Technics SL5 DD auto

[DSJR]

Those old AT arms are going for stupid money now - were they really "that" good compared to a brand new Jelco, let alone an SME M2-10? How come the Ortofon arms are silly money too, when Jelco make them? Too many "slurpers" methinks.

By the way, I understand that the SL110 has gone to a good caring collector and I very much look forward to seeing it in the flesh fairly soon and getting himself to plug it in for a spin .....

[Marco]

Morning Dave,

They are very good, but I suspect not much better (if any) than the Jelco SA-750D, so definitely not as high in the SPPV stakes.

However, let me put it this way... Audiocubes are charging $1899 for a new 'AT-1503 IIIa' (see here: http://www.audiocubes2.com/brand/Aud..._Tone_Arm.html), which is around £1200, excluding import duty and tax. I can think of plenty of supposed 'high-end' tonearms currently on the market from 'badge snob' manufacturers at many times the price that probably aren't any better, or may even be worse!

Linn Ekos SE at £3k, anyone?

How much do vintage Fidelity Research or Ortofon arms in good condition fetch these days on Ebay? Or a brand-new Ikeda? A bloody fortune!!

So looking at it from that perspective, the AT arm is decent value, particularly if you want something new in which to house an SPU, DL-103 or M3D, all of which need a high-mass arm. Of course there are the various Jelcos costing considerably less, but those are the exception to the rule and are only so competitively priced due to economies of scale and high quality mass-manufacturing in Japan.

Marco.

[chris@panteg]

Hi Marco

I am not sure about the cart ' i found some great pics on the Vinyl engine site and liked this one.

An update on my little SL5 'got it now and its a little charmer i must say and nicely suited to my Yammy combo.

I was worried at 1st as it was mistracking with plenty of distortion but then i found the tracking force screw (very quirky) and it was set to 1.25 so set it to 1.5 (max) and so much better .

The sound ' well its got that typically technics DD sound but somewhat laid back and polite but still enjoyable ' i think its running a tad slow as i am so used to Quartz lock now i notice these things , underneath there are 2 trim pots for 45 1st and 33 2nd so this can be fixed if need be .

Its such a cute little thing ' i rather like it ' i have ordered an AT3482 from the USA which has a 5mv output compared to the techy 2.5 .

[DSJR]

T-4P carts are designed to track at 1.25 grammes - part of the specification. If yours needs 1.5 I'd suggest an old or non-original stylus. The pattern Technics styli we tried years ago were nothing like as good as the originals, although Jico and others may now do a superb job if Panasonic don't do the originals any more.

[chris@panteg]

Thanks dave, very usefull info ' will be interesting to see if the AT is much better or just different , as far as i know the styli are not made by panasonic anymore.

[chris@panteg]

I thought i would do an update to this thread '

The little SL5 is now with my father in law and he loves it (country music fan)
so i got myself another one of these funny little techy linear tracker's .

But this time i found an SLQ-L1 which back in 84-85 was very expensive (£260) i oiled the main bearing and a little grease on the worm gear'
fitted the AT3482 and had a good listen to it.

Well at 1st it was not that great ' but the little AT was still running in (splashy top end) after about 40 hours or so it started to sound sweeter and fleshed out nicely ' i would say for £15 it is an amazing little cart and a great match for any technics P mount deck.

The SLQ-L1 is a pretty decent sounding deck quite a lot better than the SL5 ,
comparing it to my 1210/timestep ' well it has very different presntation 'lighter in tone with a wider soundstage i would say ' but it does not sound quite so strong and solid ' a bit softer and more polite the important thing is it does not sound too tight or rigid if you know what i mean.

Some people reading this will perhaps think i am mad to mess around with this old Jap Junk from the mid eighty's .

But you see ever since 1985 i have always wanted to try one ' out of curiosity ' and this one cost me £25 and its been fun.

I rather like it and would say its quite musical ' good with all types of music including classical ' these decks have sold for as little as £11 and seem neglected and unloved ' they are complex and if they go wrong are near to impossible to fix ,having said that this one is over 25 years old and still working perfectly.

But if you want a nice old jap DD on the cheap and like me for casual listening in a second system (actually its better than that) why not give one a try.

[DSJR]

technics did a good few conventional arm T4-P decks and HiFi Choice recommended them as I remember, accepting that a Rega and above were better for serious music. Having said that, a different mat and careful siting may improve things no end..

[chris@panteg]

Hi Dave

Thanks for taking an interest ' 2 points i need to make here 1st what i am trying to say here is that you can have a half decent vinyl sound for less than the cost of a night out ' well if you look around you can find one of these or similar for less than £20.

Now i could be wrong ? but it seems to me highly unlikely that you could buy a P3 for £25 !

2nd if you already have a quality belt drive like a rega or LP12 and have a 2nd system to play around with ' then something like this is a good way of dipping your toes into the DDark side as it were ' rather than spend a few hundred on good used 1200 .

The SL7 and SL10 tend to go for a lot more money but the QL1 is just as good ' save the cart on the SL10 .

If anyone reading this is thinking of trying an old DD deck then as Richard Dunn said buy by the Kilo anything above 7 kg .