being in a exotic car forum and there are constant debates over the AMC Pacer and the Chevy Chevette..
Meanwhile this afternoon I have been in the workshop carving, filing and sanding arm boards and chassis components for my Systemdek and Walker. Not because it will make them arguably better than a Technics or Rega, but because I can, it’s interesting, fun, cheap to do and less boring than the same old arguments here. I did just discover (maybe I did know it, but since forgot) that the IIX900 had a metal arm board and a redesigned higher tolerance bearing. Kerplunk!
so, they ended up upgrading their own system ... or they bought an upgrade version of the others TT... ?
Agree. The Japanese never had to hide. Even on less expensive turntables then. They published meaningful specifications on their turntables. Micro Seiki knew how to build equally fine belt and DD turntables, with superb build quality, engineering, and performance. That last sentence tells me all I need to know.
One owned a 2016 Rega Planar 6, having updated from an unmodded, 1979 Planar 3, the other the Technics SL-1200 GR. They actually borrowed each other's turntable, simply keeping their own stylus. Soon after, the Technics owner upgraded to the SL-1200 G.
Maybe in America, but here in the UK I don’t recall this anti Japanese sentiment surrounding turntables during the 1980s when I started to take a more serious interest in these things. There were some editorials lamenting a mass market slide towards budget lightweight plastic construction and justifiably so. I recall aspirational articles featuring more solid upmarket Sony and Pioneer decks we just didn’t see in high street stores here. Curiously I never saw a review of a Technics SL1200 in the 1980s. Maybe they just didn’t see a need to submit one for hifi mag reviews as their reputation in some market sectors was so secure? I remember hearing those decks in nightclubs and at various discos and what I heard was good, but what I heard from other decks at specialist dealers seemed better to my ears. Maybe it was the combination of British built amps and speakers rather than club PA systems that tipped the balance? Even with mass market Japanese electronics the perceived wisdom was to pair Japanese amps with British made speakers. Indeed some Japanese companies actually commissioned UK companies to make badged speakers for sale with their systems as a package here. Although some wag observed that it was more costly for them to ship boxes made largely of fresh air. But it was British designed and built audiophile amplifiers that opened up a new world of music to my ears as much as turntables. I noticed that many highly regarded cartridges came from Japan, as did the Linn badged tonearms considered essential to get the best out of ones LP12. I have a 1980 vintage Ittok which I hope to integrate with one of my home fettled turntables at some stage. The Linn box states that this item was made in Japan. As for the ‘audiophile’ British belt drive of those years, there were many, but I also recall many of them being criticised for being weak in some areas such as pitch stability or acoustic breakthrough, or simply because they were not as musical as the best to listen to. This was not just because they were not a Linn. There was a definite hierarchy of those that were worthy of consideration, but the phrase ‘could be improved’ with more development work or needs some more attention to detail and quality was common. However many people I knew had Thorens decks through the 80s and 90s with the TD160 and 166 models being popular. A friends TD160 in stainless finish plinth with a chrome Hancock unipivot arm played through his Sugden A48 looked good and did many a memorable party. He has since upgraded to a Lingo’d Linn LP12 in the late 90s, which came at an unusually affordable price through a bereavement sale. Most of us just didn’t have the money for so called superdecks. I bought a used Roksan Xerxes in 1989 which was designed by an Iranian as it happens. My deck although great in some areas was flawed in a number of ways, but I have enjoyed tweaking and upgrading it as well as meeting and chatting to it’s creator a number of times. If you added up all the money I’ve spent on my Roksan over 30 years then one could argue that a Technics 1200 could have done the job for less, but we don’t dwell on how much we spend on consumables when having fun on our motorcycles or cars compared to the original purchase or resale value. The sums were modest and manageable at the time compared with the fun we had. Having said that, my later Roksan XPS7 speed control box has recently died! Fortunately I still have an old XPS1 that still works.....rather well.
I guess not actually listening to a Rega is one way of ensuring you do not prefer it! Before I started in Hi-Fi retail, I had been an electrical Technician and Calibration and Engineer for a large Communication and Defence company. Working in calibration with Standards in the same room and having studied for six years, I fully understand the "without measurements we have nothing" approach to buying Hi-Fi. Now working in manufacturing, the importance of measurements and lean manufacturing are obviously important, but the cynical side of me, believes that data collection is a good way of delaying actually fixing a known issue! @Big Blue, in Top Trumps you absolutely win with the Technics lab figures and I can understand your approach, though to my mind, if the specs of a.n.other product, which aren't published are poor, you would always pick the Technics in a blind audition. In my Hi-Fi retail days, apart from one occasion, I took the Mark Twain approach: Some individuals use statistics as a drunk man uses lamp-posts — for support rather than for illumination. I simply used my ears for both selecting and setting up systems, which seemed to serve me and my customers well. As Audrey Hepburn put it, there is more to sex appeal than just measurements. I actually looked into one measurement, after the fact, which was after installing six new mains lines taken from their own new fuse board, which a sparky friend and I installed for my new, active system. Before plugging the new system in, I listened to a Linn Axis turntable and QED amp powered off the house's original ring main and then the new lines. It wasn't so much the improvement that shocked me, but rather the degree of improvement. Because of the degree of subjective improvement, I was intrigued to see if there was an improved measurement - there was.
The Rega Brigade are just as bad if not worse. And many of them can't address or acknowledge any shortcomings with their Regas. I can with both Rega and Technics. As I own both. And repaired/done maintenance on many.
It was a joke - it more or less suggested that there's basically always a better turntable that belongs to the same product range, brand or feature set as the one you currently own... thinking that something (any device) you own is "the last word in performance" is just ignorant.
It’s silly that there even are “Technics people” and “Rega people”… right? These are just products we buy to serve a function, aren’t they? Rega’s turntables, as far as I can ascertain, are unlikely to perform the function I require of a turntable. They make no claim to do so, and any independent measurements I have seen indicate they do not. That’s all there is to it. No debate, no “side”… a company makes a product I don’t want, so I don’t buy it. A different company makes a product I do want, so I buy that one. If another company also made a similar product that performed to the same standard at the same price point as the Technics GR, I’d have considered that other company’s product just the same as the one I bought. But no other company currently does.
I also said in the post you edited, totally changing my emphasis in the process. The SL1000R is better again!
It’s not uncommon that products certain people buy are - when carefully chosen - a reflection of their worldview. So when someone else complains about it, they experience it as something personal because of that. And that results in segregation. Ikr, it doesn’t make sense, but the thought process of a lot of people don’t make sense, so… yeah
