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Hamish, you have to understand that nigh on thirty five years have passed since Technics decks were taken seriously by the HiFi fraternity and in the UK were banished to oblivion for a few years by the late seventies as Linn (and springy belt drives in particular) attracted all the attention. I suspect most Linn dealer staff today wouldn't have been born in the mid seventies, let alone known anything other than the Linn, Rega or Pro-ject way of record playing. I was lucky, working for a large upper-range dealer, latterly in the West End as I did, because we had all sorts of decks through our hands and I'm familiar with most of the important ones from this time span.
If it wasn't for the DJ fraternity, the SL12**mk2 would have died forever in the late seventies/early eighties, so we owe these people a lot in that so many were/are made and sold.
Now of course, with Linn now a minor player in the mainstream audio scheme of things, even oldies like me and HiFi dave have memories of iffy, speed over-shooting, feedback prone direct drive abominations and even the best directly driven masterpieces could sound muddy and bland given half a chance. I fully appreciate (jests with Marco apart) that modern TLC in terms of support, tonearm/cartridge choice and meticulous setup can transform these decks and of course there are now several ways of refining the current SL1200's into something Technics would market themselves if they thought there was a large enough market for it (tens of thousands rather than a very few hundred). Fortunately for the modders, Matsushita don't seem in the least bit interested.
Hi, I have been reading these posts with great interest as I have a SL1200/SME V with MN bearing, Lyra Dorian, Isonoe feet, Herbies mat, see attached thumbnail. Imho this t/t is now one of the finest sounding machines at this price. I know it's not the greatest t/t in existence but I believe it is all I will ever need. The rest of my system is a Cyrus 8vs pre, Quad 909 power, Spendor 5se speakers. Cables are a mixture of Atlas and Kimber, power cables are all d-i-y. I also have a Denon 2910 universal player.
Regards
John :)
How could you define the "best" turntable over a fully tricked out SL12**?
I mean, there are many lavish concoctions out there with acres of gold and chrome, platters ten feet tall and the hair of vestal virgins driving the platter round from a separate motor pod that weighs more than three techies stacked together. A Rockport model claims to have virtually zero friction in the bearing, which takes hours, days or weeks to slow to a stop :rolleyes: Mugs' eyeful all, but I doubt any of them would be significantly better as the LP itself is already the final arbiter...
How right you are! :lolsign: Yes the piece of pressed black plastic has the final word of all. Through a tricked Tecchie aforesaid sounds better than most imho. Who wants to be forever tuning (call it whatever) those springy things, why, twood make oneself paranoid. :lol:
"They're coming to take me away, haha, hehe hoho......................" :scratch:
Dave, my AS chrome superduper lavish deck, wot is fishing line thread driven, sounds better when I change the fishing line to cryofrozen dentalfloss....unfortunately I pulled a tooth out and its stuck on the floss....which rilly ruins speed stability.......the high end eh:cool: