Too much (Technics) to young?

In the course of recent trawl on ebay for a sensibly-priced TT to buy/refurbish for one of my (much) younger relatives, the following caught my eye.

[IMG]https://theartofsound.net/forum/atta...4&d=1551976385[/IMG]

It came complete with the original packing, lid, paperwork and cartridge (EPC-U25, for which I am currently sourcing a replacement stylus) and, apart from requiring a quick clean and lube, seems to be in perfect working order. The seller and original owner had purchased the deck whilst working in Japan (Tokyo, June 18th, 1981 from the receipt) and it had seen only modest use before being packed and shipped to UK along with his other possessions, since which time, apart from a brief inspection to check it had survived intact, it has been in storage.

The SL-Q303 is unusual, as I discovered, in that it has a sprung, albeit quite stiff, sub-chassis arrangement with a substantial outer base of die-cast aluminium and a bottom base of TNRC (Technics Non-Resonant Compound). It is fully automatic and has a sensing mechanism to detect the record size. As is to be expected from a correctly implemented quartz, phase-locked control system, the accuracy and stability of rotation appears to be spot on.

I have always preferred manually operated turntable designs, but can see the attraction when the automation is executed as smoothly and securely as on the SL-Q303. Used with a modest, but carefully aligned, AT-95 tracking at 2 g it is a solid performer, with good detail, separation and dynamics and no obvious vices, both with highly modulated passages and at the inner grooves.

Overall I'm delighted, as I hope will be the lucky recipient (youngest daughter or nephew, with the former having first right of refusal), although I suspect I did pay a little over the odds (£100.00).

Jon ;)

Nice!

£100.00 ?? You got a result as that is a nice and very tidy deck, it looks great - good on you :thumbsup:

Lovely deck

I got one of these for my son, stuck a Shure M44/7 on it and it plays beautifully. Very hard to fault. Paid about the same if I recall correctly, not over the odds in the least when you consider what far less accomplished belt drives like the Pioneer PL12 are selling for.

I agree with Tom, I sold a pl12 for more than that and there is no comparison. I tidied up a virtually identical slq202 for my parents. It is semi automatic which includes tonearm return.
Its a top deck for the money, beautifully constructed and a pleasure to use and work on.
It has a nice s shaped arm, detachable headshell, the speed change is almost instantaneous and it is all but silent. The only downside is the tonearm cable which is a cheapie captive.
A much underrated deck in my opinion.

Thanks to all for your comments /kind words.

My comment about having paid "slightly over the odds" for the deck was, I have to fess-up, more than a little tongue in cheek, as, taking into account its condition and provenance, I had realised that I had secured a bargain. Hi-Fi News and Record Review (HFNRR) covered the SL-Q303 in their Vintage section in January 2018 and were very complementary (https://hifinews.com/content/technics-sl-q303-turntable), although I was not aware of this until after I had purchased the deck.

Actually, I have had a number of what I would consider to be Techie' bargains on ebay, including, most notably and unexpectedly, a boxed SL-150 Mark I that had never been used for £175.00 in late 2014. I matched this with an ADC-LMF-2 and Jeweltone (Nagaoka) JT-322 from the same era. An image of the deck, different to that shown below, was used by HFNRR in their coverage of the SL-150 in the Vintage section of the October 2015 issue.


[IMG]https://theartofsound.net/forum/atta...4&d=1552162317[/IMG]