Any Technics SL-1200GAE Owners here?

[al2002]

Just wondering if any forum members have bought the SL 1200GAE? If so please post your impressions.

[al2002]

I guess the answer is no?

[Macca]

There were only 1200 of them for sale globally and they weren't cheap so it is pretty unlikely.

[al2002]

Good ponints, Macca. OTOH, I know of no other deck on the market offering this level of technical performance at this price, so this deck should have a certain degree of market appeal.

[daytona600]

heard it twice at recent audio shows nice sounding deck but $4000 + then fit decent arm , external PSU , Cartridge etc
you are in $6000+

[al2002]

Looking at the measurements in the July 2016 issue of HFN, the hum & noise are lower than than SME 15's, so there should be no need for an external supply.

Yes, your figures are not unreasonable. OTOH, an arm and cartridge would be needed with any other deck too. The GAE arm measures well, so it might not necessarily need changing.

[helma]

Looking at the measurements in the July 2016 issue of HFN, the hum & noise are lower than than SME 15's, so there should be no need for an external supply.

Yes, your figures are not unreasonable. OTOH, an arm and cartridge would be needed with any other deck too. The GAE arm measures well, so it might not necessarily need changing.

I haven't seen the review but I read on some other forum that according to Paul Miller who did the measuring for that review, the SL-1200GAE was pretty much the most technically impressive turntable to ever enter his test bench, or some such. He thought the arm measured really well too. Measurements don't necessarily translate to good sound, but I find the pretty common thinking that you'd have to change the PSU + arm right out of the box pretty odd. I'm sure there are better arms around if you're willing to spend the dough, but there's no reason why the stock arm shouldn't be very good and I'm not sure what the issue with the PSU is supposed to be.

[Macca]

The PSU allegedly puts noise into the signal. At least in the old sL1200 that was the theory although I don't recall the exact details of how it happens.

[daytona600]

I haven't seen the review but I read on some other forum that according to Paul Miller who did the measuring for that review, the SL-1200GAE was pretty much the most technically impressive turntable to ever enter his test bench, or some such. He thought the arm measured really well too. Measurements don't necessarily translate to good sound, but I find the pretty common thinking that you'd have to change the PSU + arm right out of the box pretty odd. I'm sure there are better arms around if you're willing to spend the dough, but there's no reason why the stock arm shouldn't be very good and I'm not sure what the issue with the PSU is supposed to be.

SL-1200 GAE’s internal switch mode with an external linear PSU

Technics SL-1200 GAE deck.
Technics SL-1200 GAE turntable £2,700
SME IV tonearm £1,860
Tonearm mounting plate (allows fitting of any 9” SME tonearm) £90
Audio Technica AT-33PTG/II MC cartridge £419
Timestep PSU £495
Total cost of fully finished turntable package (as above, plus £200 fitting cost) £5,764



http://hifipig.com/timestep-modified-technics-1200-gae/

[Ammonite Audio]

I haven't seen the review but I read on some other forum that according to Paul Miller who did the measuring for that review, the SL-1200GAE was pretty much the most technically impressive turntable to ever enter his test bench, or some such. He thought the arm measured really well too. Measurements don't necessarily translate to good sound, but I find the pretty common thinking that you'd have to change the PSU + arm right out of the box pretty odd. I'm sure there are better arms around if you're willing to spend the dough, but there's no reason why the stock arm shouldn't be very good and I'm not sure what the issue with the PSU is supposed to be.

I think the 'issue' with the standard switching PSU is that, like most of these things, it injects a whole load of HF noise into everything connected to the same mains supply and probably to the signal too. Apparently it is possible to design a really good, clean SMPS, but inevitable these things are large and expensive, so not really feasible to fit into a relatively slim chassis. Nick Gorham kindly put me straight on the facts relating to SMPSs a while back, so this is not my conjecture here! The Technics' tonearm measured well in the HFN test in terms of suppression of resonance, but that is only one element of tonearm design, and not the sole indicator of musical stardom. I'm sure someone paying many times this amount for a new Grand Prix Monaco turntable might argue that theirs has better speed stability in every sense than the new 1200, but Technics have clearly created something quite special here. It's quite logical that Timestep have improved the bits that would have increased the deck's RRP by a colossal amount if designed and fitted from the start; and in the greater scheme of things the end result is not stupidly expensive.